5 Digital Marketing Strategies for Online Success
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Brand
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Google my Business
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Website
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Social Media
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Analytics
1. Brand
The brand strategy is a ‘benchmark’ for you to constantly check yourself against.
A brand strategy:
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provides clear direction for all marketing communication activities
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provides a long term focus for the brand
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helps with building consistency of communication
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builds trust and confidence in your brand
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helps to better understand the place that your brand has in your customer’s lives - better than your competitors
Action:
Conduct a brand review/audit.
Write a brand strategy to ensure consistency across all channels including:
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market insights
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competitive environment
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brand vision, drivers and values
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business definition
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business personality
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key messages
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brand voice
Create a logo based on these insights.
Produce a brand style guide – colours, logo, fonts, and brand usage.
2. Google my Business
It is important to have a Google account and listing for your business. This is used as a physical location and contact information when someone is searching for you online as well as for your website analytics and webmaster tools (now called Google Search Console).
Action:
Create a Google account for your business
Create a ‘Google my Business’ listing
3. Website
Your website should represent your brand, product and services in the best possible way. It should be fast, mobile friendly and easy to use.
What to consider when creating a new website:
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Domain – if you don’t have one, you need to register a domain.
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Hosting – there are many hosting options available in the market so you can shop around. It is worth checking that the hosting is actually in Australia and not based off shore for speed of loading of your website. It is also important to check securities offered. If you are planning on a WordPress website, this is a great hosting option: SiteGround
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Website build – this is where you start to see a lot of variation in cost depending on the sophistication you are looking for. You may want a simple template design or a purpose built site. Both options can work equally well in Google searches.
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What platform
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Cost effective template options include: WIX, Squarespace, Crazy Domains, Weebly
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WordPress – is the most used website platform worldwide. You are able to use website themes or have a developer create one from scratch.
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Bespoke website development and design. Some examples, Ply Studio, Indietech,
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Design and build – You can use a separate graphic design studio to work on your style guide including web design or many of the web developers have their own design arm.
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Content – This is crucial in standing out from competitors but also to be found by Google. The content will evolve from your brand strategy where you have identified key messages and your brand voice. Using a professional to write content is often an advantage.
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SEO –is the process of optimising your website for Search Engines. This means:
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making sure that search engines can access and index your website without any problems
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having high quality content that matches the intent of the searcher
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giving search engines crawlers the right signals to understand the structure of your website
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helping search engine spiders understand the meaning (context) of your content o giving search engine algorithms reasons to trust your website and rank it higher than other websites
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This short article provides an explanation of SEO.
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Once you do all the above correctly, your website will be SEO friendly and a candidate to appear in the SERPs (search engine results pages) for many searches (related to your content).
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Google AdWords - Google Ads is a paid advertising platform also known as pay-per-click, where the advertiser pays per click (PPC) or per impression (CPM) on an ad which then directs someone to your website. The better your ad campaign, the more clicks you generate. It is important to understand it is not just about clicks but the results of this interaction. Here is a guide to understanding Google Adwords.
Action: Create your website or engage a professional to build it
4. Social Media
Social media is one of the best ways to connect with fans and potential customers. If you don’t have a presence on the main platforms, you’re missing out on an audience that’s ready and willing to connect with your brand. It is also a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader in the industry.
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Start with a plan – don’t just set up channels and not know what you are going to do with them
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Decide which platforms are right for the business
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Know your audience
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Build relationships
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Share compelling visuals whenever possible
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Focus on quality over quantity
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Monitor and respond to social media conversations around your industry
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Track and refine your performance
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As much as possible have a link back to your website
Possible social media channels and how to set each up:
Actions:
Using your brand style guide and your brand strategy, create your social media channels using the steps above.
5. Analytics
A great digital marketing strategy relies on analysing the data generated from the website, from social media and e-communications. Don’t just set and forget and hope it is working. Analyse your results and refine your strategy for maximum outcomes.
Set up your Google Analytics to track traffic to your website. You are also able to monitor Adwords campaigns through Google Analytics by linking your Google Analytics to your Adwords accounts. How to link accounts.
Check the analytics for your social media pages:
Actions:
Set up your Google Analytics and connect with Google Adwords. Familiarise yourself with social media analytics pages.
Sample from the Strata Industry
Please click the link below to view a presentation from a recent strata conference on how a strata management business could take control of their digital assets.