As increasingly sophisticated tools and technology such as AI help businesses raise their online profile more easily, digital competition is becoming fiercer than ever before.
As increasingly sophisticated tools and technology such as AI help businesses raise their online profile more easily, digital competition is becoming fiercer than ever before.
That being said, businesses need to think carefully about employing strategic digital marketing tactics if they are to stand out from their competitors. But what does this look like? Increasingly, a holistic, multi-channel, integrated approach to marketing.
In this blog, we’ll take you through the structure of an effective digital marketing strategy, geared towards increasing site traffic and boosting those all-important conversion rates. So, get your notepad ready, and let’s begin.
First things first: If you’re aiming to direct organic traffic back to your site, think about where you’re sending users to, and what they’re seeing when they get there.
While it may seem tempting to begin with user targeting and ads, if you’re directing people to a lousy landing page, they’ll bounce right off – and your conversion rates will remain the same.
So, ensure that the location you’re sending users to (and the rest of your site, for that matter) is well-optimised, clear, engaging, and, of course, encourages users to take action. Our SEO and Creative teams often work together to produce quality landing pages (like this one) with the following features:
If you think it might be the design of your page (or website in general) that is causing users to bounce, get in touch with Sixtwo who can help smooth things out and advise you on what to do.
Next, you can start inviting users to your lovely landing page by casting your nets wide with social media. This isn’t just a case of targeting as broad an audience as possible and constantly sharing links to your products and services; however. You have to play the game.
Start by creating and optimising social media profiles on the key platforms where your audience is most active. Of course, this involves knowing who your audience is and where they get their information from online. While we’d recommend spending time on this part, in the form of in-depth audience research, the following observations can, generally speaking, be relied upon when it comes to social audiences:
When creating and optimising your accounts, follow best practices by establishing visual and tonal consistency across all platforms, utilising as many platform ‘bio’ features as possible.
While many people think that paid social ads are the most effective means of channelling traffic back to a site, it’s actually a combination of both paid and organic efforts.
Simply putting out ads, without posts in between that start conversations with users or appeal to their interests, will likely cause ‘ad fatigue’ – where users start ignoring promotional content. As such, you’ll need to curate a regular stream of timely, engaging, and fun organic content that raises your online profile among target audiences, so that your paid ads will land better.
Now, you can get your wallet out. With such a diverse range of in-platform targeting options available nowadays, it has never been easier to achieve great results with social ads.
You can target audience groups across all of the main social media platforms and leverage the wealth of user data available to do so. For the best results, here, make sure to produce multiple variations of ads, with personalised content that resonates best with your audience’s interests and needs.
To hammer it home, your CTA (call to action) needs to be clear and, of course, compelling in order to tell users what you want them to do.
You’ve just forked out for paid social ads — and now we’re asking you to do the same for PPC? Yes, we are. If you really want to see a steady stream of traffic flowing into your site, it is best to target users on both socials and SERPs (search engine results pages). Remember when we spoke about a holistic, multi-channel approach?
Running both paid social ads and PPC activity not only boosts your reach and audience targeting capabilities, but it allows you to run multiple campaigns at once (say, for a certain product launch and general brand awareness), while also making it easier to allocate budget and enact things like split testing.
PPC allows you to place ads for your business directly in front of users who are actively searching for products or services related to you. These ads should contain benefit-driven language to encourage users to click. By bidding on specific keywords relevant to your business, you can ensure that your ads appear on SERPs when potential customers are looking for solutions you offer, increasing the likelihood of them clicking on your ad and navigating to your website.
It’s at this point that we circle back to the landing page optimisation we discussed at the start. Now, when a user clicks your ad and is taken to your site, they will (hopefully) be met with fast loading speeds, useful information, persuasive copy, and clear CTAs encouraging them to convert — be it a direct purchase or booking in a demo.
And there you have it! Follow those simple steps and you’ll be juggling SEO, Content, Social Media Marketing, and PPC for great results in no time. Oh — and, don’t forget Tracking (to measure your results and identify what works well, alongside any areas for improvement).
For more digital marketing tips, including deep dives into PPC best practices and social media strategy, head over to the Sleeping Giant Media blog. Or, get in touch with our expert team of Giants with any questions you might have about digital marketing or our services.
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