Digital Marketing – Part 1 – A SMART Introduction
For those of you who are brave enough to take on the task yourself. Or those who simply want some insight into what digital Marketing is all about. We have put together a series of articles to introduce you to the world of digital marketing. We will share our top tips on how you can succeed.
Digital Marketing is evolving quickly and constantly. There is an ever-growing list of useful and valuable resources available to professionals and businesses for marketing online. Browsers and Search engines used by consumers around the world, such as Google, are also regularly releasing new updates and algorithms. These change the way we approach digital marketing.
More and more people are seeing how digital marketing can have a huge impact on increasing revenue. This applies both on and offline. There are also a huge number of people who simply don’t know how this can be applied to them; Despite recognising the powerful impact that digital marketing can have. Many businesses have had or are having negative experiences spending time and money on digital marketing. Unfortunately, lots are seeing little or no return on their investments.
With this is mind we have decided to put together an introduction to digital marketing. We will do our best to explain and advise on how you can navigate the world of digital marketing. Whether you plan to take it on in house, as an individual or with the help of a professional digital marketing team. This series of articles will be available on our blog and will be covering the following subjects;
- An introduction to Digital Marketing.
- Target audience and tailoring your approach
- Google Adwords
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Website factors part 1
- Website factors part 2
- Digital Marketing for Local Businesses (Local Businesses need to be Targeting locally)
- Display Ads
- How much should a digital marketing campaign cost?
- Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
- Relevant content, Relevant Traffic
Where to start with digital marketing
how to set SMART goals for digital marketing
Digital Marketing is a huge area with a massive amount of potential avenues to explore. The best route to take will depend on your individual aims. The place to start with any campaign is to work out what those aims are. We can then move on to how best to achieve this. We strongly recommend that before you begin a digital marketing campaign; you plan your aims and set goals as to how you will achieve them.
The help of a marketing agency is a serious advantage in today’s competitive online environment. If fortunate enough to be working with a professional team they will recommend the best way to achieve your aims. However, it is still advisable that you know enough to understand what they are doing and why. The same applies if you employ someone in house or use someone within your team to manage digital marketing campaigns.
We will be getting into the relevance of goals to specific aims later on. But for now we will share a popular method for setting goals and explore some basic things to consider in order to pin down your aims. Some of you will already be familiar with how to set SMART goals. For those of you who haven’t come across this or would like a refresher here is how to set them.
SMART GOALS in Digital Marketing
Specific
Non specific aims are simply not as effective as specific aims. My aims are to increase revenue sadly is a little too vague to be useful. We need specific aims to have the best chances of success. For example, if I say “I want to be healthier”. It’s fair to assume I haven’t really considered how I am going to get healthier. It suggests I am unlikely to actually follow through effectively. Where as if I say “I am going to exercise more and eat healthier foods” there is a clearer idea of how I am going to achieve this. Better yet I could say “I want to be healthier! I am going to cycle to and from work and am going to eat healthier foods like substituting chips for salads”.
Or if you’d like a more relevant example “I want to reach potential customers” is something we hear a lot but what we want to hear is; who these potential customers are? Are they a certain age? Do they have a certain budget? How do we differentiate between someone who will benefit from your product and service. Also someone who you are less relevant to. Part two “Target audience and tailoring your approach” goes into further detail about this.
Measurable
Your goals need to be measurable so that you can see whether or not what you are doing is working. Take the time to consider how you will measure success. As we have mentioned there is a wealth of digital marketing tools and resources to help you monitor your progress. Knowing what you are looking to measure will help you to access the tools that are relevant to you.
Ascertaining as early as possible how you will measure that success is essential to achieving your goals with online marketing and often overlooked. Whether you are using a professional team, tackling this yourself or allocating the job to someone in your team it is important that both you and they are clear on what your aims are and how you will measure success
Attainable
Setting attainable goals is key to succeeding in marketing. This does not by any means express that we are telling you to aim low but to aim sensibly. Setting ridiculously high targets is not in this case going to help you at all. Remember this is a competitive market used by the David’s and the Goliath’s of this world. Be sure to place yourself appropriately.
Do not pit yourself against corporate giant who most likely will out spend and out resource you at every turn. Be realistic about what you want to achieve, what you can deliver and who you are competing with. When setting goals think practically about how much time and money is going to go into your digital marketing.
Relevant
Relevance is another word we will be using a lot when talking about digital marketing. In terms of SMART, relevance basically means that your goals should be relevant to your success. If you set aims make sure you know why this will be beneficial to your overall success as a business.
If you invest heavily to increase web enquiries phenomenally but you cannot actually service these, does it help your business? What about investing energy and money, and manage to increase followers/engagement on Facebook with no increase in revenue? Unfortunately in digital marketing there are many common examples of businesses setting fairly irrelevant aims. Make sure your digital marketing goals are inline with what you want to achieve overall.
Time Based
Time scales are essential to achieving the goals you set. Much like being able to measure your success. You need to be able to see that you are on track. Allowing you to address any issues early on. Then respond appropriately to what is and is not working well.
Aside from enabling you to track your progress and improve your results, timescales also increase productivity. Any projects that we manage we always make sure that we have effectively planned to implement well. This includes setting timescales and deadlines to ensure that the project stays on track. Digital marketing is no exception. Hopefully you can soon experience the benefits of applying time based goals. As opposed to learning the hard way the negative impact that failing apply timescales can have.
Digital Marketing Conclusion
This concludes part one of our Digital Marketing – A SMART Introduction. We at Pickle Ipsum wish you every success in achieving those SMART goals. Thank you very much for taking the time to read our blog. We sincerely hope that this has been useful or perhaps even enjoyable. We welcome all feedback, and would love to hear if you have any useful tips or advice to share yourself, comment below. If you are interested in content relating to digital marketing or if you would like to know when we have published part two which will be discussing target audiences and how to choose your approach subscribe to our newsletter. Alternatively, stay up to date with us and our articles by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
