Help!

I've started but what do i do now?

I have made a start but I need some support developing and implementing a better digital strategy.

Not sure what to do next?

Once you have made a start with Digital marketing for your business, it can be all too easy to come to a bit of a standstill. Perhaps you have set up your social media pages and your website blog, published some posts and started to build your audience – but how to continue from there?

Refining your strategy

It can be hard to keep finding the inspiration you need to keep going unless you have a strategic plan in place. Perhaps you are not seeing the results you hoped for or engagement is low? If you are feeling a bit stuck – you probably just need to refine your strategy.

Rumble Digital Marketing
1

Is it Digital Marketing or Content Marketing?

Digital Marketing Funnel

Digital marketing and content marketing are pretty much interchangeable terms.

Strictly speaking, the term digital marketing covers all your online efforts to reach your customers across all digital channels. This would include website content, blogs, news and static web copy, social media, email marketing and any paid channels like Google adverts or paid promotion on social media. There is however no digital marketing without content so in that respect they are really one and the same thing.

The principles of inbound marketing

An understanding of the principals of inbound marketing are an essential part of creating a content strategy. As is an understanding of the marketing funnel. As many as 75% of the visitors to your website are accessing content whilst in the research phase of their journey. Moving towards making a purchase of goods or services online. 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. (Source: HubSpot).

Find out more information on the principals of Inbound Strategy and how it brings visitors to your website.

Start by defining your goals

There is no point is churning out digital content if you don’t have a clear idea of what you want your marketing efforts to achieve in terms of your business goals. This is generally more nuanced that ‘I want more customers’ and depends what your website’s main function is. For some, their website is a straightforward commerce site and the goal is to sell more products. For others, who do business in their physical location, the purpose of the website is different, to raise awareness of your business and perhaps get people though the door. Some may simply want sign-ups via their web pages. Having a clear idea of this before you start is essential.

2

Who, What, Where and Why...

Once you have taken on-board the principals of inbound marketing, and what you want to achieve, the basics of your strategy really revolve around these 4 W's.

Who are you targeting with your content?
What are you targeting them with?
Where are you going to find your audience
Why are you doing it?

Once you understand your audience you can start to answer their questions and solve their problems with your content, and start leading them through their journey from lead to customer.

Who are you targeting

Personas, again!

The first of these is the who. This is the first because it is arguably the most important. If you don’t know who you are targeting, you are going to have a hard time implementing any kind of digital strategy and content plan. Defining your audience enables you to empathise with them and helps you to direct your content towards them. We have explored buyer personas in more detail in our blog post Working with Buyer Personas. Spending time defining buyer personas is time well spent.

The what...

Once you know who you are targeting, working out what to target them with becomes much easier. You should take each of your personas individually and think about the journey they will take. Using a content planning tool is useful here. A content planner can help you to look at each stage of your buyer’s journey and think about what information would be helpful to them at different stages.

The buyers journey can be broken down into three stages:

Awareness ➡ Consideration ➡ Decision.

So your content plan needs to look at what information you need to provide to satisfy the needs of these three stages.

Where?

If you know who you are targeting and what you’re are publishing to attract and nurture them through your funnel, the next thing you need to know is where you are publishing.

The bulk of your content will likely be published to your own website. This will be in the form of blog posts, news items, website copy, downloadable resources like white papers, how-to guides and cheat sheets. There are of course other channels for your content to be seen like social media, emails, other websites and possibly physical brochures or catalogues. For more information on the various channels and their uses.

Finally, Why?

Why might seem like an odd question. We don’t mean why publish, more why are you publishing that specific piece of content in that specific place.

It is important that you think about what purpose your content is serving, what questions is it answering and what effect is it having. Asking why means you are looking at the motivations and needs of your potential customer and why that content will be useful to them. Ultimately, this will hopefully bring them closer to becoming a customer.

3

Next – what do you want to happen?

Clear
ideas
Quality
Content
Reach
Buyers

Once you have a clear idea of the who, what, where and why you should have a clear idea of where the gaps in your current content are and what you need to produce.

If you lack time, it may be helpful to consider commissioning some help from a content creations specialist or web copy writer to help you with this.

Have a clear idea

For your efforts to be successful, you also need to have a clear idea of what you want your website visitor to do. As we have mentioned above, thinking about the potential customers who visit your website in terms of where they are in their buyers journey will help you to look at what call to action is appropriate at that point.

Offer quality content

If they are still in a research/awareness phase, it may be appropriate to offer some more content which is purely information based. A high quality, free download which will help them to answer questions, a how-to guide, an e-book may be appropriate. If you are targeting customers who are in a consideration phase, it may be that information comparing products or solutions may be appropriate. For people at the decision stage, perhaps a special offer may be the best way to get them off the fence. Of course, this is very dependent on your business model and what your end goal is but you get the idea. Your call to actions should lead to dedicated landing pages which are designed to reinforce your message and persuade your user to complete an action. This gives you the opportunity to reinforce your message and the key features and benefits of what you are offering.

Target & convert

There is not really a one-size fits all solution when it comes to using call to action points on your website. Trying to force people to convert before they are ready runs the risk of alienating them so be sure to target your offer based on your buyer’s journey.

4

Refining your message and your offer

If you feel that you are not getting the results you would like from your website and you are looking to optimise conversions, you need to take some time to look at your offer.

Using split testing is a good way to test your messaging and can be easily set up for landing pages, mail-outs and even online adverts. Using subtly different messaging, colours, images and layouts can all influence how well people interact with your calls to action and how effective they are. For more on split testing and conversion optimisation.

Split Testing

Using tools like Hotjar can show you heatmaps and recordings of people using your site and this can often be an eye-opening process. Often seeing people actually using your website can help you to understand whether people are having trouble finding the information they need or whether they are seeing your call to action points. You can also measure and track goals and funnels via Google Analytics and through the analytics tools in adwords or social media channels.

For more on split testing and conversion optimisation, see our blog post 'Split Testing - What is it and why should I do it?'

5

Tool-up

Automating social media and emails with online apps such as Hootsuite, Buffer, MailChimp and StoryChief can save you time.

There are a number of great online apps and tools out there which can really help with your digital marketing efforts in terms of saving you time and automating processes.

Social media scheduling apps like Hootsuite and Buffer can help you to deliver your social media content at a consistent time and get your posts queued up in advance and posted automatically. Emails can be set up automatically and scheduled to be sent based on a variety of triggers via mailing aps like Mailchimp.

There are also apps you can use for content like Story Chief which enable you to post your content out to multiple channels from one place. It also offers a way of working collaboratively which is great if you are buying in content creation or copy writing skills from outside agencies.

6

Keep at it!

You have to think of your digital and content marketing as an ongoing strategy rather than something you can simply put in place and then forget about.

It goes with saying that social media needs to be consistently updated to keep your followers interested and engaged. Many of us find that this is easier to do as it is more immediate and less time consuming. You also need to take the time to keep your blog and other site content up to date and keep it coming. In terms of search engine optimisation, content strategy is very effective. It is not a quick fix though and will take some time to start to show results.

Your website content also has another purpose, beyond simple SEO.

It is also the way in which you can demonstrate your expertise, answer questions and move potential customers through your marketing funnel.

It can be difficult, especially if you don’t have a dedicated marketing department, to stay inspired to keep maintain a digital output, especially when you are trying to do your day job.

For more information on our digital marketing services and how we can help you to refine and manage your digital marketing – get in touch to discuss your needs. We can offer help on a one-off, project or ongoing basis, depending on what you need.

Contact Rumble

Charlton House, 32 High Street
Cullompton, Devon,
EX15 1AE. UK
T: 01884 214111
E: info@wearerumble.co.uk

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