Best Digital Marketing Strategies to Stay Ahead of the Winning Game

Digital marketing works well only when you draw an emotional connection with the consumer. The brand does not speak enough unless you make its voice ring in the consumer’s subconsciousness. Needless to say, using digital marketing strategies the right way can drive the most profits in a time and place where every business tries the same. 

So how do you convert customers to your business despite the stiff competition? 

Let’s explore how you should be using digital marketing strategies, right now. 

What Makes a Digital Marketing Strategy Great?

A digital marketing strategy charts out the ways in which your brand will achieve its objectives online. Its success depends on how you utilise it. 

At your disposal, you have several interconnected components that require exhaustive research. The plan needs to be coherent as per the digital landscape without compromising what your brand stands for. 

Creating a Digital Marketing Funnel 

When your potential customer buys your product, that is referred to as conversion. You need to figure out how that person bought the product. For that, you need to create a digital marketing funnel to chart the customer journey and possibly direct him/her to buy the product as smoothly as possible. 

In digital marketing, creating a marketing funnel is much more complicated than in the offline world. The reason – too many online channels are available today. 

A digital marketing funnel involves the complete buying journey of the customer to understand the consumer decision-making process. Creating one is vital for any digital marketing strategy. 

Typically, a digital marketing funnel has six stages. 

• Exposure
• Discovery
• Consideration
• Conversion
• Customer Relationship
• Retention

Knowing Your Customers and Why They Buy Your Product

A concrete step to an effective digital marketing plan starts with finding answers to the different questions about your existing and potential customers. They can be basic in nature but can get complex based on how you want to create the ideal buyer persona. 

• How do they buy your product online? Which channels do they use other than your website to purchase?
• Why would they spend on your product given that there are competing brands offering a similar item?
• Will they convince someone else they know to buy your product?
• Which factors influence the customer purchasing decision?

These questions correlate to many traditional marketing models that keep evolving as per the demands of the online business world. 

For instance, in traditional marketing, you have the 4 Ps of Marketing that refer to price, product, place and promotion. In recent years, this same 1960-concept has expanded to 8 Ps. 

The 8 Ps constitute the first 4 Ps and the rest, extend to people, physical evidence, process and philosophy. These additional Ps can work wonders depending on our business size and resources. 

Consider this, the 4 Ps may not question the customer’s expectations with packaging. Now, let’s say, your brand follows an eco-friendly measure. It delivers products packaged with attractive biodegradable material that looks like foliage. Your customer will instantly understand your brand’s environmental concern (philosophy). At the same time, you are defining your product’s physical evidence as a brand through simple packaging. 

In short, asking the right questions helps you understand your customer to make realistic business decisions. 

Using The Right Channels For Acquiring the Right Customer

Content, UI design, video, email and social media are all the means to your digital marketing strategy. Aligning your brand’s goal and achieving your brand’s USP are dependent on them. 

The oft-quoted phrase, ‘It is about the customer, not the brand’, does not mean your brand is secondary.The brand messaging has to be strong and uniform across any channel you use.  Customers then will be able to instantly relate to any product/service your business provides. 

You need to find out which social media channel suits your brand and which ones do customers visit and why they do it. For instance, if you are a digital marketing strategist for an entertainment-related business, YouTube is the go-to platform. YouTube isn’t great for short-form video content. But Facebook, Instagram, and even Tik-Tok are ideal for videos lasting no more than a minute. 

Tracking Results in Real-Time

For every digital marketing strategy, monitoring results is important. Tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console etc., help in tracking the performance of your digital marketing strategy. 

Now that you have a basic idea, let’s dive into the most essential digital marketing strategies. 

Best Digital Marketing Strategies of 2021 and Beyond

No digital marketing strategy works without social media marketing, paid marketing and email marketing. They are essential for every brand to engage their customers and will stay forever. The ones mentioned below are some of the most important digital marketing strategies that every brand needs this year. 

SEO Blogging Strategy with Google’s Guidelines and Algorithms

It is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. Using the right keyword research tools such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, etc, you can rank your website pages on top of Google Search organically.  This method is not new and its scope is only expanding with regularly updated rules by Google.

The focus on SEO blogging is all about understanding your customer’s pain points and resolving them. Only then will it work. As Google is the go-to search engine for most users worldwide, the content your brand creates must meet its rules and updating standards. 

You have Google Search Quality Rater’s guidelines such as E-A-T, the acronym for Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. This guideline is one of the most talked-about Google updates this year. Although it is not a direct ranking factor, it significantly impacts how you approach SEO. 

Just using the right keywords and stuffing them in content is already considered a Black-Hat SEO practice. The guidelines further highlight that your SEO blog must add the best value to whoever is reading it.  

Another important  Google guideline is YMYL (Your Money or Your Life). It is essential to consider any finance, health, legal or any website that can negatively impact the consumer’s happiness when they read a blog or any information. 

Video Marketing on YouTube

Video marketing is highly effective for both B2B and B2C businesses. Experts even consider it to be the best digital marketing strategy for this year. It drives deeper engagement among users. Think about it, users will prefer watching a video on mobile than reading it. 

YouTube is a better choice for video content. Just like Google, it has its own search engine. Forbes mentions that YouTube has a search volume number that is much higher than the total of Yahoo, Bing and others. 

Video marketing on YouTube is dependent on YouTube SEO and you can use it to your brand’s advantage. The best way you can apply your digital marketing strategy on this platform is to follow a few important tactics. You can create content frequently, write amazing but straightforward video titles, promote other related channels to your brand, use the correct tags, write good descriptions and so on. 

Podcast Marketing 

Podcast marketing adds great educational value. It requires the right equipment and some time to develop authority. One of the fastest ways to gain traction is to interview experts in your industry. 

Some tactics you can use are to create apt titles with your guest’s name and linking to their website. Then comes utilising several podcast aggregators including Google Play, Spotify, etc and offering Giveaways. 

How To Learn Digital Marketing Strategies?

If you are planning to learn digital marketing strategies in a wholesome way, you can go for the PG Program in Strategic Digital Marketing on Great Learning. 

This postgraduate online course has the bare minimum criteria of a bachelor’s degree in any field. Let’s find out the details below. 

Duration – 6 months

Curriculum – The syllabus covers every aspect of digital marketing strategies from start to finish. You will learn essential topics such as 

• Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning and other marketing models.
• Content Marketing covering planning, auditing, user experience, brand storytelling, etc.
• Paid marketing on different channels such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Google AdWords, etc. 
• How to manage a brand on Social Media across all different channels including Facebook, Instagram, Quora, etc., and maintaining quality reputation on social media. 
• Creating the most effective social media campaigns. 
• All about SEO such as site crawlability, on-page and off-page SEO, linking, etc. 
• Complete affiliate marketing process and how your brand can drive profits with multiple use cases and what to avoid. 
• Implementing a personalised email marketing strategy. 
• Mobile marketing essentials such as app store optimisation, WhatsApp marketing, SMS marketing, etc. 
• Applying various marketing metrics based on engagement and retention, Google Analytics, A/B testing and optimisation on different platforms. 
• Optimising budget for your digital marketing campaign and reporting. 

The Great Learning Benefits

• You will learn from industry experts.
• The curriculum is designed by the faculty of the Great Lakes Institute of Management and senior industry experts.
• The course comes with a capstone project.
• Live mentorships are provided every weekend. 

Power Ahead your Career in Digital Marketing Strategies with Great Learning 

Applying the right digital marketing strategies will benefit your career. Of course, the customer is important and by now you know how you can delve into their buying behaviour. So start your course on Great Learning right away. 

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