DIGITAL MARKETING

Four key points support the principles of digital

marketing:
1. Attract your target audience
2. Engage your audience
3. Convert prospects into buyers
4. Retain buyers for long-term growth

SEO- Search Engine Optimization means optimizing your

website (tagging keywords within your content) so that it
appears higher on Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
SEM- Search engine marketing (SEM) is different from search
engine optimization (SEO). In SEM, the business pays to enter
an auction. They then bid for advertising space on a website,
and whoever wins gets to show their search ad.
Display ads- ads on sites
Call to action- to take an action such as clicking on the Contact
Us, Map, etc.

After understanding why developing a business strategy is

important, think about your online presence and what it is you
want to accomplish. 1. Goals - What do you want to achieve by
being online? (i.e. more sales or greater brand recognition)
2. Mission Statement - Which values are important to the
business? (i.e. fair trade or protecting the environment)
3. USP - What makes you stand out against your competitors?
(i.e. customer service, price point, or quality)
Other major points you should focus on:

 customer behaviors online, and how these overlap with

offline behaviors
 the "See, Think, Do, Care" framework, and how to use this
to help understand the online customer journey
 how to group your audiences using audience
segmentation
 showrooming
 what customer touchpoints are
 how to map common online customer journeys
 how to identify customer touchpoints that generate
business goals.

When marketing your business online, it's important to use the

data and metrics available to evaluate how your online
activities are performing.

 Setting goals and KPIs is important to online businesses

 Constructing a KPI using the SMART framework
 Analyse data gathered to help improve online marketing
efforts
KPIs are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and have
the forward-thinking to help you achieve your goal.

How Search Engines Work?

 First, they examine content they learn about and have
permission to see (that’s called crawling).
 Second, they categorize each piece of content (that’s
called indexing).
 And third, they decide which content is most useful to
searchers (that’s called ranking)

The search engines’ primary goal is to help people find what

they want. If you can help the search engine decide that your
website is what people are searching for, you’re in good shape.

Google service called Search Console. it's a service that gives

you feedback about how your website is doing in Google search
results. It has two primary functions. It monitors your
performance in Google Search results. And it also shows you
how Google “sees” your site.
  There are two more really handy features within Search
Console to know about: “Crawl” reports, and “Google
Index” reports. “Crawl” reports let you monitor whether
Google can visit your web pages. This is important
because if Google can’t access your web pages, your
content can’t be included in Google’s search results. The
“Google Index” reports show what information Google
recorded about your site and tell you if your pages are
accessible.

For newer websites long-tail keywords will show more

immediate results

 For a page about fruits and vegetables, you’ll want to

make sure that the phrase “fruits and vegetables” is in
both the title and meta description. A good title would
be: “Blake Produce - Fresh Fruits and Vegetables.” This
describes what the page is about and also highlights your
company name. A good meta description is usually two
short sentences. It should also reinforce the title by using
the keyword or phrase again. A good description would be:
“Blake’s Produce delivers organic fresh fruit & veg to your
home, as often as you need it. Order your customizable
box online.

Off-site optimization- backlinks and social media

International SEO

 There are some SEO guidelines for websites that offer

content in multiple languages. Make sure that each page
in a different language has its unique web page.
 Avoid using automated services to translate your content.
 As a farmer, you’d expect your German avocado page to
show up on a search results page for your prospects in
Germany, and your U.K. page for customers in the U.K. To
help search engines discover this alternate content, in this
case you’d be able to add an annotation to each English
and German page.
 Beyond language and localization, you can help search
engines understand the country (or countries!) you are
targeting. For instance, if your website has a country code
top-level domain name—ccTLD for short—it’s a strong
indication that your site targets a specific country. An
example of a U.K. site with a ccTLD would be
www.avocadofarm.co.uk. For Germany, that site might be
www.avocadofarm.de.

When you’re thinking about which keywords you want to

include in your ad campaigns, you’re going to want to
remember relevance, traffic potential, and competition.
So, to recap, keyword research tools can help you find
keywords that attract customers but they also help you
discover keywords to avoid. It’s also a good idea to try and
revisit these tools regularly. People’s search behavior tends to
change over time, and if you let your campaigns sit untouched
for too long, their performance could start to dip.

KEYWORDS

 Keywords are broad matches by default. Aside from

broad match, the other primary match types are phrase
match and exact match. To change the broad match to a
phrase, simply place quotations around the keyword. So,
the keyword London portrait photographer becomes
“London portrait photographer.”
 Phrase match tells Google Ads or Bing Ads that adverts
can’t be displayed unless the search includes the entire
phrase. So, if someone searches for a “London portrait
photographer” that’s great, your ads can show up! Minor
variations, like plurals, are included. This means that a
search for “London portrait photographers” can also
trigger your ad.
 But, if someone searches for the more generic London
photographer, your ad won’t show up, because the word
portrait is missing.
 With phrase match, the searcher can include words before
and after the phrase, so “East London portrait
photographer” could also trigger an ad.
 To get even more specific, exact match keywords are
distinguished by enclosing the word or phrase in square
brackets. So, the keyword London portrait photographer
becomes [London portrait photographer].
 Now, if someone searches for portrait photographer, your
ad can’t appear because it doesn’t match the keyword
exactly. Along the same lines, a search for a London
photographer also won’t trigger your ad.
 Unlike phrase match, the ad can’t display if the searcher
includes additional words. But minor variations, like
plurals, can still trigger the ad.
 As you add restrictive match types for keywords, you’ll
probably notice that your traffic quantity goes down but
traffic quality should improve. And that’s what matters
 here.

Mobile SEO

 Once you’ve created a mobile-friendly site, you’ll want to

help search engines find it, understand it, and hopefully
 show it in the results. That’s search engine optimization,
with a focus on mobile.

 Mobile SEO includes the same factors you’d consider for

standard websites, like relevant content. But what’s
crucial for mobile site optimisation, is performance and
usability.
 Performance is how quickly a site loads and this can be
impacted by many things, such as overly large images and
file sizes.
 Usability refers to a visitor’s experience using your site.
Generally speaking, if your site has a good mobile user
experience, it will be more likely to appear in mobile
search results.
 You can do a quick mobile check-up of your site by visiting
Google’s Mobile Friendly website.

 Try to focus on shorter keywords and phrases mobile

users might search. Remember, many people are all
thumbs when it comes to typing on their phones! They’re
not searching the same way they do on a computer.
They’re much less likely to search for detailed, long
phrases.
 You can also use display ads to target people who are
browsing mobile sites. The ads can appear in text, image,
or video form, on those websites.
 Since mobile ads are naturally small, they should present
a strong, concise message with a clear call to action.
  You can even advertise to people while they are using
mobile apps. For example, if you wanted more people in
your local area to know about your plumbing services, you
could post ads inside apps like Yelp or Which? where
customers leave reviews.
 Also, remember that not all mobile devices are the same.
So another useful trick is customising ads. That way,
they’ll work well across a variety of screens.
 One way to do this is to use short, clear text in your ads.
You can also use what are called “ad extensions”. These
are special features that will help people call you, or get
directions to your shop’s address. These features will
automatically resize themselves to best fit any device
 Display ads on mobile are evolving rapidly, as new
technologies reshape the landscape. There are multiple
mobile ad networks that you can use, such as Google Ads
or InMobi.

Content marketing

Content marketing is based on the creation and sharing of

online material, like videos, blogs, and social media posts. It
can also help to increase sales by directing traffic to your
website, boosting awareness of your brand, and building trust
and recognition amongst your audience.

The key to success is creating a content marketing campaign

that accomplishes three things:
(1) answering your audience’s questions,

(2) providing something of value and

(3) keeping them wanting more.

Segmentation involves dividing your audience into groups of

who they are and what they like. The result is a more cost-
effective and persuasive way to connect with potential
customers. By researching your audience and segmenting them
into groups, you can then create specific content that excites,
entertains and engages them.

For example, imagine a new dog-walking business building its

content marketing strategy. The first step would be to
segment potential audiences and identify who would
benefit from its service: this could be busy dog owners who
don’t have enough time to walk their dogs or people who want
to socialize their pets with other dogs. The next step would be
to create content with that specific group in mind. For the busy
dog owners’ segment, this could include helpful content about
puppy boredom busters, or a guide on how much daily exercise
is ideal for certain breeds.

Understanding the habits and preferences of an

audience can help you target content directly to that
specific group of people. For example, if you’re looking to
launch a new dog teeth-cleaning gadget, and your website
analytics reveal that young men are statistically more
interested in buying dog gadgets than other demographics, this
would suggest you should target your content to this group.

Another benefit is being able to pinpoint audience

behavior and using this information to refine your
marketing approach. Now that you know young men are
interested in dog gadgets, you could research a step further
and find out how often this segment walks their pets and at
what time of day. Try to answer: What social channels does this
group use? What do they do with their free time? For example,
people who enjoy the visual nature of a social media platform
like Pinterest are likely to prefer different content to those who
like to read and contribute to forums. All this information can
provide value when it comes to creating tailored content for
this group.

To get insights into what people search for, try free online tools
like Answer the Public and Keyword Planner. You also can utilize
analytics features on social media platforms like Facebook and
Twitter to get a glimpse of audience demographics and
behaviors.

Different formats of Content marketing

 Blogs are typically published as a subsection of an

existing website and can include original content or guest-
 authored content. Writing unique, quality blog posts can
help increase publicity and give you interesting content to
share across other channels, like social media.
 Infographics are informative and a great way to present
knowledge visually. They work well online thanks to their
eye-catching format and can help creatively present
complex or unusual content.
 E-books are educational, easy-to-read guides focused on
a specific topic. This format provides readers with
practical content and will help you stand out as an expert
in your field.
 Videos can include anything from product demonstrations
to tutorials and customer testimonials. They allow brands
to create engaging, entertaining, and useful content that
can be consumed on the go.
 There are many other content formats to consider,
including press releases, webinars, reviews and case
studies.

In content marketing, there are typically four main purposes of

content, which are to entertain, to inspire, to educate, and
to convince.

Meet Amber. Amber runs a dog grooming business and wants

to create a content strategy to help boost her online presence.

To entertain her audience, she decides to publish funny video

clips of dogs doing tricks over social media. To inspire, she
plans to create a forum space on her website where people can
post their questions and get insights from both her and other
pet owners. To educate her audience, she shares blog posts
including top tips on dog care and dog nutrition. To convince
people to use her services, she’ll share testimonials from happy
customers, as well as e-books to showcase her knowledge in
specialist grooming skills.

Metrics to check the success of content marketing

Consider where your visitors are located, their age and

gender demographics, how long they spend on a specific
webpage, and what they search for when they land on
your site.

Many social media platforms provide detailed information about

the people who follow or subscribe to business accounts. This
includes gender, age, and location, as well as which posts
receive the most engagement. Such data can give you an
indication of which content is the most effective at meeting
your goals, and which provides you with the best return on your
investment.

Analytics can also show them where their readers are

coming from, such as from social media or a search
engine, and how many of their readers made a purchase
after reading a blog post. By looking at the data available,
they could refine their content marketing strategy as they go,
ensuring they meet the company's goals and objectives.

Email Marketing

Your first step in email marketing should be to set goals. Do

you want to use email to showcase products and services,
and bring more visitors to your website? Do you want to
use email to drive business results, like distributing a
coupon that brings in at least 10 sales? Finally, you can use
email to request feedback from your contacts about their
shopping or customer-support experience, and then
respond to them directly. By knowing what went right, or what
went wrong, you can offer solutions to their issues, or simply
thank them for being a customer. Email marketing is a great
way for you to develop relationships with both potential and
existing customers.

Managing successful Email Campaigns

A/B testing is when you create two versions of an email to see
which one performs better. You can use this technique to test
different email approaches. Let’s say you are sending an email
announcing a new product, but you’re not sure what subject
line to use. You can send half of your customers, Version A of
the subject line, and the other half Version B. Then, look at
which email had a higher “open rate”. That is the measure of
how many people open your emails, compared to how many
emails were delivered. Whichever version had a higher open
rate, wins! You can use A/B testing to test different
subject lines, frequency, content and images. You could
try sending emails on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Or, try
sending emails weekly and monthly. See what your
audience seems to prefer, and then adjust. Be sure to
choose—or create— specific landing pages for your email
campaigns.

 An email campaign Open Rate is simply the ratio of

people who’ve actively opened the email vs. the total
number of people who received it. This is useful for
understanding the effectiveness of your email subject line.
For example, if a subject line of ‘Things We Love About
Our Pets’ receives a higher open rate than an email titled
‘Discounts and Offers on Pet Food’, this tells you your
audience favors emails that give them insight into life as a
pet owner, rather than promotional content.
 Once you know how many people opened the email, take
a look at the Click Through Rate, or CTR. This offers a
 top-level view of the success of the individual email
campaign and gives you the percentage of people who
clicked on links to your website from every email that was
opened.
 Another useful metric is the Conversion Rate. Say you
have a free pet grooming workshop coming up that you
advertised in your email. The conversion rate would show
how many people you sent the email to, compared to the
number of people who actually ended up registering for
the event.
 Sometimes, when you send emails, they ‘bounce’ back.
The Bounce Rate is the percentage of emails that could
not be delivered to subscribers and were sent back. There
are two kinds of bounces to be aware of:

 Soft Bounces: These are rejected due to a full inbox or

size limit restriction on your audience's email server.
 Hard Bounces: Your emails are blocked or the address
you are using is incorrect. A breakdown of hard bounces
per email campaign can show you which email addresses
to remove, saving you time and effort for your next
campaign.

Display advertising
Display advertising offers businesses the ability to reach
relevant audiences all across the Internet. It is a great way to
build awareness of your business. Display is also a great
way to drive traffic to your website, build engagement
with your visitors, and win new customers. You might
choose to show adverts to people who have visited your
website but haven’t yet subscribed to your podcast. So, as they
browse the news, check the weather or watch videos, your
display advertising can remind them to subscribe with a special
incentive or promotion customized for them. This is called
retargeting.

SEM Display advertising

With SEM advertisers reach Display advertising works

potential customers when differently. The person it targets
they are actively looking for isn’t necessarily searching for a
something. business like yours or showing
interest in the products or
services you offer. Display ad
means finding websites where
your potential customers are
likely to be spending time, or
targeting people who have
shown specific interests through
sites they visit or other online
behaviours.
With SEM your ad can only With Display advertising your
show up when people are ads can appear on any website
searching. providing advertising space.

The ads on search engines Display advertising on the other

are usually made up of text. hand gives advertisers a lot
Some headlines, descriptive more creative options: different
text, a link you can click and sizes and formats, Images,
a few other things. video, and more. This means
there are lots more opportunities
to get a potential customer’s
attention.

First, you’re probably going to be using a display advertising

network - that is, a system that lets you advertise on many
different websites - to help you build and run your display
campaigns, and almost all of them will allow you to decide
where your adverts will show up, and who will see them.

Like all digital advertising, display advertising platforms offer

many targeting options. You can limit your ads to people
who speak certain languages, or to certain days or
times. You can even combine multiple things. For example,
you can target local people heading out on their morning
commute by choosing to advertise to English speakers who are
using smartphones within 20 miles of your shop in the morning.
For example, you can zero in on where you want to be
advertising by defining specific websites, individual pages on
those websites, and even specific areas on those individual
pages that you want your adverts to appear on. These are
known as “placements.” The idea here is that if you know the
kinds of sites your target audience is likely to be visiting, you
can get your ads in front of them by targeting the exact
placements you want. You can even target specific groups
of people, and even the things they do online,
regardless of the sites they’re browsing. Depending upon
what options your ad network offers, you might be able to
target by gender or age group. Or by very specific
locations, such as people who are located on a
university campus.

Finding the right audience to target is essential, but your

display campaign also needs actual adverts to show them. With
display advertising, you have lots of options for what form they
might take or how they can look. There are banner adverts in
all sorts of shapes and sizes, and video adverts that can use
motion and sound to show what’s going on behind the scenes
of your podcast.

Display advertising meeting your goals

If building awareness of your business is a goal, you’ll want to
target a broad audience and use adverts that make a great first
impression. Next on the sales “funnel”, is to focus on people
who are already considering the solution you’re offering. Here,
you might really refine your message, zeroing in on what
exactly makes your product or service so great. The last step in
the sales funnel is the purchase. If your ultimate goal is to get
people to become paying customers, you need to focus on
conversion.

Retargeting is especially useful at this point in the funnel.

Remember, you want to target people that you know have
been researching you online, and get them to consider you and
eventually convert. Well, retargeting is a way to accomplish
that. It lets you show adverts to people after they visit your
website, or do specific things that indicate their interest.

Display advertising networks

Display advertising networks are like a middleman, connecting
businesses who want to advertise, with websites with ad space
to sell.

Now, let’s find out how they can help your business find, and
advertise on, the right websites for you.

 You could contact the site directly to work out the details,
and that’s certainly something that happens. But with all
the websites out there that offer advertising opportunities,
you can imagine this can get pretty time-consuming.
 This is where display advertising networks come in. They
handle both the buying and the selling of display ads,
linking businesses to websites that want to sell advertising
space.

There are quite a few of these networks out there, like Google
Display Network or Yahoo, and they all offer different
features, but there are a few things most of them have in
common.

Websites that offer these ad spaces can become a part of these

networks, and they can do things like set minimum prices for
how much money they expect for showing ads. Your business
can then bid for the spots you want throughout all the websites
in that network, deciding how much you’re willing to pay.
Buyers and sellers are connected every single time pages are
loaded, and the ads that win the right to fill the ad spot are
shown.

Networks can also help you target specific audiences through

two main routes: the topics of the web pages where the
ads appear, and general information about the people
viewing the content.

 Another thing networks do is handle the money involved.

Buying and selling ads happens every second of every
day, and the networks collect money from businesses and
pay the websites that show the ads.
 Finally, and perhaps most importantly, advertising
networks collect and share data with businesses. They can
tell you how many times your ads are shown, how many
times they’re clicked on, how much they cost you, where
they’ve been showing up, and how all of this varies
between the websites and audiences you’re targeting.
Many networks even let you add tracking to your web
pages so you can see if your ads are resulting in
conversions on your website.

Video Marketing
Web Analytics

Web analytics is about using the data you can collect from your
website to give you insights about your business.

A “metric” is basically anything you can count. “Unique

Visitors” is a good example. “Time Spent on Site” is another. If
you sell things on your website, you can track how much
money you’re making or how many of a certain product you’re
selling. If your goal is to get people to read your website, you
can track the number of times someone looked at a blog post
or the amount of time they spent on it. All of these things are
“metrics.”

Let’s say someone places an order, downloads driving

directions to your shop, fills out a contact form, or does
something else that you want them to do when they’re visiting
your site. This is known as a “conversion.” Web analytics tools
can tell you if the “conversion rate”, or the number of people
that visit and then convert on one of your goals, changes based
on where they came from, whether they’d been there before, or
even the type of device they’re using. You’ll notice in that
example that we were comparing “metrics” of
conversions or conversion rates, but we were breaking
it down by the device they used. The “device” data
we’re collecting is called a “dimension”. Generally, a
dimension is any kind of data you can use to describe
something you’re tracking with words. Dimensions include
things like the device type, what browsers visitors use, their
geographic locations, and much, much more.

By taking your metrics and “slicing” them with dimensions, you

can find answers to very specific, detailed business questions,
like

 “Which devices are people finding it easiest to convert on

the goals of my website?”
 Want to know what time of day most people are visiting
your website? Take your “Visitors” metric and break that
down by an “Hour of Day” dimension.
 How about finding out which marketing campaigns are
making the most sales? Take your “Conversions” metric,
and break it down by a “Campaign” dimension.

Whether you’re analyzing your keywords, your ads, or how

you’re bidding in your campaigns, analytics tools are essential
to get the most out of your SEM investments. So, before you
make another update to your campaigns, make sure you drive
those decisions with data.

Segmentation helps you break down and understand the data

you get from web analytics in smaller chunks to help you get
more insights and improve your website’s performance. When
you break down your visitors by where they came from, you
can see the differences between your organic search traffic,
paid search traffic, social media traffic, and more.

Turning data into insights

Break down your digital data into two groups: quantitative and
qualitative.

 Quantitative data is anything that can be numerically

measured, like the number of people visiting a website or
the number of sales a site makes in a month.
 Qualitative data is essentially any descriptive information
that you can't put a number to. This could be people’s
opinions about a new product, or the sentiment and
language people use on social media when talking about a
brand.

The right approach will vary depending on what information is

most relevant to your business scenario. If you want to know
how people feel about your products or services, take a
qualitative approach and ask them directly. If you want to know
something quantitative, such as the amount of time someone
spends on one of your blog posts, use an analytics tool to
review that specific metric. Often, combining quantitative and
qualitative data will provide you with a richer overall picture.
The data cycle is a popular way to help you make the most of
the information collected from various online marketing
activities. Use it to help you prepare, act, and inform your
business decisions online. The four main stages of a data cycle
are: Plan, Do, Check and Act.

Taking orders and payments online

You want to make things easier for your customers, by

accepting payments online. You can do this using any number
of online payment solutions, or what’s known as third-party
payment processing, with services such as PayPal. These
types of payment solutions let you add a button to your
website, which customers can click to make a payment. This
takes them to a separate payment website, which takes care of
the transaction for you. Then after the order is complete, the
customer is sent back to your site. At some point, you might
want to integrate the transaction experience into your website,
such as offering online payments and a shopping cart that lets
customers buy multiple items in one session. One way to start
is to use an “off-the-shelf” service, like Squarespace. These
services give you more control over the shopping and checkout
process and let you make changes and improvements. For
example, you might want to customize the thank-you page with
specific offers. Or promote other furniture designs relevant to
what the customer has already purchased. You can also track
the entire customer experience, including the digital marketing
campaign that brought visitors to your site. You can get more
information about these people and see what website content
they interact with. And, you can learn what the most likely
prospects tend to do on your site.

A fully functional online store has a big benefit: a backend

system with order management. Your customers can create
accounts and manage their personal information, billing
preferences, and shipping addresses. You can offer them
coupon codes, integrate multiple payment options, and even
customize the checkout process. And rather than program all of
this yourself, you can use these e-commerce services to upload
and manage product and inventory details, create and organize
category, subcategory and product pages, and offer advanced
product search.
Sell more online

Optimizing e-commerce is an ongoing process that requires a

consistent experience across devices, smart site organization,
and smooth checkout using customer accounts.

Retargeting in E-Commerce

The way a shopper behaves on an e-commerce site can tell

that shop owner a lot about which products they’re interested
in, and even what they were on the verge of buying. This is
very useful information for your business. Because it allows you
to create very specific advertisements aimed at people who
have shown interest in certain products. That’s what product
retargeting, or remarketing, is all about. Now, you can use
this information to take ACTION. This is where product
retargeting solutions come into play. There are several product
retargeting options out there. All of them will allow you to
collect information, and then target audiences with customized
ads based on that information.
Expand Internationally

1. You could start by looking at Google’s Market Finder.

This free tool allows you to quickly analyze search traffic
on keywords that are important to your business.
Countries that show a lot of search traffic for terms like
these could be markets with lots of demand for your
products. Once you’ve found some countries that do a lot
of searching for your products, use tools like Google’s
Keyword Planner or Bing’s Keyword Research Tool to
find out how much competition there is for search ads.
This will help you know whether you’re entering a market
with few competitors, or whether you’ll be entering an
already crowded space. Another handy tool is your web
analytics. Whether you’re using Google Analytics or any
of the other common analytics tools, you can check
whether people in other markets are already showing
interest in your business. Then, make sure you’re not
wandering into any legal or regulatory issues by doing
some background research first. Once you’ve done that,
you’re well on your way to growing your business in a new
market.
2. You might want to make sure your translated website
reflects that region’s units of measure, currency, and
 addresses. You might want to change the website
navigation. You might even change specific cultural
references to feel local to the customers you’re marketing
to. Translating and localizing your website can help
potential customers find you, and understand what you
have to offer.
3. Make sure your business is accessible to new customers.
Examine your supply chain processes and how they’ll
work across borders. Research legal and
governmental regulations that affect doing business
such as Customs duties or tariffs, taxes, Exchange rates,
Product safety requirements, and whether he needs
insurance cover
4. Before offering product delivery to international
customers, think about your inventory and supply chain,
cross-border shipping, and customer support—no matter
what their location.