THE BASICS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

If you’re just getting your business off the ground or you are only beginning to dive into digital marketing for an established business, then you may feel overwhelmed by the world of digital marketing and unsure of where to even start. However, digital marketing doesn’t have to be a foreign concept for your business for long. With this guide to the basics, you can get a digital campaign moving and work to keep a strong online presence for your business for years to come.

Building Your Digital Presence
You need a solid foundation for your digital presence, which begins with an optimized website, the framework of your company blog, and social media accounts. You’ll also need to manage your web presence on sites you don’t control, like local directories and review sites.

• Your Website – You need to have a website that’s informative, easy to navigate, and consistent with the products and services you offer. In addition, your website will serve as the basis of your brand’s tone, so you should dedicate some resources to your service pages and home page so that you can establish the messaging you want.
• Your Blog – It’s important to constantly publish new content to keep your website on the radar of your customers and search engines. Having a blog will let you do this and give you something to link back to when you update your social accounts to stay in touch with your target audienced.
• Your Social Accounts – Social media is no longer optional for businesses. Facebook and Instagram are the most popular sites for digital marketing, but you might also look to sites like LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest to boost your visibility and creative marketing opportunities.
• Your Directory Listings – Consistency across all websites is important, because you want your customers to get accurate information no matter how they find you. That means you need to claim directory and review site listings to make sure they’re accurate and up to date. This also helps you boost your search engine visibility.

Maintaining Your Marketing Materials
Many businesses make the mistake of thinking they can set and forget their digital marketing. While it does take a stronger effort to initially get your web presence established, you still need to regularly post content and interact with customers to keep your search engine ranking high and ensure a positive reputation. Increasingly, it is becoming more important to have an active presence online so that customers begin to associate a specific personality with your brand and have avenues for reaching or reviewing your company.

• Categorizing Your Content – The more content you put out there, the easier it is to become disorganized. This is where categorization is key. You should categorize your services and assign content to different areas to boost various sales opportunities. It’s also important to categorize each marketing campaign with a clear goal, so you can track and maintain it. For example, you might have one campaign directed towards improving sales of a specific product, while another is aimed at driving up followers on your social media accounts. Because these are two distinct goals with different consumer actions in mind, they will demand unique types of content and messaging.
• Keeping an Active Audience – No matter what your specific marketing goals are, you will want to plan to have ongoing interactions with your audience so that readers keep coming back to your social pages and websites—and so that potential customers see that you will actively reach out and respond to them as needed. This is where actions like posting engaging content on social media, responding to customer comments and questions, and creating new points of potential customer interaction on your website become essential.

Managing Your Online Interactions
As you build a stronger web presence, you might see that more customers are responding by posting reviews of your business. Reviews are important to digital marketing, and they are another common pain point for businesses unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the digital landscape. However, with the right professional marketing services, it’s possible to guide the narrative of customer reviews by funneling them through customer support channels and responding kindly to any negative reviews that do find their way onto third party review sites.

Now that you know some of the basics, it’s time to formulate a detailed marketing plan for your business. G4H Consulting can help you do just that with comprehensive solutions, including web design, social media marketing, local optimization, content creation, and review management. To learn more, visit us online or call (585) 733-0366.