So you want to scale your online business but you are finding your marketing efforts in vain?
I don’t think I have to tell you that the landscape of marketing has changed dramatically within the last 4 – 5 years.
For example, people are becoming much more skeptical and relying on social proof and social media to validate claims.
People want value first. They want to try before they buy.
If you do not keep your skills up to date and fresh, you are risking your business. And a failing in business is not fun…
There is more to content than selling
One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses making is using content on social media and even paid advertising, to go directly to a high end sale.
The truth is, you have to build a relationship with those prospects. You have to romance them and gain their trust legitimately.
I’m not saying selling is bad, but the relationship needs to be in place. You need to understand who you are marketing to and what level of the “funnel” they are at.
Enter Digital Marketing
According to Hubspot, “Digital marketing is an umbrella term for all of your online marketing efforts.”
But, unlike in the traditional retail sector, it takes a lot more convincing to get people to buy. This is because the barrier to entry for any digital marketer is not as high as a traditional brick and mortar store.
There are no massive startup costs, but there is a strategy.
First you have to get traffic to your website. Then you have to convert it.
I’m going to reveal 3 digital marketing efforts that will help get traffic to your website.
- Social Media – this is one of the most common forms of digital marketing. People buy from those they know, like and trust. Social media helps build awareness of your brand.
- Paid Advertising – because social media is very competitive and there is a lot of noise, you might like to consider paying to get in front of it. Paid advertising is another discipline within digital marketing, albeit costly for those who don’t know what they are doing.
- Email Marketing – Once you have generated traffic to your website through social and paid marketing, you really should be capturing those prospects onto a list. This gives you a return path to market to them by email, otherwise they are gone forever.
So how do we use digital marketing to our advantage?
You need to determine your goals and I’m going to assume it’s to get traffic back to your website at this stage.
My advice is to test your content and offers on free traffic derived from social media.
Don’t try and sell – at least not straight away. Create relevant, fresh and up to date content that educates and entertains your prospect. Use social media to get the word out and have them link back to your site.
If that works, you may try to set up some ads to scale what is already working.
Then be sure to have a way of following up with them either via an optin form or a retargeting pixel.
If all this sounds confusing, never fear. Just leave a comment below and I’ll answer any questions that arise.
