Digital Marketing Research and Planning For Your Business: Some Commonly Used Types Of Digital Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. It ultimately aims to drive profitable customer action.

SOURCE: Tutorials Point

SAMPLE REASONS TO DO CONTENT MARKETING: 

• Revenue

• Brand Awareness

• Loyalty/retention

• Commitment/Engagement

• Leads

SOURCE:  

Ideally, this is what should happen:

1. You create valuable content

2. You share your content online

3. People search online for information about your business, products, and services

4. People find and enjoy your helpful content

5. You boost brand awareness and trust with your audience

6. You earn more conversions and sales

SOURCE and for more information, please go to: 

STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL 

CONTENT MARKETING

1. Set Your Mission and Your Goals

2. Establish Your KPIs

3. Know Your Audience

4. Assess Your Current Position

5. Figure Out the Best Content Channels

6. Decide on Content Types

7. Identify and Allocate Resources

8. Create a Content Calendar

9. Create Content

10 Distribute and Market

11. Measure Results

SOURCE and for more information, please refer to: 

SEO ROI -- measured by the following: 

Organic Ranking

• Visibility or Impressions
• Click through Rate
• Number of backlinks acquired from authoritative domains

• Social Media ROI -- measured by the following:

  • Number of shares
  • Follower growth
  • Comments
  • Social mentions
  • Social messenger messages
  • Overall engagement

• Email ROI -- measured by the following:

  • Increased email subscribers
  • High open rates
  • Click-throughs

• Traffic ROI -- measured by the following

  • Unique visitors
  • Pageviews
  • Average time on page
  • Bounce rate

• Brand Awareness, Exposure, and Authority

• Growth in Brand Collaboration Proposals

• Track Conversions/ Sales

SOURCE: PromozSEO

For more information, refer to: 

HELPFUL RESOURCES

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E-BOOKS

Content Marketing Strategies for Dummies by Stephanie Diamond; Paul Clifford (Foreword by) 

ISBN: 1119154561

Publication Date: 2015-12-21

Content Marketing Strategies For Dummies explains how you can use content marketing to gain an edge over your competition, even in the most crowded of marketplaces. The goal is to acquire and retain customers by creating content that brings value to their lives, and that encourages them to engage with your brand. This easy-to-understand guide will help you do just that.

They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan; Krista Kotrla

ISBN: 1119314518

Publication Date: 2016-12-29

A revolutionary marketing strategy proven to drive sales and growth They Ask You Answer is a straightforward guide to fixing your current marketing strategy.  Quality content is the key to success, and you already have the ingredients in-house. When people have questions, they ask a search engine. If you have answers, the right content strategy will get them to the top of the search results and seen by millions of eyes every day. Drop the marketing-speak, stop "selling," and start answering. Be seen as an authority, not just another advertisement. 

eBooks, Audio Books, and Videos from the New York Public Library -- Type your keyword in the search box to see a good number of books on the topics, that you can check out online.

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BOOKS

They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan 

ISBN: 9781119610144

Publication Date: 2019-08-06

This book shows you how to structure an effective content strategy using the same proven principles that have revolutionized marketing for all types of businesses, across industries. When people have questions, they ask a search engine. If you have answers, the right content strategy will get them to the top of the search results and seen by millions of eyes every day. Drop the marketing-speak, stop "selling," and start answering. Be seen as an authority, not just another advertisement. They Ask You Answer describes a fresh approach to marketing and the beginning of big things for your business.

Powering Content by Laura Busche 

ISBN: 1491963743

Publication Date: 2017-07-04

Take the guesswork out of content management with this hands-on guide. You'll learn how to produce and manage powerful content pieces that speak directly to customers and compel them to respond. Author Laura Busche walks you through content strategies and tactics drawn from business, design, and psychology insights. Packed with examples and exercises, this book teaches you how to tell your story with engaging copy, potent images, and striking design--all carefully orchestrated through well-oiled production management.

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WEBSITES:

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

The term “social media marketing” is pretty broad. It covers any type of marketing strategy that uses social media sites to advertise and sell products, build customer rapport, and create brand awareness.

SOURCE and for further information, please refer to: 

Some reasons why it's important to your business:

1. Improved brand awareness

2. Cost-effective

3. Engage with your customers

4. Improved brand loyalty

5. Healthier customer satisfaction

6. Marketplace awareness

7. More brand authority

8. Increased traffic

9. Enhanced SEO rankings

SOURCE: Sharron Nelson, Digital Doughnut

• Social media sites have built-in data analytics tools (known as "social media analytics or SMAs)  
• SMAs collect data data from social media sites to gather insight into consumers' likes and interests, as well as personal factors like age, hobbies, location etc. A social media site is any social channel that facilitates communication and/or interaction among individuals and companies to express views, opinions, preferences, needs, wants, values, and various messages

• Collected data can lead to insights that enable companies to track the progress,  success, and engagement of consumers with their marketing activities

• SMAs allow marketers to identify potential and actual consumers and focus resources on targeting those groups

STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL 

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

1.  Audit Your Current Social Presence --  Before you strategize about where you are headed, take a quick look at where you are. 

2. Document Who Your Ideal Customer Is -You will want to get as specific as possible with this part. 

3. Create A Social Media Mission Statement -- Your social media mission statement will drive your future actions, so make sure you put some thought into it.  Keep in mind your ideal customer when trying to create this statement.

4. Identify Key Success Metrics -- How will you determine if your social media marketing efforts are successful?

5. Create and Curate Engaging Content 

6. Invest In a Social Media Management Tool

7. Track, Analyze, Optimize

SOURCE and for more information, please refer to: 

You can measure dozens of different metrics on social media, but with ROI in mind, you really only need to worry about those that answer the following questions:

SOURCE and for more information, please refer to:

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BOOKS

Social Media Marketing for Dummies by Shiv Singh; Stephanie Diamond 

ISBN: 9781119617006

Publication Date: 2020-02-11

Social media technology is restlessly inventive, providing thousands of awesome ways for you to market your business inexpensively and on a large scale--often directly into the pockets of consumers. In the new edition of Social Media Marketing for Dummies, leading SMM voices Shiv Singh and Stephanie Diamond clear away the confusion and show you the smartest, most effective ways to plan, launch, manage, and assess your campaigns--and then iterate and optimize for increased success. You'll find out how to line up with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Google, develop a unique and compelling voice, and influence your key audience all the way to the bank.

500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for Business: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, and More! by Andrew Macarthy 

ISBN: 9781792796036

Publication Date: 2018-12-28

The key to growing your business on social media is to develop a strong and consistent social media marketing plan: with ideas that drive brand awareness, attract loyal customers, and help you reach your business goals - like increasing website traffic, delivering top customer service, or increasing sales. And that's what you'll learn in 500 Social Media Marketing Tips. 

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WEBSITES

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E-BOOKS

 Mastering Social Media Marketing 2019 by Damen Pallas 

ISBN: 1092309446

Publication Date: 2019-03-30

Inside this book you will uncover: The power of social media marketing The #1 Most CRUCIAL factor in successful social media marketing (Hard Truth) How social media marketing has changed Where social media is heading in the future A special bonus chapter with a special preview into another book on personal branding And so much more valuable information and resources.

Digital Trust by Barry Connolly 

ISBN: 9781472961358

Publication Date: 2019-06-27

Consumer trust is more important than ever, as digital platforms and social media have redefined the relationship between businesses and consumers. In this new and disruptive commercial environment, consumers have developed an expectancy of direct, transparent communication through social media. With a unique combination of academic rigour and practical guidance, Digital Trust is the definitive guide to effectively using social media to build an authentic, trustful connection with your consumer base.

The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder; Chris Brogan (Foreword by) 

ISBN: 1942952406

Publication Date: 2016-08-16

The Essential How-To Guide for Social Media Marketing by Leading Expert Shama Hyder, This new, fully updated edition offers timely insight to the ways social media marketing has changed and specific steps to show you exactly how to thrive and profit with ease and efficiency.  In The Zen of Social Media Marketing, Shama Hyder, social media expert and president of The Marketing Zen Group, teaches you the "Zen” of using social media tools to find your own marketing nirvana.

eBooks, Audio Books, and Videos from the New York Public Library -- Type your keyword in the search box to see a good number of books on the topics, that you can check out online.

WHAT IT IS

HOW IT WORKS

PPC advertising is an online advertising model that allows you to place ads on search engine results pages (SERPs), social media sites, and other websites. With PPC, advertisers bid on keywords and pay only when a user clicks their ad. When users click your PPC ad, it brings them to landing page* on your website.

ADVANTAGES OF PPC ADVERTISING

1. You set the maximum budget for your ads

2. You only pay when someone clicks your ad

3. You can compete even if your search engine rankings aren’t high

4. You can easily test different ads

5. You can gain more brand recognition

6. You can launch a PPC advertising campaign in no time

7. You can reach your ideal customers

SOURCE: WebFX

For more information, refer to: 

* For a detailed explanation on landing page, please refer to:

The different ad formats you can create are:

• search ads

• shopping ads

• display ads

• video ads

• gmail ads

To start the PPC process, do the following:

1. sign up to an advertising account with the platform

2. Create ads (and select the right targeting by adding keywords or audiences, etc.)

3. Your ad goes into an auction with other advertisers who are bidding on the same keywords.*

4. The auction determines the order in which the ads are shown.

5. You pay when someone clicks your ad.

SOURCE: SEMRUSH

* For a detailed explanation on how ad auctions work, please refer   to: 

STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL

PAY PER CLICK MARKETING

HOW TO MEASURE SUCCESS

1. Set your Objectives -- Start off by clarifying what it is you want to achieve with this advertising campaign. Do you want more site visitors? More email subscribers? More customers? Define your business objectives before going any further.

2. Determine the Budget -- ...always seek to optimize your campaign to avoid wasted spend. Consider your industry, your competitors, and the keywords when setting your budget.

3. Define Your Target Audience -- Who are you selling to? Do you understand their needs and pain points? With multiple campaigns, you can target various audience segments.

4. Identify Valuable Keywords -- ...pick relevant keywords that relate to your business, and also to the needs of your target audience. 

5. Narrow the Field with Negative Keywords -- Instead of wasting money on irrelevant clicks, stay vigilant by adding negative keywords to your campaign. 

6. Identify Competitive Advertising -- When you have a good understanding of your audience, you can compare your brand favorably to the competition, making your ads more attractive to prospective leads.

7. Optimize Your Landing Page -- Your landing page must have a strong focus on CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). Try:

• Choosing high-converting keywords
• Including quality graphics
• Using compelling language and a strong call-to-action (CTA)

8. Track Conversions -- Performing regular analysis here will help you find the most effective keywords and ads, which help you cut your losses and invest in the areas that are generating results.

9. Focus on the Channels that Work --  Analyze your results in the early period, and adjust as you see fit.

10. Search Network vs. Display Network --  The Display Network is a little different. It helps your brand reach people while they are browsing. Over time, you can determine which avenue works best for you and your goals.

11. Learn From Competitors --  With an in-depth competitor analysis, you can glean insights that help you improve your own strategies and methods.

12. Determine Device Bids -- You can adjust your bids at the campaign level, or at the ad group level if you want to adjust each device bid individually. Knowing your audience will help you with these decisions.

13. Identify the Right Reporting Tool -- You should keep a close eye on all your campaigns and analyze the key metrics to determine if your ads are successful.

SOURCE and for detailed information on steps to a successful Pay Per Click Campaign, please refer to: 

Out of a number of possible KPIs (or Key Performance Indicator*), these are the most vital PPC metrics you need to focus on to determine your PPC campaign result:

1. PPC ROI/ROAS -- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is concerned with ratio of ad spend to income or revenue, while ROI (Return on Investment) looks at whether the money being made is greater than money spent.

2. Cost Per Acquisition/Sale --The average spends for conversions and clicks may vary broadly by ad group and campaign. Consider  factors such as your keyword bid rate, investment amount, and quality scores .

Decrease Cost Per Acquisition by:

• removing junk
• introducing negative words
• reducing max bid

3. Conversion Volume -- the number of users that convert in a certain time frame

4. Close Rates** -- A lot of conversions are simply opportunities, not sales or customers... If your campaigns close rate is a lot less than the conversion rate, it’ll offer you the opportunity to enhance the internal transit right from acquisition to closing or improve lead scoring.

5. Cost Per Click -- have control over the amount you spend on certain keywords by managing your bids right from the keyword level

6. Average Order Value*** -- tracking your Average Order Value weekly or monthly offers insight into the purchasing habits of your customers

7. Lifetime Value --  how much a single client or customer spends on your business before ending the relationship and not coming back. This isn’t just a powerful investment; it will also massively enhance the probability of future conversions.

8. Quality Score -- largely depends on three factors: possible click-through-rate; ad relevance; landing page quality

SOURCE and for detailed information on how to measure success of CCP Advertising, please refer to:

ONE IMS

* WIKIPEDIA -- A performance indicator or key performance indicator (KPI) is a type of performance measurement.^[1] KPIs evaluate the success of an organization or of a particular activity (such as projects, programs, products and other initiatives) in which it engages.

** The Online Advertising Guide -- Close Rate is the percentage of leads which turn into conversions. You calculate it simply by dividing your conversions (from your leads) by all the leads you had (and then multiplying by 100 to turn it into a per cent.

*** Big Commerce -- Average Order Value (AOV) is an ecommerce metric that measures the average total of every order placed with a merchant over a defined period of time.

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BOOKS

Ultimate Guide to Pay-Per-Click Advertising by Richard Stokes 

ISBN: 9781599185347

Publication Date: 2014-03-18

Millions compete for exposure on Google and Bing but 99% of them fail to get results. Using proven strategies from today's search advertising elite, discover how to drive significantly more traffic to your site, dramatically increase click-through rates, steal impressions from competitors, boost your conversions, and increase your sales by unbelievable amounts.  

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WEBSITES:

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E-BOOKS

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing by David Szetela; Joseph Kerschbaum 

ISBN: 9780470917190

Publication Date: 2010-07-06

This guide breaks projects down into manageable tasks, valuable for the small-business owner as well as for marketing officers and consultants Explains core PPC concepts, industry trends, and the mechanics that make a campaign work Shows how to perform keyword research, structure campaigns, and understand campaign settings and various pricing models Discusses how to write ads, develop and test landing pages, use ad groups, and leverage Google's content network Covers launching a campaign, bidding for position, monitoring, gathering results, and interpreting and acting on the data collected Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing: An Hour a Day provides the tools to make the most of this important marketing method.

eBooks, Audio Books, and Videos from the New York Public Library -- Type your keyword in the search box to see a good number of books on the topics, that you can check out online.

Email marketing is the use of email to promote products or services while developing relationships with potential customers or clients. It is essentially direct mail done electronically instead of through the postal service.

SOURCE: Susan Ward, The Balance Small Business 

ADVANTAGES

1. It’s a great way to build a community around your brand

2. It can help you get more leads and make more sales

3, It’s one of the best ways to get more recurring traffic

4. It’s a way to minimize some of the risks associated with SEO algorithmic changes. This is particularly important because once you get to a point that you have a big list of active email subscribers; you can worry less about SEO changes that can have a negative impact on your traffic.

SOURCE: 

1. Sign up for an email marketing tool 

2. Create an email marketing strategy 

3. Build and grow your email list

4. Setup automation tasks

5. Monitor and improve campaign performance through A/B testing

6. Regularly ‘clean up’ your email lists

SOURCE and for detailed information on how email marketing works, please refer to: 

STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL 

E-MAIL MARKETING

1. Determine Your Goals

2. Choose an Email Marketing Platform

3. Build and Segment an Email List

4. Create a Campaign and Build an Email

5. Enable Autoresponders

6. Enable Tracking

7.  Send

SOURCE and for detailed information on the steps to a successful email campaign, please refer to: 

For tips on how to write persuasive emails, please refer to:

1. Open rate

2. Click-through rate (CTR) 

3. Unsubscribe rate

4. Complaint rate

5. Conversion rate

6. Bounce rate

7. Forwarding rate/email sharing  rate

8. Campaign ROI

9. List growth rate

SOURCE and for detailed information on how to track email marketing success, please refer to:

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E-BOOKS

Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business

Gunelius, Susan.

Irvine : Entrepreneur Press, 2018.

Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business is a complete system to help entrepreneurs and small business owners leverage the power of email to build a business by attracting leads and turning them into customers, brand ambassadors, and revenue generators.

Email Marketing by Jeanniey Mullen; David Daniels; David Gilmour (Foreword by) 

ISBN: 9780470451458

Publication Date: 2008-11-13

If the idea of starting an email marketing campaign overwhelms you, the authors of Email Marketing: An Hour a Day will introduce you to email marketing basics, demonstrate how to manage details and describe how you can track and measure results.  Case studies, step-by-step guides, checklists, quizzes and hands-on tutorials will help you execute an email marketing campaign in just one hour a day. 

eBooks, Audio Books, and Videos from the New York Public Library -- Type your keyword in the search box to see a good number of books on the topics, that you can check out online.

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WEBSITES

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing tactic in which a retailer, typically an online one, rewards a website with a commission for each customer referred via the website’s promotional activities. The website, often called an affiliate, will only get paid when their promotion results in a transaction.

SOURCE: HUBSPOT

Advantages

• Low or Zero capital investment required
• Anyone with basic computer skills can start
• No need to create your own products
• No products to handle
• Test a new niche or topic for validation
• Sales are taken care of for you
• Customer service is done for you
• Best way to make money from low amounts of traffic
• Works with any type of website
• Works even if you don’t have a website

Disadvantages

• Lack of control – Affiliate vendors can close their program, or change the commission % at will.
• No customer data – You are only paid for the initial sale in a lot of cases, so you often don’t get the lifetime value of the customer.
• Can be difficult to scale – Depending on the niche, some websites that rely solely on affiliate marketing can hit an income ceiling.

SOURCE: 

• Using a social profile or website, affiliates promote products or services to entice their audience to click on their affiliate link

• this, then directs the potential buyer to the company’s website or a product page

• Cookies are used to track these referrals

• When a visitor goes to an affiliate website and clicks on an affiliate link, a tracking cookie identifies the affiliate, the company and the commission account.

• The advertiser then maintains a transaction report of all commissionable sales, usually found within the affiliate network’s platform. 

SOURCE: 

IMAGE SOURCE

STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL

AFFILIATE MARKETING

1. Understand what is driving the rise of affiliate marketing and work with it, including great content, putting more budget into affiliate marketing and working at a more personal level. 

2. Look for the main trends that influence affiliate marketing at any given time, and incorporate them into your strategy. 

3. Build an affiliate marketing performance-partnership that works for both sides, be selective about who you work with, and ensure they match your brand, as well as help drive new customers. 

4. Look to work closely with those affiliates who provide you with the biggest turnover, but also deliver on quality and value metrics. 

5. Ensure your affiliates understand your model and adhere to it, and monitor and review at regular intervals. 

SOURCE: 

Key Performance Indicators to Watch: 

1. Clicks vs number of sales

This is, in essence, your conversion rate. It should go without saying that your affiliate conversion rate is a vital KPI to keep watch over.

There could be a few things at play here. The audience may not actually be getting the product they thought they were, suggesting that either the publisher is pushing your product to the wrong audience or that the product or service is being marketed incorrectly. On occasion, this kind of discrepancy in numbers could also mean that a publisher could be engaging in illegitimate tactics to boost their numbers, depending on how you have established your commissions.

2. Cost Per Action and Commissions

Calculating your Cost per Action (CPA) is an important affiliate marketing metric to be able to quickly assess if your campaign is running successfully. By looking at the overall CPA you can see which affiliates could be driving that number up or down. 

3. Segmenting your affiliates

Different types of affiliates can impact different stages of your end client’s buying process. Categorizing your publishers by how they’re making sales or the type(s) of content they are creating can help you understand which area works best for you and your business. 

4. AOV

Also known as Average Order Value or Basket Value, this is a great metric that goes just beyond how many final clicks a publisher garners. 

5. Reversed sales rate

Sometimes known as your chargeback rate, this is your gross sales vs net sales. While a publisher might be creating a large number of sales in the first instance, this assesses the quality of the customers. If an affiliate’s reversed sales rate is high they may be incorrectly representing your product to their audience. This dampens both their brand and yours. 

6. Percentage of new customers

... a successful affiliate program should be continuously drawing in new customers. Without this growth, your money isn’t being well spent. 

7. Growth year on year

Over time it’s beneficial to assess your year on year growth with the program to identify areas for improvement. In this process, you could also identify your top 10 performing publishers and consider why they’re doing so well.

SOURCE and for more detailed information on Affiliate Marketing KPI's, please refer to:   

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E-BOOKS

Anthony Borelli
Greg Holden

For more than a decade, the Internet has allowed people to make substantial amounts of money on both a full-time and part-time basis. Today, with even more online opportunities available than ever before, you can achieve a level of financial success that most people only dream about.

Profit from Your Podcast by Dave Jackson 

ISBN: 9781621537731

Publication Date: 2020-09-29

Profit from Your Podcast provides top strategies and real-life examples of podcast monetization. This book is more than what to do. It also tells you how to do it. 

Nightingale Learning Systems and Entrepreneur Media, Inc.

This practical and densely packed book will reach readers 12 simple, safe, low-cost and low-effort strategies for quickly setting up and activating passive income vehicles in a broad range of sectors like real estate, franchising, and direct sales marketing.

eBooks, Audio Books, and Videos from the New York Public Library -- Type your keyword in the search box to see a good number of books on the topics, that you can check out online.

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BOOKS

Amazon's Dirty Little Secrets by Greg Jameson 

ISBN: 9781630472788

Publication Date: 2014-08-12

Many people believe that Amazon's success is the direct result of a strong user shopping experience. This however is only part of the reason why Amazon is the number one ecommerce company on the world for almost two decades. The real reason behind Amazon's success is that they have mastered the art of getting other people to market and sell for them. From affiliate partners that drive traffic, to online reviews and ratings where customers tell other customers why they should buy a product, to getting free publicity from shows like Oprah or 60 Minutes, Amazon is the online company to emulate.

Affiliate Program Management by Evgenii Prussakov 

ISBN: 9780470651735

Publication Date: 2011-04-12

Affiliate marketing is hot; here's how to get your program going Nearly every retailer in the Internet Retailers' Top 500 has an affiliate marketing program. Now free affiliate networks, automation software, and pay-for-performance compensation models are making it easy for small businesses to take advantage of this marketing tool. In the popular An Hour a Day format, this guide features a detailed, real-world, task-based approach to developing, launching, and managing a successful affiliate marketing program. It explores market research, determining payment models and reporting guidelines, recruiting affiliates, crafting appropriate communications, and much more.