DigitalMarketingDecoded
Digitalmarketingdecoded.wordpress.comContentMarketingStrategy
Whether you are completely new to the Digital Marketing world, or have some experience,
at Digital Marketing Decoded our mission is to make Digital Marketing easy to understand.
This strategy has eight headings, and outlines the methods used for content marketing on Digital
Marketing Decoded.
They are:
1. Target Market
2. Competitive Analysis
3. Brand Position & Voice
4. Keyword Research
5. Develop Content
6. Capturing Customer Information
7. Building Relationships and Driving Traffic (including Social Media)
8. Monitor, Respond & Engage (including site stats and social media insights)
TargetMarketIn choosing a target market, it was decided to not go overly technical. Our target market is small
business owners, or those who have some idea that they should be doing digital marketing, but not
necessarily the knowledge or technical ability to understand digital marketing terms. As the online
world is not geographically limited, we are able to target people worldwide. Were we to continue
this into real world consulting, our target would be geographically limited to the island of Ireland.
To reach our target market we have a number of systems:
The use of a Wordpress.com blog (digitalmarketingdecoded.wordpress.com)
Social Media platforms (Currently using Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus)
The use of email collection methods in order to engage in Email Marketing
CompetitiveAnalysisOur choice of targeting small businesses, and avoiding highly technical descriptions and terms that
only digital marketing professionals would understand, means we have bypassed companies such as
SmartInsights.com and Moz.com, while inevitably placing ourselves in competition with digital
marketing companies like Maguire Digital and Emarkable, who would be working on a similar angle
to ourselves. Although there is a sizable base of companies who are already engaged in serving this
area, our belief is that our friendly, personal offering will benefit us in showing our difference to the
competition.
BrandPosition&VoiceOur brand position, in targeting small business owners and those with little technical knowledge
allows us to avoid the use of acronyms, technical terms and buzzwords. We focus on the use of
simple English, making the topics covered easy to understand. Where technical terms or acronyms
must be used, we explain them in simple English. This allows us to appear friendly and approachable.
At the bottom of every post, we also invite people to comment or engage with us if they have any
further questions on the topic. Those who do choose to contact us with further questions can expect
a timely response from one of our team, who can then serve as a point of contact for further
interaction. This method gives us an opportunity to generate leads from our readers.
KeywordResearchKeyword research is an important element of our content marketing strategy, giving us an
opportunity to engage in Search Engine Optimisation, and to work on getting our content noticed
and highly ranked by Google and other search engines.
Keyword research & blog posts are in the following appendices:
Christopher Morton – 10332032 – Appendix I
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DevelopContentAs part of content development, we have developed a blog, available at
digitalmarketingdecoded.wordpress.com, including individual blog posts (included in the
appendices), an inviting home page, an about us page featuring profiles of our contributors (an
important part of being an approachable, friendly brand) and a contact page. Our site includes
interactive elements including polls, and sharing options for social media. In following inbound best
practice, there is no hard sell or pushing of what we do. Rather, we concentrate on providing
content that visitors want to read, assisting them, and encouraging them to continue the
conversation.
Image: Digital Marketing Decoded front page, showcasing strong brand name, eye catching visual
and interactive elements
CapturingCustomerInformationIt is important that we are able to turn visitors to our website into leads, and on to actively engaged
clients. As part of this, our site provides a number of initiatives, including a prominent “Contact Us”
page, a sidebar showing our social media presence, and, at the bottom of every page, a link to follow
us by email, delivering new posts directly to them, while supplying us with their email details.
Our Facebook page continues with the efforts to capture customer information, including the use of
Facebook’s own Call to Action button, which invites visitors to our Facebook page to “Contact Us”,
and leads them back to our contact us page on our website.
BuildingRelationships&DrivingTrafficHumans are social creatures, and social relationships are important to us. To that end we are
currently present on three Social Media platforms:
Google+
As part of our social media presence, we post engaging content, including updates of new blog posts
(these are published automatically from Wordpress, as well as being manually added), interesting
relevant content from news sources and individual commentary. Where possible, we link to
individual pages on our website, or to the website front page. Comments on our social media posts
are noted and responded to promptly. Sharing buttons are prominent at the end of every post,
encouraging further sharing of information.
We also leverage the internal Wordpress comment system, and comment forms are included on the
bottom of every post. We feel it is important to be able to engage with our visitors, allowing us to
interact and show our skills & knowledge, taking visitors on a journey from visitor, to reader, to lead,
and on to customer.
To continue relationship building, our “About” page contains a brief bio of each team member, and
links back to their LinkedIn profile, which expands on that bio with a full profile of experience and
knowledge. This assists in further proving the human aspect of our approach (you are dealing with a
person, an expert. You are not dealing with a company)
Image: Sample bio from our “About” page
Monitor,RespondandEngageWe have conducted Facebook monitoring through Sprout Social, Twitter monitoring through Twitter
Analytics, and Google+ monitoring through Google My Business. Monitoring of site stats was
conducted through Wordpress. A summary of each channel is below.
Facebook:Our Facebook presence was undoubtedly our strongest, generating:
58 page likes
2167 impressions from 930 unique users (2.33 per user)
42 stories created by share from 26 users
Average engagement 6%
Best posts for engagement (9.76% & 8.11%) were both Wordpress autoposts, which seems
counterintuitive, and merits further research.
Image: Fan & Impression Totals
Image: Facebook Sharing Totals
Images: (Top) Engagement Overview, (Bottom) Post Engagement Details
Twitter:Our Twitter presence was considerably weaker than Facebook, gaining:
779 impressions
Engagement rate 1.4%
Best performing tweet 88 impressions & 5.7% engagement
Part of the difficulty in the management of our Twitter account was the decision to use Tweetdeck
to allow for centralisation of accounts for our users. This, given time, may have been more
successful, but required initial user training.
Image: Tweet Impression Data
Image: Data for top performing tweet
Google+:Google+ was our weakest social channel, and was expected to be weak. Our primary motivation for
the use of Google+ was the perceived SEO benefit of tying directly into Google, to aid with content
indexing. As a result of the Google retooling of Google+ and it’s lack of popular use, we were limited
to just 63 impressions on this channel. Going forward we would be more likely to switch this channel
out in favour of a more productive channel that would better suit our target audience.
Wordpress:Our Wordpress stats tell us that we have not performed poorly, amassing:
342 page views
152 visitors (2.25 page views avg)
45 social shares (including to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit & Tumblr)
No search term data (due to Google encrypting signed in search data)
It is important to note that those who read content on Digital Marketing Decoded were happy to
share, as evidenced by our Wordpress and Facebook sharing figures.
Image: Wordpress Data for views & visitors
Image: Data for Wordpress Sharing Performance
AppendicestoDocumentAppendixI–ChristopherMortonKeywordResearchKeyword Keyword Planner Volume Allintitle volume
Facebook Advertising Explained
40 290
Image: Keyword planner screenshot, showing 40 searches per month
Figure 2: Allintitle search screenshot, showing 290 results
The keyword research, creatively, is more difficult than I initially thought. There is a fine line to strike
between getting the search volume, and being out competed. I believe that I found a good
compromise to work with in this case, as the keyword summed up my post excellently, while not
being too overloaded on the allintitle results.
Blogpost(published30November,takenverbatimfromwebsite17December)
FacebookAdvertisingExplained
Facebook has become notorious for its lack of organic reach (that is, people who
naturally see your posts, without any payment to Facebook). You have probably
already noticed on your own Facebook page, that it is becoming more and more
difficult to reach people. In fact, a recent Locowise study estimated average organic
reach at just 2.6%. You may be doing your part, creating content that your customers
want, but if it is not being seen, what is there that you can do? This is where
advertising options come into play. With that in mind, it is time that Facebook
advertising was explained.
YourInsightsMatter
When it comes to Facebook advertising, knowing who you want to target is the first
thing to note. This is where your existing page insights matter. Your insights detail
who already likes your page, broken down by age, location, language, and gender.
These, your existing audience, already have an interest in your page, in your
business, serve as a starting point for exploring your advertising options.
ThereisMoretoFacebookAdvertisingThan“BoostPost”
Every time you look at your Facebook page, you see that big blue button under
every post. The one marked “boost post”. It can be easy to think of it as your
quickest route into advertising. That is true, it is quick, but there are better ways. You
are about to part with your money for this, so it pays to stop and think through what
you want to do. There is so much more to Facebook advertising than just boosting
your post, after all.
KnowYourObjective
The objective screen, where you decide what you want your advert to achieve.
Knowing your objective, what you want your ad to achieve, will make your Facebook
advertising experience much more positive. You may want more likes on your page,
or to get people to download your app. This decision affects how your ad will look,
and changes options available to you for your advert.
Targeting–ScattergunorLaser
The Facebook Audience Definition Screen. Targeting adults in Ireland yields approx. 2,400,000
people.
How you target your ad determines a potential number of people who will see your
advert. From your own insights you already know the kind of audience you have.
You can then decide what way to target your ad. There are some options here. You
can tightly define your target audience, which reduces your potential reach but
targets those most likely to be interested in your business, or you can target a wider
audience, who may not all be interested. It can be a tightrope to walk at times, but
fortunately, there are things that can be done. You are able to create multiple ad sets
for your campaign, essentially multiple targets, which can see the same or different
versions of your ad. This is a great way of seeing what works better for you.
AdCopyIsImportant
Even when you have your objective set, and your targeting just the way you want it,
your advert will not succeed without the right ad copy. The most important thing is to
catch people’s attention. They will not look at your advert for long, so do something
to stand out. Eye catching imagery is great. Eye catching video is better. Facebook
themselves have noted an 88% increase year on year in video posts, and that more
than 50% of users watch video on Facebook. By using this information to your
advantage, you will be able to obtain a higher return on investment from your
Facebook advert.
DifferentAdvertsServeDifferentPurposes
When working with Facebook advertising, different objectives allow you to use
different advert types. An advert with an objective of driving traffic to your website,
for example, is not constrained to a single landing page. This is ideal if you are telling
a story, or have multiple items to sell, as you can link to multiple images and landing
pages inside one advert. You are effectively getting multiple adverts for the price of
one!
AdvertLocationCanMake(OrBreak)aCampaign
Desktop advert locations: Newsfeed (left) Display (right)
You have doubtless seen Facebook advertising before. It has become more and
more prevalent in recent years. There are three main options included for where your
advert can appear:
Desktop Newsfeed
Mobile Newsfeed
Desktop Right Column (Display)
It can be tempting to say “I want to advertise everywhere!”, but that might not be the
best option. A 2014 survey by Wolfgang Digital looked at the Click Through Ratio
(CTR) of adverts they had the data for. This ratio gives a simple expression of how
many interacted with the advert of those who saw it. The figures were telling. A
display advert had a CTR of 0.04%, or 1 person in every 2,500 who saw the advert.
Newsfeed fared better, with 2.09% CTR, or about 1 in 50. This is 50 times BETTER
return than display.
Budgeting–TheMoneyQuestion
Unfortunately, as with any paid service, the question of cost is bound to pop up
sooner or later. There is no straight answer to “what does it cost?” though. Facebook
Advertising works no matter how small (or big) the budget is. When starting out with
Facebook Advertising, you are best to start with a specific goal, a (relatively) small
budget, and monitor your progress. There is no point in sinking a large sum into a
campaign that is not working for you. There are some tricks you can use though, like
paying per click (CPC) and not per thousand impressions (CPM) and specifying what
you are willing to pay. Facebook will of course give you a suggested figure, and it is
your choice to go over or under this.
I hope this has been enlightening, and has explained Facebook advertising to you,
so you can now use it to successfully grow your business.
AtDigitalMarketingDecodedwearealwayswillingtoansweranyfurtherquestionsyoumayhave.YoucanreachusonourContactUspage,onFacebook,oronTwitter!