Digital marketing has become a buzzword in the last couple of years. Today, no business can imagine or afford not to implement digital marketing strategies to grow their business. Digital marketing has been growing tremendously and many brands are adopting it at a fast pace. But, there are plenty of them who still struggle to reach out to their respective target audience.
I have been consulting some of the big brands and start-ups over the last decade. One of the most common mistakes all of them make is that they jump into digital marketing without a proper plan or a strategy. To keep things simple and help you out on your digital journey, I am opening up my secrets today. I will reveal five high impact Digital Marketing Strategies to win a sizeable amount of mindshare with the audience that really matters for your business.
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Here are 5 high impact digital marketing strategies to rock the market:
1. Don’t ignore brand awareness
Many firms generate sales first and forget to brand themselves and their offering. They fail to understand that brand awareness plays a more important role than generating leads. Many marketing gurus claim that SMEs or start-ups should straight away hunt clients. They say small businesses need not invest in brand awareness campaigns.
While there is no harm in this strategy and it might have worked for a few firms or start-ups, it is certain that if a big firm, SME or a start-up, starts investing in driving brand awareness and then invest in lead generation, they usually see a better result and better conversions in the long run.
In this age, consumers like to build a relationship with a brand emotionally. This is where digital marketing is more powerful. The internet can eliminate the barrier of traditional mediums and reach out to the right consumers at the right time. Also, it allows brands to be quite innovative in their approach and message.
We are already aware of some winning case studies such as Dollar shave club, Blend it, Paperboat, Bewakoof and many more. These brands literally started when nobody knew them in the industry. Today, they have only grown because of an online presence and all of them invested in driving brand awareness with their creative campaigns and later focused on driving sales.
2. Use hyperlocal targeting
We notice many social media ads are directed towards audiences that aren’t even the brand’s target group. In fact, almost 70% of the ads that you see on social media are irrelevant, only because they aren’t visible to the right target audience. Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have multiple targeting options, which if used correctly can help you to reach your target group precisely.
To give you an example, one can target potential prospects not only country wise or city wise, but even with pin code base targeting. In fact, you can make a persona of your target groups and replicate it exactly on social media platforms. By doing so, you will stop wasting advertising budget. You will be able to divide the relevant share among the specific target groups. Eventually, you will start noticing a better return on investment (ROI) on every rupee spent on the platform.
Here is some pro tip for advanced users: While using Facebook ads, always narrow down your audience, try to get your potential reach bar on Facebook to specific personas. This will enable you to show messages to relevant target groups.
Also, in Google AdWords try to bid on keywords which have higher volumes, but keep a close watch on search terms. Keep adding those words/phrases as negative keywords, which have higher impressions and lower conversions. Only focus on those keywords which are giving you the results. Also, use ‘phrase match’ and ‘exact match’ for queries which are receiving a higher volume of searches and which are giving you better conversions.
3. Use the right messages for the right target group
As business owners, we understand our target audience very well. But getting the target group right doesn’t solve marketing problems. Providing them a right message is more important, it’ll attract them to interact with your content on digital platforms. Let me explain this to you with the help of an example.
Let us say, a digital marketing institute is showing an advertisement for their upcoming digital marketing course. They have two sets of audience they would like to target. First the students and the second, working professionals. The institute was proficient in digital marketing and they made an ad for students.
The messaging on the ad copy was “Learn how to generate ROI using Digital Media”. In this case, though the target audience segmentation is perfect, the messaging is wrong, due to which their ad won’t work. Instead, the messaging on social media should be focused upon “How do you make a high-flying career in Digital Marketing”.
The messaging for ROI would be perfect when we are targeting working professionals or entrepreneurs and start-ups. Therefore, it is essential to have the right message for the right TG for your digital marketing channels.
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4. Make content which is shareable
The soul of digital marketing is ‘content’. Content can be in any form, be it text, video, images or infographics. Whenever you start designing your content for digital assets, you should keep in mind only one factor, i.e. if anyone reads this content will they share it? The currency of Digital is sharing, that is how you will achieve organic growth and word of mouth publicity on digital mediums.
If you see the content strategy for channels like ScoopWhoop, Buzzfeed, AIB, TVF; they all make content which is topical, relatable and share-worthy.
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5. Affiliate Marketing can be powerful if you reach the right influencers
In the past few years, affiliate marketing has picked up rapidly. Big brands such as Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra have on-boarded various affiliates. Affiliates are micro-influencers who promote products in return for a percentage commission on a particular product. Also, there are dedicated websites such as Cashkaro which even pass back some amount of affiliate commission to the consumers. It is a very powerful medium and a way to growth hack into increasing website traffic or acquiring new customers at a faster pace.
Businesses usually reach out to each and every affiliate to market their products or services. Instead, it is essential we reach out to an expert in that category of a product whose opinion is highly valued. This will not only help you grow your business but provide a tremendous amount of credibility since the messages come from a voice they already trust.
Digital Marketing is like an ocean, there are many more digital marketing strategies out there which can have a high impact on your business – always keep a lookout for these! We request you to share a strategy which might have worked for you in the comment section below. If they are good, I will try to write about them in my future blogs.
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Strategies that are solely focused on growth are often referred to as growth hacking. The term is typically used to describe strategies adopted by early-stage start-ups looking to grow exponentially within a short period with limited resources.
A target group comprises of individuals or groups of individuals (organisations, teams, families, etc.) that may or may not inhabit a common geographical area (individual rural and municipal districts, cities, etc.)
Return on Investment (RoI) is sometimes also referred to as Return on Costs (RoC). It is the ratio between investment and net income. When the gains from the investments are favourable when compared to the costs of resources invested, the RoI is said to be high.What is growth hacking?
The idea behind growth hacking is to acquire as many customers or users as possible with minimal investment. In 2010, Sean Ellis, the CEO, and founder of GrowthHackers, coined the term.
A growth hacker is someone who uses low-cost and creative strategies to help businesses acquire and service customers. Sometimes, growth hackers are also referred to as growth marketers. However, not all growth hackers are marketers.
Anyone who is involved in the development of a product or service can be a growth hacker. This includes engineers, product managers, etc. What is a target group?
To successfully achieve any business or marketing objective, the target group must be defined as accurately as possible. A general rule of thumb dictates that a well-defined target group is narrow by description.
When defining target groups, marketers usually take the following factors into consideration – age, geography, education, and economic status. What is RoI?
RoI is used to measure investment efficiency. It is also used as a yardstick to compare several investment options with each other.
The purpose of RoI is to determine how lucrative an investment may turn out to be. This helps individuals with capital decide if a choice of investment is worth their commitment.
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