What is Digital Marketing in 2020?

What is Digital Marketing in 2020?

What is Digital Marketing in 2020?

Digital marketing has been changing every day since its inception. If you’re like anybody else, you’re probably scratching your head thinking, “What is this digital marketing, and why is it effective? Or how can it be effective for my business?”

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If you’re reading this, I want to thank you for taking the time to dig in and really peel back the onion layers of all the pieces and aspects and asking the question ‘What is Digital Marketing in 2020?’

In this article, I will be showing you what I think is the overarching look of what digital marketing is in 2020. Digital marketing is made up of so many components. And when I speak to clients, often they’ll say, “Yeah, I’ve got somebody doing my marketing for me. I’ve got someone doing my social. I’ve got someone doing my posting on my blog, or doing my content marketing.”

But realistically, what does DOING mean? Unfortunately, so many people are getting some very, very, very poor results from the efforts that these people, these marketing companies or these people that are helping them do marketing, are actually getting.

So in this post, I want to give you an overview of what does digital marketing comprise of? What makes up digital marketing? Because if you only have a small part of the motor, the rest of the car won’t run. Right?

You’ve got to look at it in its totality and say, “Why am I spending all my time on social media if the rest of the digital marketing strategy and components  are not even there in the first place?”

It can be a little complex. It can be a little bit overwhelming for some people, especially if you don’t know how a certain part relates to the rest of digital marketing.

What I want to do is I want to share with you my overview of how that all fits together, so it gives you a clear idea of, “Hey, I need to spend some more time on one part of my digital marketing more than the other,” or, “Maybe I need to focus on this part of my digital marketing. Because I get quicker results or a better return on investment from that section than I would if I spent time on social media, for instance.”

What constitutes Digital Marketing?

So, to begin we need to find  the ultimate goals of your business. What is the goal of Your business? Is it to make sales? Usually 99.9% of the reason we have a business is because we want to make sales (or money or profit). We’re trying to make a profit from the services or products that we sell.. There are very few businesses out there that the goal is not to make money eventually down the track.

Maybe, sometimes your goal is to just build awareness. The business is purely there to build awareness about a product or a service. Very rarely, but it can happen, or it may be that they’re creating some sort of innovative product or process that people want to see, so they’ve created a business around the innovation itself. Now, those last two are very, very scarce. The majority of the time people or businesses are there to create sales and make money.

Why do businesses start?

How do we get to our Business Goal?

Let’s  use that as the basis of our goal and I like to work backwards. How do we get to that goal? What do we need to put in place in terms of digital marketing … so that we can get to that goal in the first place? Working backwards, I like to look at the first step before that : what is that step just before we make the sale? What is that path to the goal?

Usually it’s either we’re using our website to make sales, so getting people to come to our website so they can purchase online.

Maybe there’s a physical store that you have, a physical location where people walk into your store, or they come to your marketplace, and they purchase your goods or your services there.

Maybe it’s some other sort of online store that’s not yours, such as an Amazon where you’re using a third party vendor to sell your wares. Amazon obviously is a big avenue for many businesses to make money.

Usually, The business goal, or sales are made through one of those three methods.

It’s either online with a website  you own, a brick and mortar store,  Or it’s actually a third party vendor, like an Amazon, or some other site … Etsy, Ebay etc or some sort of marketplace where people go to, and you make a profit from there. eBay could be in one of those categories as well.

What is a direct path to goal for businesses

 

That’s the direct path to goal.

How does Social Media Fit into my Business plan?

Now, how do you get people to those particular sites or locations?

This is where social media comes into it. Whether it’s YouTube, Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, you name it. Whatever social platform we’re talking about, those are usually how we’re getting most people either to our store, or our own website.

How content attracts buyers

 

In digital marketing terms, it’s either the website or some sort of social media platform that brings these people to your store, whether it’s a physical store or online store. …

Using the right type of content

Now, with every one of these particular platforms, whether it’s social media or your own website, we have content that goes onto those platforms. We have different types of content that could work.

You need to attract your ideal customer. Like going fishing, you use a piece of bait to attract the right fish. You need to know which social media platforms your audience is using.  So you need to use the right bait for people who are on Facebook. If your audience is on YouTube, you will need to use the bait to attract the right people from YouTube.

Maybe your website is a website that gives a lot of education. You’re using the education piece as the bait to attract people, so that then you can make them take on that journey to go and purchase through your website or your offline store.

Businessman taking the bait

What is Organic Content?

When we’re talking about content, we’re talking about different types of content. One is organic content. The big important piece about this is that organic content is something that naturally grows.

It’s something that you haven’t had to pay for. It’s something that you have created that people find. They like it, they enjoy it, they’re getting educated by it, and they’re using that for themselves to grow.

What is Paid Content?

The other flip side to that is paid content. What does paid content look like? Usually it’s in the form of something like an ad. We’ve all seen Facebook ads.

Every one of these social media platforms has the ability to sell ads, whether it’s LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, you name it. They’re all using ads to make revenue, otherwise these particular platforms wouldn’t exist.

If you’re using paid advertising or paid content, you’re creating paid content … maybe you’re creating it on other people’s websites. You’re paying them to put your content on their website.

 

Organic Content vs paid Content

So, the two types of content we have are organic content and paid content.

How does the customer journey fit into Digital marketing in 2020?

Now, over the top of all of that, you’ve got to think about when you’re creating your content, whether it’s organic or paid, where in the journey is my customer when it comes to my product or service?

What do I mean by that? … let’s say I’ve got a new best method to clean barbecues. Okay? Now I have a very special method to clean barbecues. No one else has ever heard of it. No one even knows what it is.

I need to take you on an awareness journey.

I need to make you aware that there is a good method to clean barbecues, because you weren’t ordinarily looking for that. Maybe you didn’t know that barbecue cleaning existed. So, I need to take you on that journey of becoming aware of what I do.

Once you’re aware that there is a service out there like that, then you start to look at other options. What other options can I consider when I’m looking to clean my barbecue? And then finally, it’s now time to make a decision. I’m going to make a decision to clean my barbecue. I’m going to use this company here to make that decision.

How does the customer journey fit into Digital marketing in 2020?

Do ALL Businesses need to take customers through an awareness campaign?

Now, some businesses do not need to go through the awareness campaign. Let me give you an example.

If I was to say to you, “Would you like pizza for dinner tonight?”

I do not have to educate you on what pizza is, and why it’s a very tasty dish, or why you need to go and think about buying a pizza, and give you the rundown of the history of pizza.

You don’t need to know that, because you already are aware of what pizza is. You’re already at the decision or the consideration stage thinking, ”

Huh. Do I want pizza or do I want a Del Taco for dinner?”

You’re already making a decision. I do not need to go through the awareness stage.

Depending on where your business is, and what the product is that you sell, or the service that you offer is, and how much people already know about you is going to depend … or it’s going to really determine what content type you’re creating.

Okay. Hopefully that makes sense to you.

Now, having done that, your content will be different. Your content piece will be different on all those platforms depending on where they are on the journey. If you’re doing a YouTube video, and it’s an awareness type content, you’re showing people why you’re different, how you’re different, what they need to know about being different.

Whereas a video about eating pizza could be real quick. “Hey, we’ve got steaming hot pizza here. Come and get it. $5 a slice sort of thing.” It’s very easy to do. The is a lot more work to do when you’re only starting out on that journey.

Now, having said that, all of that … you need to start putting in place a strategy about:

1.How do I create the right content?

2.Where are they on the journey?

3.And is it organic content, or is it paid content?

 

Content and Social media Strategy

Now, this strategy can split into two.

Firstly, you can have a content strategy.

Questions you need to ask about your content Strategy

Here are some great questions you should ask about your content strategy:

What do I need to teach?

In terms of content, What sort of content do people need to know in order for me to move them along this entire path to the sales goal at the end of the day?

How will the sort of content  I need to create, differ for my awareness campaigns, for my consideration campaigns, for my decision campaigns?

Does the content need to be organic or paid?

Does the content need to fit inside 280 characters for a tweet, or does it need to fit in as an image on Instagram, or does it need to fit into a short video on YouTube?

Where is that strategy sitting?

What sort of content do I need to create?

How am I going to get them to move along that path?

Questions you need to ask about your Social Strategy

The second part of that is your social strategy.

Okay. Now you’ve got the idea of what the content is going to be. Now here are some of the questions about this Social strategy to get you thinking:

What’s my strategy with social media?

What do I need to do to get best results?

Do I need to do posts on Twitter every day for the next month?

Do I need to do a series of Instagram posts?

Maybe I need to get user-generated content, meaning I need to go and get some people that are already using my product and get them to share the content?

Is that part of my social strategy to get other people to share the content about what I do so that I can use that as social proof to move people along that path?

 

Testing and measuring digital Marketing in 2020

Then on top of this … I know it’s getting complex, but I want to give you the big picture.

Don’t freak out, okay?

You’re right where you need to be.

Social listening and monitoring

The next part is the social listening and monitoring. Once you do all this work on your social media accounts, once you’re interacting with people on social media, then you need to look at what are they saying?

Are you interacting with them?

Have you engaged with them?

Who is saying things about your posts, and do you need to answer that?

You have to have a time where somebody from your company, you or your employees, can actually get in and listen to what people are saying, monitor what they’re saying, making sure you’re engaging with those people, answering those questions. And think about a protocol about how to answer and engage with people….

Measurement and the analytics.

On all top of all of that overarching … which I think is one of the biggest pieces that most businesses … I would say 90% of businesses miss this piece., And that is the measurement and the analytics.

Is it working?

What are you doing to measure the effectiveness of your content strategy, your social strategy, your organic content on a customer journey?

What are the analytics that are telling you that you’re doing the right thing?

Because the last thing you want to do is go down the wrong direction enthusiastically. There’s nothing worse than saying, “Look what I’ve got. Look what I’ve got.” And you’re running the wrong way.

You need to think about:

how do I measure and how do I analyze the data that we’re doing, so that I know that we’re heading in the right direction?

Some people call this KPI, key performance indicators. What is it for you? What does it look like for your business?

Now, literally in this day and age of big data, there is a gazillion … that’s a word,  A gazillion piece of data that you can use to measure and look at.

It can be completely overwhelming.

So, start with the basics. Pick one or two pieces.

Is it the number of views on a webpage?

Do I check  the number of sales?

What about the number of new visitors that I’ve got to my website?

Whatever it is for you, start small. And as you get confident and understanding those data points, increase them so you can actually extend your range of analysis.

Collecting an email address for your database

Collecting an email address for your database

Finally, one of the big things and the ultimate thing that I think most businesses are missing when it comes to digital marketing is getting people’s data. Getting/collecting their name, their email address at minimum.

Because here’s the thing … when you build a database, anything is possible. Here, let me give you an example.

If I owned a shoe shop, and you walk into my shoe shop you look around my shop, then you leave. When can I market to you again?

I can’t.

I have to wait until you decide to walk back into my store. Who knows, if ever, that will happen.

Most websites are like this.Visitors will come to your website once, because they found a link or someone shared it. They get your website. They look around. “Hey, this is a great website. There’s some good information. I’ll come back here tomorrow.” Tomorrow comes and they’re like, “What was the name of that website again? I can’t remember.”

And this happens all the time.

If you’re by collecting information about the customer , you can market to people whenever you want to market to them.

If You want to run a sale, you want to send some information, you want to educate them about something. You have that choice to do it at anytime you like. Because you have collected their details in the first place.

What is Digital Marketing in 2020?

Hopefully you got some great things out of it. I know this is a long post( or a long video,) but please understand that there are many moving parts. We’re going to break this down over the next couple of months about each individual piece so that it becomes a bite-size chunk for you.

 

I have added the video below so you can watch it if you prefer to watch videos.

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