How to use digital marketing to grow your business

Digital Marketing is rather difficult to define in a sentence, but everyone is confident that it’s effective. The revenue generated through digital marketing could be higher than traditional marketing channels. Moreover, you can gain new customers, sell at multiple locations and measure every marketing campaign. 

How to set up digital marketing for my business? This is the most common question we hear from business owners. Some business owners would have taken the effort to learn digital marketing through workshops and online training. Whatever stage of your expertise, it’s advised to follow certain best practices to gain maximum results. This article gives you pointers for initial setup of online channels to start digital marketing activities.

Follow the steps in the same order to avoid gaps in the setup. This article is divided into three sections for easy navigation. You can skip the sections which you have already implemented.

Account Setup

In this phase, you create accounts on social media, link with existing websites and set up online sales channels to start your digital marketing activities.

1. A dedicated phone number and business email

A dedicated phone number with caller identification is important to set up social media accounts. Business email is another essential component to market on online channels. The customers can easily identify your business from email as it carries your website name at the end.

For example, sales@ggwells.com shows – sales is the department, GG Wells is the company and ggwells.com is the website address.

2. Retain your brand style and logo

Your logo and colours shall look the same on every profile, thus brand identity could be uniform on all online channels. The design, properties and appeal shall be the same for both online and offline stores. You can post images, videos and testimonials in all these channels to create a bond with your customers. Along with engagement, such activities will help the customers to recollect your brand with positive experience.

3. Start accounts in social media channels

All social media channels might not benefit your business, hence select the ones suited to engage with your audience. In a broad observation, Facebook / Instagram suits for businesses deal with stationary, food, apparels, books etc. LinkedIn is suitable to deal with working professionals and companies. YouTube is the preferred choice for media companies, food reviewers and performance artists. Twitter might not be useful for some business, unless they want real time communication and support channels.

4. Link your social media accounts to website

Website is the only platform under your control and ownership.The rest of all online channels are controlled by companies which act according to their best interests. Hence, you should run important campaign activities on the website whenever possible. Social media channels can bring traffic and engagement, but never a substitute for your website.

The social media traffic to your website helps to increase SEO ranking. The URLs of the web pages should be mentioned on all channels, especially emails and newsletters.

5. Start Google My Business Account

Google My Business helps your customers to locate, contact and browse your offerings prior to store visit. For maximum results, your business details should be accurate on Google My Business page. The most important details include location map, contact number, email and store timings. Good quality images of your store exterior, interiors, products and services will help the customers to understand your offerings in detail.

A business owner cannot edit / delete the customer reviews on Google My Business page, hence those reviews help customers to make purchase decisions. As a business owner, you shall respond to every customer’s reviews with a valid response. The timing and tone of your response create a positive impression about your business.

6. Setup WhatsApp channel

WhatsApp Business is another useful application to engage with customers. You can text, call and shop using WhatsApp messenger. The catalogue feature helps business owners to list products and services which customers can easily access through their WhatsApp application. 

The features such as the automated messaging, colour labeling and folders help the business owners to respond quickly to customer queries. Advanced options are available to integrate WhatsApp APIs with your own business applications, which requires the help of a developer.

7. Web chats

Web chat helps the visitors on your website to message directly from the landing pages. As the visitors already have the preliminary information from the webpage, they might be looking for last minute clarifications to make the final purchase. In the present scenario, the majority of leads are generated through web chats compared to other online channels.

Web chat also helps customers to make calls, share screens and send files.These chats can be automatically recorded in your CRM for further action.

8. Align your pricing for maximum revenue

Pricing is the key factor which determines the sale of products and services on online channels. Customers always compare the price with similar offerings before making any purchase decision. You shall have a pricing strategy to deal with competition on online channels in order to maximise revenue and profits

For the long run, offer quality products at realistic prices. The pricing strategy is different for various fields of business . For example, the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector provides bundle offers and seasonal discounts. On other hand, a manufacturer would prefer free AMC plans rather than discounts on his products.

9. Start a newsletter

Newsletter provides a direct entry into customers’ inbox. Email marketing gives the best conversion compared to other online channels. Content is the key driving factor which makes a newsletter engaging to the readers. The periodicity of your emails shall be adjusted to the customers preferences, or else your emails would be regarded as spam, creating a negative impression about your brand.

You can trigger emails based on events, actions and time using email marketing applications. Emails can be personalised with customer details available in your database. The most common emails can be set as templates, so you can save time in sending emails.

10. Facebook and Instagram shops

Instagram allows the users to browse products, explore galleries and buy products through shop features. Instagram shop is an easy way to sell your products with minimal setup. The purchase process is integrated with normal navigation, hence the buying process is effortless for users

Products are visible on timelines and stories, hence the sales conversion rates are high. Small and medium businesses shall use this feature to increase the revenue through online mediums.

Analytics and Tracking Codes

Get real time data of website visits, demographics, behaviors, conversion rates and attributes to understand utilization and allocate resources to achieve maximum positive results.

11. Website and domain setup

The technical performance of your website is crucial to get on the first page of Google search results. Your website should have a SSL certificate, or else many browsers might show warnings for the webpages. Security issues could also affect the search ranking and performance of your crucial webpages.

SPF and DKIM are two parameters to configure on the domain control panel, to ensure smooth delivery of emails. Major domain providers allow you to protect your domain name from external threats through managed services.

Check the technical errors on your webpage using web.dev of Google.

12. CRM integration

The leads generated through websites, social media channels and offline events could be easily managed through CRM. These leads can be assigned to relevant teams for follow ups and deal closings. Facebook provides one-click integration to major CRMs. Web chat bots provide various levels of integrations – direct as well as third party plugins which work seamlessly with major CRMs.

13. Google Tag manager

A website has to include multiple code snippets to track various parameters such as visitor details, conversion ratios, page errors etc. These parameters are tracked using applications including Google Analytics, FB Analytics, LinkedIn Insights etc. 

Google Tag Manager provides an easy solution to add / modify / manage code snippets without developers assistance.Often, code additions, revisions and removals get tedious once the website gets matured.

14. Google Search Console

Our team at GG Wells adds every website on Google Search Console as the first step for SEO Marketing. This application monitors the traffic, performance and threats for a website, and notify us through updates and emails. The search console provides details of search term, keyword positions and page traffic through the domain tracking.

15. Google Analytics

“You can’t improve what you can’t measure.” Google Analytics is the ‘must have’ tool for digital marketing activities. You get detailed information on visitors, locations, search terms, pages visited, social media traffic, attribution channels and conversion ratios through this application.

Business owners have the option to compare different parameters for a given date range. The details of each campaign could be collected separately, thus the return of investment calculation is readily available. Google Analytics is integrated with Google ADs and Search Console by default, options are available to track campaigns through UTM codes and web page variables.

16. Facebook pixel

Facebook Pixel allows you to run targeted promotions for your website visitors through facebook and Instagram channels. This tool allows you to track the visitors using a code snippet connected to your Facebook AD account. The Facebook pixel code is available on Facebook AD account, could be added to the website using Google Tag Manager.

17. LinkedIn re-marketing

LinkedIn re-marketing tool is similar to Facebook Pixel, allowing you to target the website visitors through their LinkedIn accounts. These promotions are shown on their timeline and InMails depending on your preference. Business to Business (B2B) firms use LinkedIn re-marketing to target professionals and decision makers.

Paid Advertising

18. Start FB and Instagram AD accounts

Facebook and Instagram advertisements are managed using Facebook AD manager. The targeting options available on Facebook and Instagram enable businesses to run advertisements at realistic budgets.There are options to target audiences based on demographics, behavior and interests. 

Look alike audience is another feature where you can create a similar audience to your existing customers. You can also run advertisements for an audience who have already interacted with your business page or website. The store visit data can also be synced with Facebook AD manager for re-marketing campaigns.

19. Google ADs

Google Advertisements help you to target customers who search for products, services and topics on Google. The advertisements will be displayed along with search results on the basis of keywords and budgets. When a person searches with a conversion keyword, the chance of purchase is always higher.

Display ADs is another format of Google Advertisement where you can show graphics and images along with texts. This format is suited for awareness campaigns to get maximum reach, These ADs are displayed on third party properties including websites, blogs, news portals, mobile etc.

20. LinkedIn ADs

LinkedIn ADs or LinkedIn sponsored posts allows you to target B2B customers. You can convert an existing post to a sponsored post to increase reach and engagement. There are options to target audiences based on email IDs, location and designations. LinkedIn also allows you to message key persons of an organisation using InMail promotions and Sales Navigator.

About GG Wells

GG Wells is a Kerala based Digital Marketing agency specialized in data-driven marketing activities. We help companies to grow their presence in local and global markets. Result focused campaigns help our customers to improve sales, revenue and net profit through multiple channels. 

If you are a business owner, contact us to know more about our services that can benefit your business.