Jump-start Your Digital Marketing Strategy - VP Demand Creation Services

Jump-start Your Digital Marketing Strategy

With Gen Z and Millennials entering the workforce, digital marketing cannot be ignored. Long gone are the days of billboards and radio advertisements. A presence on social media, utilizing pay-per-click advertising, creating video content, integrating voice search, blasting targeted email campaigns, and developing mobile applications for products and services will be required of marketers if they want to stay relevant and in front of their potential buyers.

Digital marketing doesn’t have to be intimidating or time-consuming, because chances are you’re already doing it personally on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Developing a well-thought out, solid approach and using tools such as a content management system (CMS) and email software will help you in your game plan to attack and crush digital marketing.

Focus on the top of your funnel

This is where you’ll find your prospects and qualified leads. Oftentimes they spend a significant amount of time at the top of your funnel, waiting to make a purchase decision. In the early stages, you engage consumers with your brand, educating them on the value your organization brings, learning about their wants and needs, and how your product or service is it a fit for them. Digital is a perfect approach to move them through your funnel — using video or email campaigns, behavior-driven interactions, and most importantly, communicating when they are most receptive in the way they prefer.

Start small

Focus a small percentage of your efforts on digital marketing and document your successes and failures. Establishing your tone and presence with digital activities takes time. You can’t expect to put all of your eggs in one basket and expect to see mind-blowing results. Chances are you’ll be tailoring your messaging or touch points throughout your entire campaign. You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t for your organization – use these findings to your advantage by making tweaks on the fly so that you can (hopefully) see the results improve.

Ideas for kicking off your digital strategy

There are many simple and cost-effective ways to start engaging with consumers. Forbes put together a quick list of ideas to get you started:

• Create videos of your staff, whether it’s your high-level executives or those who might be interacting with customers daily.
• Have a client give a testimonial of your services and experience with your organization. In the past, we have engaged with our clients at our annual focus group. To this day, they provide valuable insights into our service offerings.
• Advertise on websites or social platforms that you know your clients visit regularly.
• Create and feature a detailed historical timeline of your organization. VP Demand Creation Services has been in business 50 years and we’ve come a long way from being just a small, local print shop. Consumers relate to storytelling, so tell yours!
• Be visible on social media platforms that your clients interact with. Respond to inquiries, post regularly, and maintain your organizational data.
• Engage with industry-related organizations. Oftentimes you are allowed a company listing that will be shared in that organization’s directory. This has potential to vet leads to your website.

Keys to digital marketing success

Simply keeping up to date with the current trends in digital marketing isn’t going to make the cut. Digital marketing requires engagement and constant experimenting, analysis, and modification. In a post by SAS, there are three keys to digital success:

1. Managing complex customer relationships across a variety of channels – both digital and traditional. You’ll want to make sure you’re integrating your efforts into your direct mail and event campaigns – they’ll play a major role in preparation, lead vetting, and in the analysis stages.
2. Respond to and initiate dynamic customer interactions. Digital marketing allows for real-time interaction. This means your consumers can share their experience – good or bad – with your brand instantly upon receiving a product or service. Make sure you’re praising the good reviews and managing those that could potentially hurt your brand.
3. Extract value from big data to make better decisions faster. Using a digital approach allows for measurable results and insights. This allows businesses and consumers alike to be proactive rather than reactive.

Digital marketing challenges

Digital strategies can pose challenges for marketers. Consumers use multiple and a variety of digital channels. Each is used on different devices (mobile, laptop, computer, television, etc.) and all require different marketing approaches. Again, there is a lot to maintain here. Digital communication is also relatively cheap to execute, which means everyone is doing it, thus making it harder for your message to stand out in the sea of digital clutter. In addition, digital marketing offers access to an overwhelming amount of data, which can be good and bad. Sometimes, it can be complicated to handle the data and it’ll leave you wondering if you’re making the appropriate decisions.

We’ve helped the Michigan Association of Recreation Vehicles and Campgrounds take their digital marketing strategy and incorporate it into a highly successful omnichannel marketing approach. Is your organization ready to achieve the exposure it wants and needs? Connect with our team today!

Article written by:

McKenzie Decker

Marketing Manager