What is digital marketing? Everything you do to promote your business on the internet. Your business website, Facebook pages, Google Places listing, mobile web pages, SMS marketing campaigns, social media reviews of your company and your products, etc. Digital marketing then is the sum total of all of your internet marketing strategies working together in a synergistic, integrated manner to promote your business online.

Digital Marketing Strategies

What are digital marketing strategies? First and foremost is your business website. The foundation of your business presence on the internet. Getting your business website right is the single most important thing you can do as far as creating a successful online marketing strategy. Because Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and virtually every other search engine all regard your business website as the single most important authority online about your business. Remember the major search engines like Google are continuously striving to provide their users (your potential customers) with the best possible user experience. Sites that provide users with good relevant content, easy navigation, and appeal to a specific audience, etc., will be rewarded by the search engines with a top position in the search engine results pages and traffic! But that traffic must eventually convert into either a sale or at least a qualified lead. Having a clear message is therefore another factor in your online marketing strategy. Large corporations have teams of professionals and huge marketing budgets to handle all this Search Engine Optimization (SEO) stuff. But even small businesses can do a lot on their own (and rather inexpensively) to optimize their business websites. Take our free 5-Day Marketing Challenge and learn how you can create your own search engine optimized business website.

Local Search Digital Marketing

Local search marketing is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on ranking in the search engines for local searches. Local searches are geo-specific, for example “Vancouver Dentists” is a geo-specific search for Dentists in Vancouver. This online marketing strategy is particularly important for small business. Local search marketing begins with having a search engine friendly business website. Next comes “claiming” your listing in the major search engines themselves (e.g “Google Places”). Not claiming your listing can cost you dearly in terms of search engine rankings and lost business. Statistics show most of your customers will go on the internet and check Google (or some other search engine) before they jump in their cars to come to your store. Learn more about local search digital marketing.

Mobile Digital Marketing

A digital marketing strategy for reaching your customers on their mobile devices. Most of the latest mobile devices are able to connect to the internet and come equipped with a web browser. A user friendly mobile marketing strategy is a website marketing strategy which includes mobile optimized pages on the business website. Another side of the mobile marketing strategy coin is SMS text marketing. Should be part of every effective mobile marketing campaign. SMS messages have a 95% or better average open rate. The average open rate for e-mail marketing campaigns has declined from approximately 14% in the second half of 2007 down to 11.4% by the second half of 2010, and the decline continues. An emerging trend in mobile marketing is the use of QR codes to direct prospects to the business website and/or an automated SMS follow-up campaign. Learn more about mobile digital marketing.

Social Media Digital Marketing

As a digital marketing strategy social media marketing aims to create content that engages readers and encourages them to share it with their social networks. The message resonates and spreads because it appears to come from a trusted third party source. This type of marketing is driven by “word of mouth”. Social media marketing utilizes social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp, blogs, etc. Social media marketing provides your business the ability to increase communication with your customers, foster brand recognition, improve customer service. Social media marketing campaigns are relatively inexpensive to implement. Learn more about social media digital marketing.

Topic: What is Digital Marketing