10 Easy Digital Marketing Tips For Beginners

Digital marketing is constantly evolving. As it grows, it becomes more crowded, and this makes getting ahead difficult for industry newcomers. Businesses of all statures are competing to have their name recognised and this makes it hard to know where to start.

So how can a digital marketing beginner succeed in an increasingly growing industry? Basically, you have to know what you are trying to achieve, who your audience is, and how to go about grabbing their all-important attention.

To help you make a positive start, here are 10 simple tips for digital marketing newcomers.

1. Optimise campaigns & test your options

Customers have more avenues for buying than ever before, and they are often using multiple devices at one time. Therefore, you have to understand that digital strategies are constantly evolving and changing by the device. There are many channels to think about, from organic social media marketing to SEO, and to paid social media and Google Ads.

Knowing your options will depend on your business’s audience, budget, area of expertise and goals. But regardless of the strategy, you select, you’ll have to measure and test the results. Doing this will allow your business to optimise what works and what can be given the flick.

For example, if you are running Google Ads campaigns on different pages and creatives and one test page is working better than the other, it’s probably a good idea to invest more time and money into higher performing pages.

2. Time management is key

Struggling to find the time to manage multiple projects at once? That’s understandable. Digital marketing is replete with different tasks that have to be constantly monitored, tested and altered. But if you’re wearing yourself out trying to keep on top of it all, consider the following:

Plan your strategies ahead of time: Divide your jobs into urgent and important and prioritise them accordingly. Time management tools are a great way to do this.

Saying “no” is critical: Know what it’s important to your brand. If it isn’t and doesn’t have to be done, simply say “no”. This will save your company time and money in the long run.

Play to your strengths, know your limits: It can take a while to find a happy balance, but once you do you and your business will be happier for it. You can always delegate responsibilities if necessary.

3. Know what you are looking to achieve 

For smaller businesses, it can be difficult to know whether to invest in lead generation or brand awareness can be difficult. Lead generation about grabbing the attention of a targeted customer base, whilst building brand awareness is about growing a larger audience over time. The two should be harmonised to facilitate your overall strategy, as you need both to win new fans.

However, there will be occasions when focusing on brand awareness is more vital, especially when you are just entering the digital marketing game. Building brand awareness is an important fundamental for further lead generation. More quality leads = more conversions, the overall goal of digital marketing.

4. Understand your audience 

Businesses in the digital realm have to be customer-focused and understand their experience. This has led to new ways of putting the customer at the forefront of business decisions. The Jobs to be Done Theory (JTDB) is making headway for its customer-focused approach through understanding the circumstances that occur in a customer’s life cycle for marketing. You then develop content, including articles, quizzes or videos, that deal with customer problems. It’s not so much about what motivates them in function, more about the emotional factors behind their decision making.

If you want to improve your business’s appeal, you may want to think about the things in a customer’s business that are causing them trouble. You can then go on to produce content that will solve their problem. This will position your brand as an industry/thought leader.

5. SEO will also help you understand your audience

SEO should be one of your business’s main priorities. It’s a cost-efficient and long term investment that can make your brand more visible in search engines. It helps build revenue, drive conversions, increase brand awareness and generate traffic.

Utilising the best SEO practices can help you understand a search engine’s algorithms and data to know what your customer wants. When you know and understand this information, you can produce targeted campaigns and optimise your online presence using the three SEO pillars: content marketing, outreach and onsite optimisation.

6. Data is key to success 

For small business owners, using data to increase conversions can be a real pain. Unfortunately, it’s part of the game, and should be treated as such. Given that digital campaigns are spread across multiple channels, it’s important to understand where they are succeeding and where there can be improvements. Data will help you understand this.

Whether it’s statistics regarding your industry or your brand’s personal data, it’s important to know who your audience is and what it wants. You can extract all kinds of data from your digital endeavours, whether it’s the number of shares your content gets on social media, tracking website visitors, click-through-rates and it goes on. You have to know what metrics are going to help your business succeed and which ones aren’t as imperative.

7. Claim your business listing on search engines

Having your business listed on Google and other search engines makes it simple for customers to find you regardless of whether you’re an online business or have a brick-and-mortar location. They don’t have to search through different social channels to find out who you are and where you’re located and this makes for very convenient browsing.

Once you are listed, you should encourage your customers to review your business through Google. Positive reviews are one of the main ways in which customers will begin to resonate with your brand. They build trust and increase your rating in search results, and these are both very good things.

8. Never skip out on content

 You may have heard the digital marketing expression, “content is king”. Simply put, it’s because it is. A digital marketing strategy demands high-quality content to engage your target audience, build brand awareness and reach customers who want to know about your offer.

A blog is an awesome place to start. Blogs show your customers that you’re a thought leader, that you know exactly what you are talking about and have the content to engage your audience. Furthermore, good content is often shared by followers, which can help your overall digital strategy. However, do not post blogs that do not serve a purpose and are just being posted for the sake of adding extra content on your website.

Planning is vital in content creation, as you want to post the right content at the right times. You want to release small amounts of content regularly and portion your content into easily digestible pieces.

9. Your website should be mobile-friendly 

People are using their mobiles to browse the internet more than ever before. This is something any business owner cannot afford to ignore. Start with mobile and go from there. If your business isn’t mobile-friendly, you will quickly fall behind, as people will quickly bounce from a site that doesn’t work on their mobile phone.

10. Be more social 

This is also crucial for any business. It’s a cheap and hugely efficient way to win customers and create brand awareness. There are an abundance of channels and strategies you can use even if you start by posting on Instagram. Be consistent and frequent in your posts so that customers are reminded of your presence. This will help engage your followers and keep them coming back to your store. Social media is great for SMEs as it doesn’t cost a lot (if anything when doing it yourself), and can have a far-reaching audience impact.

Sounds like a lot? We are here to help 

If all this sounds like too much to get started with, don’t despair – the Digital Debut experts can carry the load for you. Our team has years of experience in producing high-class campaigns that attract audiences and win conversions. We can cover all necessary bases in specialised campaigns that truly encapsulate your business’s strong points.

To find out more or get started with our team, simply contact Digital Debut on (03) 8618 6992. Alternatively, you can send us a message via our contact page and we will reply with all the information you require.