Digital Insight for Business Marketing

Over the summer, we tested a number of different methods and tactics to improve our marketing results.  One day traffic is up but leads tumble, or vice versa. So we did a complete audit of what we do as marketers.  Let us share what we focused on below.

The first lesson in digital marketing is, what's the objective? It's so easy to lose sight and it's constantly changing. So our team set the objective: audit our marketing process and improve/boost our efforts to optimal results.

In order to do that, we have to start WAY at the beginning. How does digital marketing work? Think about this for a second. Picture a lens of a camera; you can zoom in and out as much as you want. Most marketers are zoomed in 100x (not even exaggerating). We're focused on one task but we lose sight of the bigger picture!

That is why we started off this audit with analyzing our methodology. In the coming weeks, we're going to continue and share this complete digital marketing analysis where we'll give out ACTIONABLE insight you can enact yourself. Be sure to subscribe to our blog!

The Four Quadrants

The illustration above will be called our map. Let’s briefly take a look at each segment:

• The first quadrant of our map is called Strategize, and is an essential element to building our foundation.
• Once we have our foundation in place, we have to create visibility and attraction. This is our second quadrant.
• After attracting our audience, we need to engage with them. This is done through relevant value. Note: You want to make sure they are interested in what you’re talking about.
• All of this leads to the fourth quadrant. Now we have them in a position to convert.

Before moving on however, it is also important to think about the flow the audience is going to take across the flow you are going to take. As we just saw, your flow is: Strategize, Attract, Engage, and Convert. Their flow on the other hand starts with an interest (they have an interest in something).

Once that interest has been established they will actively begin seeking ways to address it, ultimately becoming attentive to your content (and to you). You will therefore need to provide your audience with value; not only to showcase your knowledge and authority, but to maintain (and even grow) this attentiveness.

Think about yourself out there. Put yourself in the blue circles. We all go online and seek some sort of answer to our interest. Naturally, we are going to pay attention to the content (and person) that will provide the best answers for us, and consequently we will continue to pay attention if there’s value there for us.

Tactics

In order to fully succeed in each quadrant we need to utilize some key tactics.

• For the strategize section, we are focusing on our blueprint and setting our foundations. We’ll go through our goals, our persona, and our understanding of the marketplace.

• On the attraction and visibility side, it all comes down to effective use of content. We need to strategically utilize keywords and provide valuable insight in order for our content to get noticed and become respected.

• Once we do that, we have to provide relevant value across a variety of platforms. This value creates engagement that our audience is seeking. Engagement leads to trust and the opportunity to nurture our relationship with them (ultimately leading to the conversion we’re seeking). (either this part…) 

Why is this methodology so powerful? 

At the end of the day, this is all a series of conversations we are having across the online world. If we provide enough value in a conversation, we are going to create a relationship. From then on it is our responsibility to nurture this relationship and acquire something very important; trust.

Who do we tend to do business with? Those we trust. 

Applying The Methodology

Let’s look at a tactical example using the methodology. In this scenario, we want to focus on content to drive our digital market.

• We all know by now that content is critical to driving our success, but in order to be found we need to tie the appropriate keywords to it. Keywords drive and attract the search engine results so we need to be extra cognizant of their relevance, frequency, and location.

• We also know that a title will get someone to click on the link. The more interesting and engaging the title is, the more likely someone is to click. However, once the article is opened how likely are they to read it? So it then comes down to the layout.

• In order to grab readers’ attention the layout has to be aesthetically pleasing. White space, headers, bullet points, and images are integral. If it’s just mounds of text, most people aren’t going to read anything.

• Once you have great content followed by a simple offer, the reader then becomes a lead. 

The Onion And Its Layers

Do you see a pattern here? In order to fulfill our main goal, we must first satisfy all the subsequent goals that are created in the process. Think of it like layers in an onion.

If this example is our onion (Getting content to drive our digital marketing), the supporting elements become our layers. These elements include: virtual persona(s), winnable" keywords, frequency of posting, topic, branded message, good title, formatting.

Questions you want to ask yourself:

• Who is our audience? What do they look like online? What’s their persona?

• We have to focus on winnable keywords. How are we going to attract the viewer online?
• When it comes to content, how frequently are we posting? What topics are we talking about? What is our messaging?
• Does our title connect with the content? Does it make the viewer want to click or is it blank where no one is going to click it?
• Is our content formatted properly? Does it look pleasing to the eye? Is someone going to want to sit there and dig into it?

See how we have multiple layers that we need to dig into? But we’re not done yet; layers exist even after the creation of our content piece:

Do we have a call to action (CTA)? What lies beyond the CTA? Do we have a landing page set up? Is the landing page optimized? Once they fill out the landing page, will they be moved to a thank you page? Is that set up?

After the content piece is created and all the subsequent issues have been addressed there is still another layer. We need to focus on generating awareness to our content.

How are we uploading it to the web? What is our CMS (content management system)? How easy is it for us to upload? What is our distribution plan? The most important thing we want to have is the ability to measure what’s happening. Is there a specific measurement that we expected? For an example: 100 visits to our website within ten days. Can we measure that?

The Final Take-Away

This was meant to be a simple tactical example. We simply wanted to publish content and generate awareness, but look at all the layers that are involved with that. At first glance this might seem very intimidating but in actuality it is a very straight forward process which, with practice, can be effectively streamlined.

Use the map to your advantage. Study each quadrant and try to implement it within your marketing processes.

We know that was a lot of information to soak in, but don't worry. Try to take action from what you just read. How can you implement this strategy and boost your campaigns?

Enjoy our content? Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. For more reading on how you can make an impact with your online marketing, see the links below: 

• Content is King: 101 Tips To Leverage For Your Next Campaign
• 50 Marketing Quotes (+5 Bonus) Every Marketer Can Learn From