It’s a common misconception that you need complex marketing funnels and big budgets to achieve successful results in digital marketing, especially if you’re a small business. The reality is that simplicity can often outperform complexity. Businesses of all sizes can achieve great results by focusing on effective digital marketing strategies, such as those outlined in this article:
- Blogging with SEO in mind
- Utilizing video marketing
- Building an engaging social media presence
- Building an email list and nurturing your subscribers
- Paid Media
- Incorporate influencer marketing into your plan
- Focus on customer experience and engagement
These strategies can help you reach your audience effectively without complicated processes.
Blogging with SEO in mind
Let’s explore the power of blogging—a classic yet evergreen strategy that never fails to attract and engage your audience. But here’s the catch: simply blogging isn’t enough. The real game-changer is blogging with SEO in mind. Why so? Let’s dive in.
Traditionally, blogging was all about sharing ideas and offering value to readers. It was a one-sided conversation where the writer dictated the narrative. However, with the advent of SEO, blogging has evolved into a more strategic tool for digital marketing.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is all about making your content visible and attractive to search engines—and thereby to potential customers. But how does this differ from standard blogging?
Answering Customer Problems
When you write with SEO, you’re not just blogging—you’re solving problems. You’re answering the questions your customers are asking search engines. You’re providing solutions and value, which increases your visibility and authority in the digital space.
In short, while traditional blogging can be a source of information, blogging with SEO is a tool for driving customer engagement and website traffic. It’s the strategy that lets your content be discovered by the right people at the right time.
For example:
Suppose you run an electronic e-commerce store that sells air-purifying devices. Your potential customers are naturally asking questions about air pollution:
What is air pollution
How to control air pollution
What causes air pollution
In the screenshot above, we’re using the limitedly free tool SEMrush to determine what people ask about my topic: air pollution.
Now, we can write blogs answering these questions. It’s important to keep two things in mind before choosing a main question (best keyword) for your business:
Volume – The average monthly searches for the analyzed keyword over the last 12 months.
Keyword difficulty – Keyword Difficulty shows you how hard it would be for a website to rank organically in the Google top 10 for the analyzed keyword. The higher the percentage, the harder it will be to achieve high rankings.
When you’re a new website, go behind keywords that are ‘easy’ and get a decent monthly volume.
If you can do this and rank, you’ll get free, consistent, and passive traffic from Google month after month.
Use video marketing to capture the attention
As digital marketers, we always search for strategies that pack a punch. And guess what? I’ve stumbled upon a goldmine. Video content is the secret sauce your marketing mix might be missing.
Don’t just take my word for it. Recent research shows that video is 50 times more likely to drive organic search results than plain text. That’s no small potatoes!
Let me share an example of how powerful video marketing can be for your business:
Bakclinko shares this on one of their blogs; they receive over 189.6k views alone from YouTube videos.
Also, Brian Dean (Backlinko founder) recently published a video on SEO three weeks ago, and it ranks amongst the top results on YouTube, and almost 30k people have already watched it.
Furthermore, Google shows video results for a lot of searches. That makes videos even more important.
When you search on Google you will notice- Backlinko has also grabbed a second position on Google video results. That gives them extra traffic from Google other than YouTube.
How can you do it for your business?
Go to a popular video in your niche and copy the same keywords that the video is optimized around.
As you probably know, keyword optimization is a KEY part of YouTube SEO. If a video has lots and lots of views, chances are that the video is optimized around a popular keyword.
To execute this step, go to another channel in your niche.
Then, sort their videos by “Most Popular”
Finally, to see which keywords that video is optimized around, and this is easy.
We recommend the VidIQ Chrome extension. It shows you a video’s tags right on the page.
Leverage the power of social media
Social media isn’t about posting whatever you feel like randomly.
For a small business, focusing on too many social media platforms is difficult.
Choose one platform where most of your audience hangs out.
How to do it?
Use a limitedly free tool, SparkToro:
Enter your topic and analyze where the audience interested in your topic hangs out:
First and foremost, it’s crucial to comprehend the motives of your audience on any platform you select. Understand why they’re there, and figure out how you can cater to their needs.
Take YouTube, for instance. Folks flock to this platform either for entertainment or to gain knowledge.
On the contrary, Facebook and Instagram serve a different purpose. Users would prefer to avoid scrolling through lengthy tutorials or ongoing promotions. They’re looking for engaging, amusing, or startling content to share with their network.
So, how do you capture attention in this bustling social media landscape? You might spin a compelling story, craft a brief video, or devise an innovative approach that sets you apart from the sea of self-promotion and vanity shots.
As for Twitter, the key lies in concise, efficient communication without overwhelming your followers.
Build an email list and nurture your subscribers
According to Constant Contact, Email marketing has an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent.
Email marketing remains a powerhouse in the digital marketing landscape. According to Statista, an estimated 4.1 billion email users will be worldwide in 2023, presenting an enormous potential audience for your brand.
The strategy of building an email list and nurturing your subscribers is not just about sending emails but creating a personalized experience that fosters long-term customer relationships.
At adschoolmaster – for every blog they publish, Hemant Sharma (the founder at seo-focused blogs, adschoolmaster) sends out an email to over 10k subscribers at adschoolmaster.
Of course, these 10k subscribers have yet to be created overnight. It took them some good four years to have them.
We’ve seen success with a moderate approach, but should rapid list-building be your focus, feel free to turn up the dial on your opt-ins.
List building isn’t a finite journey—it’s a continuous endeavor. So, don’t let the fear of a small list hold you back from reaching out to your subscribers.
Strive to keep your audience intrigued, providing them with meaningful content—even if they’re few.
Commit to this approach over time, and you’ll cultivate a responsive, enthusiastic audience who genuinely looks forward to your communications.
Invest in paid advertising for quick results
No matter how much AI advancement happens. One thing that will always continue working is paid ads.
That’s how search engines, social media platforms, etc. make money.
Also, nothing is free. Many starters choose SEO marketing, thinking it’d be cheaper than paid ads.
But that’s not the case.
Let’s look at the example:
To rank high in Google – three things are important
Content, RankBrain, and backlinks.
You create equally good content like the top-ranking articles in Google.
But remember, if you get super authoritative backlinks, your site won’t rank.
To create backlinks – you will need to put in more resources. And if you’re sitting on a limited budget, gaining many backlinks from super authoritative websites will take a lot of work.
Second thing-
Choosing the right platform to start paid ads with is extremely important.
Suppose you’re selling men’s shoes, and advertising on Pinterest is a bad choice because over 80% of users on Pinterest are females.
Other than that – if you’re doing keyword-targeted ads on Google. Then, go after cheaper keywords. They are not only cheaper but more specific.
For example,
Targeting ‘Sneakers’ is less expensive than going after ‘shoes,’ and also the intent is clearer.
Third thing-
People searching for chairs will expect you to take them to the sales page on Google. Because most likely, they want to purchase – that’s why they are searching.
But on the contrary, people on social media aren’t in buying mode – so when they stumble upon your ad, they don’t want you to show them a sales page. They would like to know more about what kind of chair you’re selling – hence, you can take them to one of your blogs explaining questions about your product.
Incorporate influencer marketing into your plan
Influencer marketing has emerged as an effective tool for businesses, especially small ones, to expand their reach. It’s a cost-effective method that provides a substantial return on investment. According to a report by Mediakix, businesses earn a staggering $5.20 for every $1 invested in influencer marketing. Imagine that!
How influencer marketing is Influencing SEO
Lily Ray on X:
“I believe that the future of SEO will be highly tied in with influencer marketing. Hear me out: More and more SERP features are highlighting individual experience. Short videos. Perspectives. Knowledge graphs. Author carousels. Testing .”
Twitter, 21 August 2023,
https://twitter.com/lilyraynyc/status/1693432616039465176
How about an example?
Here it is:
Tesla’s influencer marketing strategy is worth mentioning.
The company has a strong presence on social media and has partnered with influencers to promote its products.
Tesla has also used influencer marketing to create buzz around new product launches, which has helped to generate excitement and anticipation among its target audience.
This has helped Tesla to become one of the most successful companies in the world.
Focus on customer experience and engagement.
This one strategy never goes out of fashion.
Technologies change. Platforms change. But people stay the same.
In the age of AI, content creation is paramount. Now, there’s too much content for people to digest.
According to firstsiteguide, around 7 million blogs are published every day.
The only way to gain customer attention is to cut through the noise created with so much content.
It would be best to get as close to your customer as possible to do that.
The closer you get to the customer, the easier it is to create solutions for them.
Let’s take an example from Amazon:
When nailing the personalization game in digital marketing, Amazon stands as a maestro. The e-commerce giant cleverly spins the concept of recommendations with an ‘inspiration’ twist – suggesting products are not just randomly pitched but thoughtfully inspired by your recent browsing behavior. Now, isn’t that a smart move?
Imagine this – Amazon, with its vast data capabilities, masterfully sifts through customer browsing and purchase history. It’s like an expert detective piecing together clues to discern the perfect products to recommend to each user. Quite ingenious, don’t you think?
At its core, this strategy empowers you to demonstrate to your customers that you truly understand them – you’re tuned in to their needs and desires.
Consider this – when visitors land on your website, their time is precious. They’re not there for a stroll; they have a purpose. So, ensure your site is like a well-organized shop where everything is easy to find. The quicker they can accomplish their task, the better.
And here’s a secret sauce – user feedback. Don’t just accept it; embrace it. It’s a treasure trove of insights to elevate your user experience. Listen to what they’re saying, respond appropriately, test new solutions, and then – ask for more feedback. This cycle of improvement can skyrocket your engagement levels. Trust me, it works!
Well, that’s all we have for now.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading the article.
For more such tips – follow Hemant Sharma’s marketing newsletter at adschoolmaster.com.
