You’ve worked hard to develop a new product or service.
Now, you’re finally ready to promote it.
You know that this new addition will help to make your customers’ lives easier — and of course, that it will rake in the profits for your company. The only problem?
When it comes to creating a digital marketing campaign that’s on-brand, consistent with the demographics of your target market, and optimized for SEO?
You have absolutely no idea where you should start. Don’t panic — instead, keep reading.
In this post, we’re telling you all about the most important aspects that every superior digital marketing campaign should focus on.
From using the right online marketing tools for small business to measure your success to making sure that you’ve done the proper research before you set your campaign in motion, we’ll tell you everything you need to know.
1. A Clear Target Market
The first thing you need to define when you’re starting a digital marketing campaign?
Exactly who your products or services can help.
Notice that we focused on the word “help” here. That’s because the goal of your campaign should be to address a problem — a “pain point” in your target market’s lives.
People want to work with companies and brands that have found ways of making their lives better and easier.
So, when you’re researching your target market, figuring out the problems that they face every day should be your first step.
For example, maybe you’ve invented an awesome meeting scheduling tool. The pain point of your target market is likely that they spend just as much time scheduling meetings as they do actually in them. This is because they work at a large corporation, where it can be difficult for team members to find gaps in their schedules that line up.
Your tool can help to streamline the process of scheduling meetings in an office of 50 employees or more. There, you’ve both defined your target market and addressed a specific pain point.
Now, you need to go deeper.
What’s the average age of your gender? The average yearly salary? Where are they the most likely to hang out online? What are their work hours? Is your market primarily local, or can you help people on an international level? What’s the average demographic? What’s their financial situation?
If your market is companies as opposed to individuals, the same rules apply.
How many clients do they have? What are the brand objectives? How many employees do they have? Are they a single location or a corporation? What is their target market?
Once you get to know who you’re selling to, the rest will fall into place.
2. Realistic Goals
You need to make sure that the goals you’re setting for a specific campaign are actually realistic.
This means that they’ll need to be consistent with your resources, your current phase of business, and that they’ll work within the time limits of the campaign.
For example, as much as we’d all love to be able to say “this campaign will help me to make 200 sales in one week and gain 1,000+ e-newsletter subscribers?”
If you’ve only been in business for two months, and you’re pitching to primarily a local market, that’s just not realistic.
If you shoot too high, you run the risk of rendering your campaign pointless, because you’ve made things too general to appeal to as broad of an audience as is possible.
A good rule of thumb is to be as specific as you can when it comes to your goals and your target market. It’s much better to send out several different, smaller advertising campaigns than to take a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Finally, always make sure that the goals of your campaign are actually in line with your marketing budget. You don’t want to dedicate 2/3 of your entire budget for the year on a single marketing campaign.
Check out this awesome post to learn how to create a realistic marketing budget for your brand.
3. Blog Posts Promoting It
One of the most effective online marketing tools for small business?
First of all, a blog is the perfect way to optimize your campaign’s content — and your website as a whole — for SEO.
Blog posts allow you to naturally incorporate keywords into your content. This makes connecting with the people who are already using search engines to find what you’re selling easier than ever.
Additionally, remember that blog posts are highly shareable. We’re already certain that you’re planning on promoting your digital marketing campaign on social media.
When you do, remember that you’re participating in one of the most cost-effective advertising strategies around. If someone shares your post to their own page, or even comments on it, then your post will show up in the feeds of all of their followers.
That means potentially hundreds of sets of new eyes will interact with your marketing campaign.
Finally, blog posts allow you to explain in greater detail the benefits and features of the specific products and services that your brand is promoting.
This helps you to make a more effective sales pitch, while beefing up your standings in the search engine rankings at the same time.
4. A Serious Website Tune-Up
Believe it or not, your website is one of the most important online marketing tools for small business.
After all, the goal of your digital marketing campaign will likely mean that people will have to visit your website at some point — whether to buy a product or to book an appointment.
So, if your website is slow to load, isn’t mobile-friendly, or is just tough to navigate?
You could end up losing a sale — and falling in the search engine rankings in the process.
Make sure that your website has an intuitive design, doesn’t contain “heavy” images and videos that slow it down, and that your contact information is on every internal page.
Also, take the time to categorize your past blog posts, check for broken links, and re-write any content that no longer aligns with your brand identity.
Above all, focus on responsive website design that’s consistent with your brand. To that end…
5. Consistent Branding
You could have the greatest digital marketing campaign in the world.
But, if you haven’t taken the time to ensure that you’ve included things like your company’s logo in your e-newsletter, your website, and on your social media profiles?
Your target market isn’t going to connect these awesome pitches and ideas with your brand.
Remember that, for many people, this campaign will be one of the earliest — if not the first — interaction that they’ve had with your brand.
So, if you aren’t reinforcing who you are through branded language, color and typography choice, and even the hashtags that you use to promote your campaign on social media?
You likely won’t see the kinds of results that you want.
Remember to keep your branding consistent — and at the forefront of all that you do — throughout every phase of your digital marketing campaign.
6. A Knowledge of When and Where to Engage
So, you’ve mastered a consistent branding strategy, and you feel like you’re well aware of the problems facing your target market.
In short, your digital marketing campaign is finally starting to come together.
So, what’s next?
You need to make sure that you’re actually meeting your target market where they are — and that you’re pitching to them at the right times.
This means that you should know when they’re the most likely to open an email from your brand?
Is it in the mornings, when they’re looking to kill time on their way into the office? Or, is it around lunchtime, when they’re accessing their personal emails on their smartphone?
The same goes for when you decide to publish social media and blog posts related to your campaign. You want to make sure you’re publishing primarily on the social media platform that your target market uses.
This will usually be the platform where you have the highest number of followers.
However, if you want to learn more about where your target market hangs out online — and when they’re most likely to open an email from you?
We suggest that you include a customer survey in things like your order conformation emails. You can also include a survey on your social media pages.
To incentivize people to actually take them, let them know that everyone who completes the survey will be automatically entered into a product giveaway.
7. Tools to Measure Success
You’ve created a realistic set of goals, and you know exactly how your digital marketing campaign will help you to accomplish those specific goals.
But how can you be sure that it’s actually helping you to achieve them? In other words, what metrics and tools will you use to measure success?
Luckily, there are tons of different online marketing tools for small business that you can use to do exactly that.
You’ll need to make sure you have ways to measure your:
- Conversion rates
- Average ROI
- Open rates
- Rates of average engagement
- Keyword effectiveness
- SEO
While of course, Google AdWords and programs like MailChimp are always effective?
They’re far from the only options that you have.
Your social media profiles, especially if you create a business page, will also let you know how many people have engaged with your content and brand as a whole. You’ll also be able to get serious insight into your audience.
Look for tools that also help you to keep track of your brand’s mentions. After all, you want to know who is talking about your product online!
Finally, when in doubt, get professional help when it comes to campaign effectiveness and analytics. The truth is that you likely won’t have the time that you’d like to properly measure your success.
8. Serious Follow-Through
Last but not least, the hallmark of any successful digital marketing campaign is your ability to follow through.
This means that you don’t just set the campaign into motion and walk away.
You’ll need to consistently tweak your campaign from the moment it goes live to the hours before it comes to an end. Use online marketing tools for small business to help you to examine the effectiveness of your keywords, your open and click-through rate, and the engagement you’ve generated on social media.
Then, even if your campaign didn’t end up converting a customer, begin to embrace the idea of remarketing. This means that you’ll look for ways to make your web pages, ads, and social media pages show up in the feeds and sidebars of people who have already viewed your products.
Remarketing is likely the final push that you need to close the deal.
Need Professional Help with Your Next Digital Marketing Campaign?
We hope that this post has helped you to understand what it takes to launch a successful digital marketing campaign.
Of course, we also understand that sometimes, doing everything on your own can feel impossible.
That’s where we come in.
From helping to provide you with the right online marketing tools for small business to consistently evaluating and tweaking your campaign over its entire lifespan, we have the experience and expertise that every brand wants on their side.
Whether you need help with SEO, website design, or local marketing, we’ll show you how to do it better than your competitors.
Get in touch with us today to get started — and to get ahead.
