Digital Marketing Strategy 101

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To win with your brand's content marketing strategy – give something away – for free!  Not prizes, not coupons. Value. What you need to do each and every time is to share content with your audience that is useful and valuable for them. That's how you create an experience that your target audience will enjoy, benefit from, and look forward for more. And be consistent with your generosity!

Content is hugely valuable in our currency of marketing today. How do you create a winning content plan for your brand? There are so many ways to use content to better market your products and services, to better connect to your target audiences, and engage consumers. Whichever way, whichever types of content you plan to create and share, remember that end-user value is critical.

As far as the types of content you can or should create, see Content Marketing Strategy: What kind of content should you create.

Overall, for your content strategy, read up on 6 ways to get Content Marketing done right.

No matter how you plan, and what you aim for, you'll need to keep in mind that  Customer Insights is your First Step in any form of Digital Marketing. This is particularly important for your content strategy. That's how you'll be able to work out what you need to 'give away' or share.

Content marketing is not a quick win

Content marketing isn't a quick play game. It takes time for a brand that uses content marketing to build trust and to be recognized as a source of useful, valuable, enjoyable and reliable information. You need to become a go-to brand for your audience and stay top of mind and in their focus on a continuum.

In real life for example, remember how you walked into a Home Depot to buy a box of nails to hang some new pictures, and the guy took a good half an hour of his time to show you the best way to hang picture frames? And you ended up buying a $45 hammer because that's how he got his nails in perfect? Now think of content as that half an hour of show and tell of How To content.

Gain your audience's trust and retain it

Become a trusted, valued resource by giving away something. People like freebies. And I don't mean prizes and discounts (although discounts help somewhere along the conversion funnel). Giving something away means sharing content that is so useful to your audience that it really benefits them in their daily lives. That's beyond a price tag to that give away. And, that's what builds loyalty to your content, to your brand.

How and what to give away

Once you have audience and customer insights, you can plan on how you will add that value. Obviously, it will have to do with what your brand, your product, your service has to offer.

For Starbucks, it's not about their latte's but about the experience and those moments and how to get there, how to relax, how to, how to, what to... For Chevrolet, it's where you can go on a long drive, rather than fuel efficiency and horsepower. If you sell software, give away your 'mindware' – your knowledge.

If your company repairs iPhones, put out short form videos and how to tips on common problems, and how people can fix it themselves. Sure, they won't come to you for that fix, but you're building trust right there. Educate your audience – become a resource. Gain authority and trust. You also might post on your blog, or create Facebook videos on neat hacks and How-to use all the features of the latest iPhone. Share unboxings that reveal hidden features. That's how you build leverage for the future. That's how your relationship begins.

Make sure that when you create content that is useful, you make it shareable. When someone likes what you've given away, they will give it away as well. To their friends – and that's how your message, your brand gets around. Use all the right sharing tools for social. Empower your content for sharing the value you create.

Not just about your brand, you can share the joy.

Useful, valuable content isn't necessarily built around just your brand or product. You should have the generosity of creating content that may involve other brands and bring your audience the benefit of a shared experience. In the airline industry it's called code-sharing.

If you are Nutella, for example, your content could be about the Nutella with banana experience. Remember the Mentos and Diet Coke videos that went ape-viral? That was a shared content story. And Mentos got that totally right, Coke didn't.

If your brand is a hospital, your content shouldn't be just about what to do in an emergency, or who's the best surgeon at your hospital. Create content on wellness. Sounds like counter productive to your business goals? If you were thinking of some really advanced surgery, wouldn't you immediately think of the Mayo Clinic?

When you give, do not expect return. Or expect return right away. Content is not a QR code which someone redeems and you sell your product. Over time, you become a brand or a product that someone automatically should think of when they're looking for a genuine sellable solution that you can provide. Because over time, you've inched past being just another, to building a relationship by proving solutions every day. That's the pot at the end of the rainbow.

You really need to understand your target audience and create content that resonates with them, which they share. That's how you increase exposure. Facebook calls this “thumb stopping” – when your audience stops scrolling and pauses to read your content. If they truly find your content adds value to them, they will feel an urge to share it. But getting to know your audience is key: 

Shareable content could be breaking news, educational or instructional, funny, entertaining, or anything that they wouldn't find as trivial and common. This is the type of content that will make your audience look good to others when they share it. So, try to consistently post photos, videos, graphics, and written content that are relevant, that will make you unique on their the news feed, and make people want to share it right away.

2. Use variety in content types

Mix up content types to add spice to what you post. For example, a higher ratio of video content these days will help your visibility and improve engagement. To keep seeing the same types of photos week in week out is boring. Use listicles, text posts, graphics, GIFs, polls, live posts etc and vary the type often.

Ask your audience to engage. Include a Call to Action like "Please share this" or "Please comment". When you create content that resonates, people will respond and do what you tell them. Make sure that your content motivates them o do what you ask them.

Yes, you need to be consistent, but mixing up your post timings often gets better results because a whole different set of your audience gets to see it. Try posting at times outside business hours when people have a little more time and attention. Ideally, you should check how your posts have been performing based on post timings – and particularly when your audience is online.

Video gets great results, but Facebook Live is absolutely a winner these days. Plan on doing Live broadcasts – start with say, one Facebook Live post a week.
Read this: How to use Facebook Live video like a pro. The essentials of getting it right.

6. Drive traffic to Facebook from your other social media

Plan to drive traffic to your Facebook page from your other social networks, your email marketing and your website. How? Click on the timestamp of your post – which will give you the URL of that particular post. Use a URL shortener like bitly or Google's goo.gl and paste the short link into twitter, instagram, and your websites and other marketing tools.


These simple steps will help you improve how your brand gets better engagement on Facebook. That's basic social media marketing. That's Digital Marketing Strategies 101.

Now read these related posts:

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We know that Search is shifting to mobile – particularly to smartphones. Google tells us in a new research on cross-device habits that a growing number of consumers browse the web and search on multiple platforms through the day. What the research also tells us that a fair number of those consumers actually just go mobile – by passing the desktop experience altogether. Is your brand ready for this trend?

Before you consider mobile in your brand strategy, or focus on it even more, if you are already there, it's important to know your audience, your target, your customers. Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing.

Mobile-first world today

It's really a mobile-first world today. People expect answers quickly, in the immediate. Consumers today turn to the nearest device to make a decision, learn something new, or get something accomplished, Google tells us. Google calls this micro-moments. "Connecting the dots across these micro-moments is necessary for marketers to tell a single story across devices, channels, and formats".

Search needs to yield results there and then

People are impatient. And, they are empowered with the immediate – thanks to their smartphones. They want to know, they want to find results right away, And they are turning to mobile. Google reminds us that "nearly 40% of people search only on a smartphone in an average day as they look to meet immediate needs. As a result of this shift, more Google searches are happening on smartphones than computers".

Transform your digital marketing by Being 'Right There, Right Then'

Marketing Land tells us that users are increasingly spending more time on smartphones than on desktop.

"Users spend 170 minutes on their smartphones daily vs. 120 minutes on PCs and roughly 75 minutes on tablets (for those who own tablets). The four most common physical locations that smartphones are used, in order, are:

1. Home
2. Work
3. Stores
4. Restaurants and Bars

More striking, however, is the finding that 27 percent of people are smartphone-only users (on any given day). Google also reports that of those people who conduct searches on an average day, 39 percent search only on a smartphone and 32 percent search only on a desktop".

As a marketer or digital marketing strategist for your brand, you need to be ready. Following are some useful tips from Search Engine Watch on how to effectively focus on mobile search as part of your strategy...

• The AdWords interface will show you what portion of your clicks and conversions come from mobile vs. desktop, and if 10 percent or more of a campaign come from mobile devices, consider targeting separately.
• Google allows for targeting by specific devices, operating systems, and carrier (with further tablet targeting options expected later this year), which is important because the end user mobile search experience is different on a mobile phone than it is on an iPad/tablet.
• Mobile searching lends itself to shorter query lengths and hyper-local results. Google’s mobile keyword selection tool offers great assistance for getting started when choosing your ad keywords.
• The searcher’s attention span is limited, so make mobile specific ad copy short and sweet. Include clickable phone numbers and/or geo-targeted maps to enhance your CTRs and conversions.
• Landing pages from mobile search clicks should reflect your conversion goals. If you want them to call you, download something, watch a video, and/or view a map, optimize these pages accordingly.
• When launching new campaigns, it’s best to start with an aggressive bidding strategy, which will allow you to establish a strong quality score off the bat. Securing position in the top two paid results is imperative with the limited viewing area on mobile devices.

Focusing your digital marketing strategy on mobile is no longer a nice-to-have. You really need to amp up your mobile marketing efforts – particularly with search engine marketing if you want to win over your target audiences.  That's Digital Marketing Strategies 101.

Now read these related posts on Mobile and Search:

• 4 Pillars of Mobile Marketing you need to focus on to succeed

• 5 Simple Ways to get your Mobile Marketing Done Right

• 6 Ways to Be There in Today's Search Driven World

• 5 Ways to Develop a Consumer Focused Mobile Marketing Strategy

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Here are some ideas for social media posts that help your brand keep your audience engaged. You should not be posting content that's focused purely on your brand – that's boring. But even if you post on topics that are interesting, that somehow connect to your brand, you still need inspired content buckets to use to vary it up a bit. Here are a few content types that you can use to keep your audience interested and engaged:

Before you start, you really need to know your audience. Your customers, your targets are looking for content that helps them, content that is useful to them, in context of your brad or product. It is critical to realize that Customer Insights is your First Step in any Digital Marketing. Once you are armed with that insight, you can develop posts that serve to those areas of interest...

1. How-To 

'How-to' posts have immediate value for your audience. They are practical, it helps them with their daily lives or solves a particular problem they may face. 'How-to' posts also makes your brand look an authority on the topic – and you become a go-to source for information and inspiration. You'll need to think about your audience and not just interaction with your brand. What do they really need to know, versus what you want to tell them? Think of them first, not your brand. Think value.

2. Tips 

10 Essential Steps to Influencer Marketing Success for your Brand

6. Thought leadership

Keeping your content types varied and interesting is key to engagement.  That's Digital Marketing Strategies 101.

Now read these related posts on content and social media:

8 Must Have Steps to Unleash the Power of Content Marketing for your Brand

Dump your social media content calendar and go with inspired content

Engagement vs Advertising in digital code is Pull vs Push. Theirs vs Ours. The traditional online model (I know those two words together sound like oxymorons) is about awareness building. I have a new product, and here’s a ten page microsite that glorifies it, while also telling me about my vision, my mission, my CEO’s bio, and of course my ‘contact us’ details. And I have spent a considerable sum of my (miniscule) online budget on banners across various portals that I believe you go to, to drive you to my said microsite, and you better click through, or else. And, wait, since I am so 2020 ready that I have also put my microsite address on my print ads. Well, well.

No, because that just does not work. Well, it did nicely enough for a while, but it no longer cuts the ice. Today, it’s about building something that is interesting, something the consumer will gladly spend time with, and if done right probably even advocate. I’m not saying this is the death knell of all display advertising. Some display ads have a simple message ‘free upgrade’ , ‘5% interest’ and ‘$99 to London’ will get clicked through if it is in a relevant channel. But overall, our online communications needs to be way, way beyond advertising. It needs to be fresh, fun, fabulous as an experience.

Brand to consumer is all about the wow

What we tend to forget often that we are in the wow business. All of us. Offline mainstream creatives, suits, brand managers, CEOs et al. Brand-to-consumer communications is all about wow. We have a wow gadget, an unbelievably comfortable sofa, a juice so fresh it’s still on the tree, a free-lobotomy-with-nose-job offer, and for the CFO – yes, we’ve made a small but remarkable profit in the middle of a bust year kind of wow. So, the, how come when we tell people about all this, we forget the wow?

Evolving technology for better engagement

The magic of digital is the technology it sits on. Ever changing, ever evolving technology. The tech spine allows us to build a nice sexy body around it if we want. Use it cleverly and it can be rewarding – for both brands and consumers. Technology and the newness of it, the fresh wow bits it can deliver allows us to better entertain, better engage, better wow. Like the way Mini used augmented reality applications in their print ads – that led to quite a wow experience for the consumer. And it doesn’t all have to be all tomorrow’s leading edge today. We simply need to see how social media today is all about engagement. Not about selling. Improve your social media engagement. Move from Selling to building Relationships.


Which brings us to my final point. We the guilty – the advertising fraternity – have so long ignored what the consumer wants to see, hear, feel, do and chased the Cannnes and other metalware glory , that we’ve lost sight of the consumer as creative possibility.

Lo and behold the new creative director – the 19 year old YouTube upload kingpin out of Muscat. Guitar hero, garage band expert, iMovie editor and brand ambassador par excellence on YouTube. And, he is willing to work for you on a pro bono basis. And no, your brand does not have to be green or preach tree hugging, but just open. Meet John Doe or Salma the blogger or Bob the facebook fiend – the social media sneezer. The one with self empowerment to make or break your brand. And he is a no-label free spirit who does not believe in advertising. But ask him to be part of your engagement plan, and he will happily take up your flag. The engager. The non advertiser. Your new ambassador.

That's the way it is today. The shift has happened. That's Digital Marketing Strategies 101.

More reading on Always On marketing

7 Essential Pillars for your Digital Marketing Strategy

Intent is the new black in digital marketing. In-the-moment marketing is what's hot.

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Today, the way brands do their marketing has changed dramatically because of social media. When Facebook launched in 2004, it was really about connecting people. Today, just more than a decade later, social media has become the go-to choice for most brands out there for their marketing communications. It's no longer a nice-to-have. It's a must-have.

Social media has impacted marketing in so many ways. Social media sits between the brand and the consumer, allowing and facilitating brands to convert consumers to fans and followers, and then to customers and advocates. Here are a few ways it has opened up fresh new channels and new ways to reach out to consumers and customers:

Conversation and dialog

Content marketing

Transparency

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One important way to succeed with your brand's content marketing efforts is to get content distribution strategy right. You may be creating amazing content, but unless you add the value of 'context' to that content – meaning distribute them across relevant platforms and media, your content will remain distant and irrelevant to your target audience.

Know where your target audience is truly engaging

The first step is to know your target audience and identify exactly where they are, doing what, and when.

You cannot talk to every one all the time. Insights are far more valuable when they give you specifics on a certain target audience. Otherwise, it's information, not insight. Fence in the customer, or consumer, that you want to know about. Your insight strategy could be targeted by location, behavior, social platforms, their visits to your website, reactions to your advertising etc.

Who are your customers who visit your home page and jump straight out? Once you know your goal, knowing who you want to find out more about is important. Once you know this target, figure out how you are reaching that segment.

Who are you engaging (or not) and where? Your website, social media channels, your paid media reach and results, your email campaigns, your sms, online forums and reviews are all points of engagement that you could check as to where that specific audience is. This is your first step in defining a distribution strategy.

Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing

Identify the key segments in your audience

There are usually three broad categories that most people in your target audience will fall under:

Actively Engaged: This is your big fish. These are people who comment, participate in dialog with your brand and with their community about your brand. They Like, they Share, they retweet and re-gram. Usually they will follow you across multiple platforms and are more likely to have an impact on your content than any others.

These are the folks you genuinely want to aim your content out, so your content distribution stRategy should be mainly configured to meet these people on their favored platforms and media and at their favored time slots.

Passive Engaged: People who follow your brand or product, but do not engage. They view your posts, but move on. They may be just following your brand posts to stay informed on updates, new products etc. They don't Like of Share, they don't Comment.

Spectators and Collaterally Reached People are the ones who come across your content quite by chance. Your post may have popped up on their timeline because a Facebook algorithm figured out they may have an interest, they may have seen a share by an actively engaged fan etc. They are not seeking out your content.

Develop a distribution strategy that is focused on your target audience behavior.

Your content needs to have a clear distribution strategy based on where your target audience is most engaging – with your content, and with similar content to yours. What are the types of content they most engage with? Video? Blog posts? Microblogs like twitter? Which platforms are they on? When are they on? What types of content gets most shared and commented on? All of these factors are essential to configuring your content distribution.

Have the right goals and KPIs

And that's the basics of digital marketing strategy. That's 101. Please share this post with your friends and colleagues today... And do comment if you feel you want to add to this.

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Be the brand that brings out the creative side of your fans and followers. Encourage them to think outside the proverbial box and come up with interesting ways to showcase your products and how they use them. All of the social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat offer your fans great opportunities to show their creative sides with photos, videos, tweets or simple posts.

The key is to get your fans to get involved with your products and your brand and give them the freedom to be creative. Unboxings are a great way to encourage fans to create user generated content around your product.

3. Ask them for their opinion

Fans like to have a voice – specially when it comes to brands and products on social media. Ask your fans and your community for their opinion. Let them tell you about their preferences, ways they use your products, cool features (that may be even you didn't know about), hacks, unboxings, new product ideas, flavors, colors etc. Run polls across your various platforms. People look to social media for recommendations, reviews and feedback from “real” people – make these authentic conversations work for your brand.

4. Run contests with low barriers

A lot of brands try to get user generated content by running contests and some are hugely successful. But they key to running contests is a prize they'll value, and more importantly, removing or lowering barriers to entering. Make it easy. Keep it simple. Allow text only submissions. Don't insist on high quality videos in HD.

Open up the contest across multiple platforms whenever possible. You can use a catchy #hashtag to bring all the entries together (see Point #1). Contests should motivate and encourage your fans and followers and inspire them to be creative and innovative. Without too much effort. For example, one research finding shows that "contests which allowed for text-only submissions (in addition to photos and video) saw a 900% lift in submission volume."

Here's an interesting post from Hootsuite on some of the best UGC contests.

5. Offer multiple ways to upload content

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Pokemon Go is a unique 'phygital' phenomenon – combining both physical and digital experience. This creates unforeseen opportunities for brands to use the unprecedented power of the app for their marketing. Specially if your brand or product is focused on millennials and teens.

What is Pokemon Go

It is the biggest mobile game ever. The object of the game is to walk around the real world to find and ‘catch’ Pokemon on your phone. Through the use of GPS technology, the player can see digital Pokemons in their surrounding area, walk up to the creature, and use the camera on their smartphone (which overlays the Pokemon on the real world) to capture it.

Use Pokemon on your social media

Invite platers to your location

Offer players wifi and power stations

Pokemon Go consumes a huge amount of battery power it requires in order to play. It needs to run data,  GPS, the screen on all all times, and other features of mobile devices. And of course, a whole lot of data. You can attract players by offering free wi-fi and free battery charging stations. Announcing this on your social media will get a huge buzz. Opening up your wi-fi is a huge lure for Pokemon players.

Ask players to tag your business when they share photos. Depending on the social platform they share on, they should be asked to tag your business in the post or tag it as the location they were playing at. This gives your brand instant social chatter. Ideally, you should track these mentions and thank them on your posts.

You can incentivize customers to play Pokémon and share their photos on social media. Ask players to aim Pokemon on products they want to buy, and you could offer special small discounts or up-sells and add-ons for each share.

You can get your location staff to shoot photos or videos of players at your location (seek permission first). Use these on your social media.

If you offer mobile service provider or sell accessories, find a way to create special services and discounts that help Pokemon Go players. T-Mobile did this by announcing unlimited data for Pokémon Go players – announcing this by using a specially created hashtag.

Pokemon Go is compelling, engaging and immersive as an experience. The app uses real world video (via the camera) and combines it with a fascinating and interactive AR layer. This is storytelling in a whole new way. And that's a opportunity for many brands out there to participate in the phenomenon.

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Today, more than ever, it's both easy and efficient to build your brand's customer loyalty using social media. Today's socially engaged customers are ready to build better connections and relationships with brands, provided the brand does its part to nurture the relationships.

1. Start by listening

Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing. This is something you really need to keep in mind (and do read the linked post as well). You can't have insights if you don't listen. You need data – and data that's cleverly converted to valuable insight.

Social media listening is not just for monitoring social performance or sentiment. It provides a huge opportunity for customer loyalty building and retention.

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Your brand can still win the organic posting game on Facebook with these simple tips. Many brands are running away from posting organic content on Facebook. Sure, paid posts reach more people. Facebook's content explosion has resulted in the average organic reach dropping to around 2%. Organic content still has value on Facebook, and Pages that publish great content — content that teaches people something, entertains them, makes them think, or in some other way adds value to their lives — can still reach people in News Feed.

Here are seven easy ways to win back your organic reach on Facebook:

1. Get your post timing right, and try off-peak posting

2. Create more evergreen posts

The life of a post in Facebook News Feed is also dependent on recency. If you publish timeless content, then it remains useful and interesting for your audience for longer periods. They’ll keep liking and commenting on your post. Because of this increased engagement, the Facebook algorithm will ensure that your post gets distributed further and that it appears in feeds for longer periods. Keep track of this from Insights on which posts show continuing interest. Give the content a new spin and post them multiple times. You should post the evergreen content at a different day and time than the first occasion.
To better engage your video viewers, you can add a call-to-action (CTA) to visit your website or a destination of your choice. The CTA can be Learn More, Shop Now, Sign Up, Book Now, Download or Watch More.
Here is another study by Locowise on 600 Facebook pages  (with 250 million combined likes), to find out their reach and engagement vs frequency.
• Avoid posting more than 2-3 times/day. It just turns your audience off.
• Post quality content. Engage your audience with humor, inspiration and educational content.
You can be successful, even with a higher posting frequency, by providing variety. Mix your posting schedule and post types.
• Test your frequency results. Only your insights can reveal your audience’s exact response.

6. Use fewer hashtags

7. Post content that engages your audience

Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing. Know your audience. Not just from your facebook insights. You should have all the data you can get about your audience from all data points so you know your audience better. Stay on trend. Remember, it's simply not just about your brand or product. It's actually about your audience and what will inform, entertain and keep them loyal. Post content that will resonate with your audience and keep them looking for more from you.

Don't focus on the Reach metric

And that's the basics of digital marketing strategy. That's 101. Please share this post with your friends and colleagues today... And do comment if you feel you want to add to this.
• 3 Simple ways to measure Social Media marketing success

• Here's how to Power up your Facebook engagement with Video

• How to use Facebook Live video like a pro. The essentials of getting it right.

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Brands need to be creative to grab and hold attention

Brands need to get both their creative and media plans in order again. Because while single-tasking may be a consideration, it is against the norm. What is single-tasking? Well, it’s all there in the name. Single-tasking means doing one activity at a time with as few distractions and interruptions as possible.