Blog

By Tim Phelan, Founder 
36T Creative Company

The Digital Marketing Institute (DMI) / American Marketing Association (AMA) Digital Marketing Dual Certification Course challenged me to upgrade my skills in the rapidly changing world of online marketing. By learning best practices from global marketing leaders, the course forced me to reconsider how 36T Creative Company approaches digital marketing and the role content marketing and strategy plays in achieving business success. Here are some things I learned that I hope helps you in your own marketing journey.

1. Digital Marketing Changes Constantly

Since the dawn of the internet, businesses around the world have sought to reach their audience and convince them to purchase their product or service. As digital technology evolved in step with increased competition online, relatively new marketing channels like social media, online advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing began to dominate the digital landscape due to their effectiveness in engaging highly targeted audiences at a lower cost compared to traditional channels.

The explosion of analytics and AI algorithms provides marketers and businesses with detailed data on user behaviour that allows for more precise targeting of ideal customer profiles, making easier than ever before to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time.

Content marketing forged a new frontier called inbound marketing, where instead of pushing out sales messages, brands could ‘pull in’ interested audiences who are using keywords to search for solutions to problems and pain points. The gist of content marketing is to provide valuable and timely information to better inform prospects and help solve common problems and pain points. This approach builds trust, and when implemented correctly, content marketing positions brands as the solution to their challenges, leading to increased conversions and sales.

Today, mobile phones are increasingly essential access points where consumers are actively searching for information. Google’s Page Rank and Rankbrain algorithms reward websites that are optimized for mobile users. The algorithms also favour websites that contain relevant information that help consumers make informed decisions, use multimedia like video embeds, and demonstrate domain authority through the accumulation of backlinks from other trustworthy sites.

The world of digital marketing continues to evolve at a frenzied pace. Today’s marketers need to continually educate themselves on new approaches, technologies and best practices to remain relevant in a rapidly changing space. The DMI Digital Marketing Pro Certification is a great platform to learn the newest best practice techniques from some of the global leaders in the field.

2. Strategy is the Key to Marketing Success

A great digital marketing strategy can be the difference between failure and success. For a marketing strategy to be effective, it must clearly lay out an objective aligned that can be measured and rallied around. Setting an agreed-upon objective from the outset helps teams focus on the end result, allowing you to work backwards to uncover strategy and tactics for delivering on that outcome.

Audience research is fundamental to a well-developed digital marketing strategy. In order to resonate with your audience, a marketer must first understand the motivations, aspirations, behaviours and pain points that lead them to seeking out a solution. What is the problem you are helping the audience solve? Where does your audience go to find information? What keywords do they use to ask questions on Google? Well-conducted marketing research is fundamental to formulating a plan to help customers find you online and create an opportunity to engage with them.

Once you understand your audience like the back of your hand, you need to develop a creative strategy and create messaging that resonates. A creative strategy will outline the narrative, tone, visual assets and formats required to engage with your audience in a meaningful way.

A channel strategy outlines the various online channels you will use to connect with your audience, and best practice for many businesses involves using a combination of organic search (content marketing) and paid channels like paid search, display and video advertising. By combining paid and organic search strategies, you can increase your reach and chance of success significantly.

Marketing strategy is a constantly evolving and iterative process. By monitoring campaigns closely and reporting on key performance indicators, you can make incremental adjustments to improve your marketing efforts over time.

3. Tailor Messaging to Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

When it comes to business-to-business marketing (B2B), purchase decisions flow through a series of steps that leads customers closer to a sale until a purchase is made. These stages include:

• The Awareness Stage: A customer becomes aware of a problem and searches online for potential solutions.

• The Interest Stage: A customer discovers your brand and becomes interested in how you might solve their problem.

• The Consideration Stage: The customer is looking at other options and trying to assess which companies might solve their problem best.

• The Conversion Stage: The customer has made a decision and intention to purchase.

• The Retention Stage: The customer has purchased your product or service, creating an opportunity to retain them for future purchases, or generate referrals.

By creating purposeful content and choosing the right channels to reach them at each stage of the buyer’s journey, the customer is led further along the funnel towards a purchase. By taking a strategic approach, the results of your marketing efforts are optimized and your ROI increases.

4. Drive Conversions with Landing Pages

Landing pages are customized pages on your website that customers ‘land on’ when clicking on a link. Each piece of content you create should have a specific call to action, telling the viewer where to go to take the purchasing process to the next step. With any online marketing campaign, it is important to determine where the customer is on the buyer’s journey and what action you want them to take next.

Having dedicated landing pages on your site helps the viewer along the path to purchase and can improve the results you get with your digital marketing strategy. As an example, suppose you wanted to increase leads for your B2B organization. You could create a digital ad that targets your ideal customer persona. When clicked, the ad takes them to a dedicated page that educates the viewer on your unique selling proposition and why they should consider your product or service.

On the page you could also have a webform inviting the viewer to receive more information and insights on their challenge. Once contact details are entered on the form, Voila! You now have a lead, and a way to keep them engaged with your business on their path to purchase.

5. Use Data and Analytics to Guide Decision Making

Marketing is both a creative and scientific field. Today more than ever, businesses need to monitor data to confirm what is working, what is not, and what can be optimized for better performance. Websites are best thought of as central information hubs, where the goal is to attract qualified audiences to visit, explore and engage with your content to lead them toward taking a valuable action like making a purchase or signing up for more information.

Every website should be closely monitored and optimized to enhance the user experience and find out more about your audience and where they are coming from. The leading tool for this today is Google Analytics, as it provides incredibly detailed information you can use to make informed decisions on what content is working best towards your desired business outcomes. 

Data can also be pulled from native analytics found on social media channels, Google Ads, Google Search Console as well as through market research and third-party apps. The most valuable marketers today understand how to use these tools to help your business stand out and engage with your target audience online.

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