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Digital Marketing 101 for Beginners

January 29, 2021

Digital Marketing 101 for Beginners

SINGAPORE – Congratulations on finally putting your business online! You’re steps ahead from competitors who are still old-fashioned and offline – but the work doesn’t stop at putting up a website. In the race to online success, you still need to equip yourself with the tools and techniques to drive traffic and sales into your business: Digital Marketing. Going online means an increase in the number of potential customers, as well as competitors, so it is extremely important for you to make your business visible and active.

 

Why do you need Digital Marketing?

Working on digital marketing, flatlay of laptops and mobile phones

(Image courtesy of Unsplash)

 

1. To become more accessible to your audience

Unlike physical stores where anyone can notice and walk into, online businesses need to actively make themselves visible. People should be able to see your website when they search for keywords relating to your business. Digital Marketing can put you in relevant sites and gain visibility in search engines and social media platforms.

 

2. To track and understand audience behaviour

As the popular notion goes “Data is the new gold”. Knowing the online behaviour of your prospects will help you in becoming proactive in creating your marketing strategy. With the right tools, you can measure everything that happens before, during, and after the interaction between them and your brand.
Gather insights on what they want from your brand with their inquiries, comments, and other forms of engagement. Gone are the guessing games and blindly taking risks with advertisements and promotions. With Digital Marketing, you can gather accurate data, extract substantial insights, and create a marketing strategy for targeting and retargeting the right audience.

 

3. To create brand loyalty

A brand shouldn’t simply be a store – it should be a story and an experience. Digital Marketing can enhance your brand’s story to capture the loyalty of your customers. By being present in every part of their customer’s journey, alongside with the continuous and effective brand promotions, customers will see you as a trusted partner for their wants or needs.

 

How will you start in Digital Marketing?

Working on digital marketing, top view of laptop, writing pad, headphones, plants and marketing books

(Image courtesy of Unsplash)

 

1. Set your online objectives

Avoid being directionless and prioritize setting the online objectives of your business. Do you wish to increase traffic to your website? How do you want the people to perceive your brand? Do you want to increase audience engagement in social media platforms? Are you aiming to expand into a bigger target market?
To strategically align your online objectives with your brand goal, you can consult a trusted digital agency to take a quick audit of your online presence for you. Afterwards, look into the opportunities in the different digital platforms suitable for your brand.

 

2. Utilize different digital platforms

Be present in where your market is. There are different digital platforms for you to utilize, and each one has its own advantages, therefore you should understand which platform suits your brand best.

 

a. Search Engines

One of the best ways to attain audiences. People are already searching for the keywords, so all you have to do is make sure you appear in the top searches. There are two ways of achieving such: Paid and Organic.
Paid ads in Google are the ones that appear at the top of the list. If you can set the audience and keywords correctly, people will see your website link first in their searches.

The other way is through Organic traffic. This is where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes in. You can hire a digital agency to make your website optimised and appear in the top results without the help of paid ads. Take note, SEO doesn’t happen overnight. There are levels of procedures to ensure that the website and its content are all SEO-friendly.

 

b. Social Media

Popular sites such as Facebook and Instagram are great platforms for small to big businesses. These platforms are great in promoting the brand story through its strategically curated content. It’s mostly a free site for you to post photos and videos but paying for their ads will capture a wider audience.
Retargeting is also easy with these platforms since they can be linked into your website. That way, your next ad can only target those who have already shown interest in your products and/or services.

 

c. Influencer Marketing

People believe in people. Reviews and endorsements from popular and relevant influencers will make your audience trust your brand better. Influencers and talents can add that touch of authenticity your business can rely on.

 

3. Invest in your Content

In the digital sea full of competitors, you need to clearly distinguish yourself from your competitors. How do you do that? With your content. You and your competitor may offer similar products, but people can still choose yours if the story is better told on your side.

Marketing, whether traditional or digital, heavily relies on content. Offers and promos may be enticing but without content, people won’t understand why they need your services, or why your products are better than your competitors. More importantly, SEO and Social Media Marketing heavily relies on content – for keywords and engagement.

 

Closing Words

In conclusion, your online business needs to have effective Digital Marketing in all suitable digital platforms. This is also a great investment if you wish to expand towards a bigger market outside the country, while building a better relationship with your current customers.

Since the results of digital marketing are quantifiable, you can also be more cost-efficient with your promotional activities. An even better way to make sure you are spending your budget wisely is to partner with a trusted digital agency like FirstCom Solutions, who offers digital services from SEO, social media marketing, and even influencer marketing. Visit our website and receive a FREE digital marketing analysis for your website today!