the definitive guide to digital marketing success definitive guide to digital...the definitive guide...

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TODIGITAL MARKETING

SUCCESS

The Definitive Guide to Digital Marketing Success

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CONTENTSWhat Is Digital Marketing? 3

Building Your Digital Marketing Strategy 4

Identify your goals and audience 4

Reach your audience 4

Engage with them 4

Convert them into customers 4

Keep them loyal 4

Identifying Your Goals & Audience 5

Start from the end and work back 5

Funnel Goals 6

Secondary Goals 6

Ultimate Goals 6

Who is your ideal customer? 7

Useful Tools 8

Reach Your Audience 9

You know who they are, now you need to reach them 9

Social media isn’t a sales channel yet. 9

But it’s getting there. 9

Beyond Social 9

Speak Their Language 10

Let Them Help You 10

Useful Tools 11

Engage With Your Audience 12

It’s Good To Talk 12

Go To Them 12

Useful Tools 13

Convert Them Into Customers 14

From lead to sale 14

Email Marketing Works 15

Useful Tools 16

Keep them loyal 17

Dealing with churn 17

Satisfaction, guaranteed 17

Know Your Weaknesses 17

It’s Not What Happens, 17

It’s How You React That Matters 17

Keep Telling Them How Great Your Product Is 17

Useful Tools 18

Improve Everything 19

How you can use your data to improve: 19

Useful Tools 20

In Summary 22

Who are we? 23

About the author 24

http://www.adcash.com


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WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?

Quite simply, digital marketing is using digital media to promote a product, brand or service.

The key difference between digital and traditional marketing is that you can:

MEASURE EVERYTHING.

This is why, in the relatively short time digital marketing has been around, it has exploded.

Gone are the days where you have to go almost entirely on gut feeling.

Everything can be put under the microscope, analyzed and optimized, often in real-time.



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Building Your Digital Marketing Strategy“Failing to plan, is planning to fail”, as the saying goes and it’s as true

when talking about your digital marketing strategy as it is climbing a

mountain. When putting together your strategy, there are some key

elements you need to address.

Identify your goals and audienceWho is it you want to reach and what do you want them to do?

Reach your audienceHow and where are you going to target your audience?

Engage with themWhat are you going to do to get them to engage with you?

Convert them into customersHow are you going to do to convert them from a lead into a sale?

Keep them loyalWhat will you do to retain their custom?

WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?



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IDENTIFYING YOUR GOALS & AUDIENCEStart from the end and work back

This sits near the very top of the tree. You should identify what it is you

want to do with your marketing and who you want to reach. Define

your ideal customer or customers. Write detailed descriptions of

who that person is, the sites they visit, the things they identify with.

Choosing your marketing goals is critical. If you go into anything,

whether it’s digital or traditional marketing, not having clearly defined

goals and metrics for measuring your achievements, means that,

potentially, anything you spend on marketing is just like burning

money.

How you achieve your end goal will likely vary per channel, because

people interact with each channel differently. The funnel of interaction

for an email marketing campaign with existing customers will almost

certainly look different to a social media campaign, paid or otherwise.



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Funnel GoalsThe little baby-steps

along the way to your ultimate goal.

• Open Rate

• Click Through Rate

• Registrations

Secondary GoalsWhile not critical,

these can certainly be beneficial.

• Engagement Rates

• Post Likes

• Social Shares

All of these goals are just an example.Every business is different. But getting everything down at the very beginning is key.

It’s better to have a draft goal plan than none at all.

IDENTIFYING YOUR GOALS & AUDIENCE

Ultimate GoalsYour holy-grail. Everything you do should be

done with intention of making this happen.

• Conversions

• Transaction Value



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Who is your ideal customer?Write down 3 or 4 examples of who your dream customer is. Is it you?

Then write that down. Even if you know yourself, chances are other people will understand you differently.

Age, Gender, Interests, Location, Favourite Sites

By clearly defining your audience, you can make sure your marketing strategy speaks to those people.

If you don’t define them, how and where they communicate, how can you reach them? (Hint: you won’t).




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Useful Tools

Google AnalyticsOut of all the tools mentioned in this eBook, Google Analytics is

probably the most important. And, it’s free!

GA has been a mainstay for digital-marketers for a while now and

with good reason. When implemented correctly it can be a highly

effective way of gathering all important analytical data. You also use

the demographics features to give you a clear picture of who your

audience are, where they are and more. Most importantly though,

you can use the eCommerce functionality to track conversions and

then attribute value to those conversions.

SlackIf you’re a team of people, working together towards a common goal,

not only do you need to be communicating with your customers, you

need to be talking with each other. Slack is a great way of bringing

teams together to collaborate on projects and you should

definitely take a look at it. It allows you to create team channels,

private channels and send direct messages. It has a whole host of

integrations with things like Google Drive and Dropbox.


If you have a group of 5 or more people working together, having a unified, internal communication system, like Slack, is a must.



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REACH YOUR AUDIENCE

You know who they are, now you need to reach themBy defining who it is you want to reach the next step is actually speak

to them. Picking the best channels to reach your audience can be

tricky, but it’s made much easier if you know who you’re talking to.

Different types of people use different platforms and channels in

different ways.

Social media isn’t a sales channel yet.But it’s getting there.Right now social media is seen as more for brand building than directly

driving sales. But the data contained within social media can be a

goldmine if you’re looking for ways to improve everything from tweets

to ad copy. Seeing who interacts with what and how they do it can

give you key optimization insights.

Beyond SocialIn almost every scenario, your website should sit at the heart of your

on-site flow; you want people to go from wherever they are, to your site.



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Speak Their LanguageIf you’re going to have a multi-lingual presence and product, don’t

think that simply translating will be enough. Often, localisation gets

looked at as just converting your native language into that of your

target market, but that won’t do. You need to actually localise you

content and communication so that it’s relevant to that country.

Let Them Help YouIf you already have an existing customer-base, why not consider

letting them help you? Firms like Dropbox and AirBNB have seen

incredible success through their campaigns: offering discounts or

added storage (in the case of Dropbox) every time someone you

know signs up. It can be an incredibly cost effective way to grow

quickly and early on in your life-cycle, even with a relatively small

customer list.

REACH YOUR AUDIENCE

PPC

SEARCH

RETARGETING

DISPLAY

EMAIL

NEWSLETTER CHURN

TRANSACTIONAL

SOCIAL

LINKEDIN

FACEBOOK

OTHERNETWORKS

CONTENT

PRESSRELEASES

BLOG

PAIDREVIEWS

YOUR AWESOMEWEBSITE

LOCALPRINT

DIGITAL

OFFERSBLOG CONTENT

“WE MISS YOU...”SURVEY

FEEDBACK

ADWORDS | BING | YANDEX

SOCIAL DISPLAYGOOGLE DISPLAY ADS

VIDEO ADSINSTAGRAMPINTEREST

MONITOR ANDENGAGE

“BOOSTED” POSTSSHARED CONTENT

MESSAGES

“HOW TO...”INDUSTRY NEWS

COMPANY UPDATES



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Useful Tools

HootsuiteHootsuite is a social media management tool that allows you to

manage, create and monitor social media posts, all in one place.

Using a social media management tool is great way of taking the

sometimes laborious process of creating content for lots of different

social media platforms and streamlining it. If you plan on using

social to build your brand, you should really take a look at it.

Other Platforms To Consider:

• Buffer

• Sprout Social

CrowdIn If you’re looking to localise your content, either in your platform or

on your marketing website, CrowdIn is a great tool for managing

that process. It’s effectively a CMS for your translations, allowing you

to manage your translators, whether they’re internal, agencies or

even using crowd sourced translations. It also allows for in-context

localisation; translators can see the text as it will appear to users, in

platform, rather than dealing with spreadsheets where text contains

little or no context.Top tip: If you’re localising your content, avoid using spreadsheets. If you must

use spreadsheets, try including descriptions and in-context examples to help smooth the localisation process.REACH YOUR AUDIENCE



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ENGAGE WITH YOUR AUDIENCEIt’s Good To TalkOnce you’ve reached your audience, getting them engaged and invested in your brand is key.

Involve them in the discussion as much as possible to make them feel valued and understood.

By doing this you keep them invested in what you have to offer.

Go To ThemIf your customers want to send sales queries via social media,

despite you having a shiny, dedicated sales page, then let them. Have the discussion with them there.

Engage with them where they feel most

comfortable. By forcing them to have to go

through another step in the funnel, you’re

increasing the risk of them giving up on you

and looking elsewhere.

You can use comments on your social

media posts as an opportunity to engage

with them. Not only does this show your

openness and willingness to communicate

in their eyes, if it’s an open channel, like a

Facebook post, others will see that as well.



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Useful Tools

IntercomIntercom is a multi-faceted set of tools that covers everything from

sales and support to transactional email, but it’s Intercom’s Engage

product that’s really relevant here. It allows you to use targeted,

automated messages (either by email, in platform or in-app). You can

use it to announce new features at the time when you know they’re

most likely to be relevant to individual users.

KloutThis is a really useful tool to help build engagement on social media by

suggesting content to share or create to generate an impact with your

audience. It allows to track retweets, likes and shares and aggregates

all of that into a “Klout Score”.

LithiumKlout is actually now part of Lithium, but the tools offered by Lithium

are likely to appeal to larger enterprise-level organisations.

ENGAGE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE



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CONVERT THEM INTO CUSTOMERSFrom lead to sale

After capturing a lead, you now need to convert them into a sale.

Most frequently, this lead will be in the form of an email, so sending them timely, relevant messages is key.

Consider using incentives, like discounts, free trials or account credits to get them onboard. Free trials can be a

very effective way of improving conversion rates if your product is SaaS or something similar. You can even

consider combining a free trial, to onboard your customer and then combine that with a discount on their first

3-months of membership.

73% of marketers agree that email marketing is core to their business* Source Salesforce

Is Email Marketing *producing ROI?Produces significant ROI

Produces some ROI

Will eventually produce ROI

Indirectly produces ROI

Not likely to produce ROI

Unsure

21%

32%

20%

18%

5%

3%

73%91%


https://secure.sfdcstatic.com/assets/pdf/datasheets/mc_2015stateofmarketing.pdf


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Email Marketing WorksRecently, email marketing has gone from being the “ugly duckling” of digital marketing to seeing somewhat of a

resurgence. Why? Targeting.

CONVERT THEM INTO CUSTOMERS

Transactional Emails

Loyalty

Birthday

Browser Retargeting

Very Effective / Effective

74%

72%

75%

73%

Somewhat Effective

18%

21%

17%

20%

Not very effective/ not at all

6%

5%

6%

5%

Don’t know

2%

2%

2%

2%

This all comes back to defining your audience and goals at the beginning of the process. If you’re clear in your

own mind who these people are and what you want them to do, wrapping that up in a simple, elegant message

becomes that much easier.

Using subject lines that are both clear and relevant to them means people will open the email. Then keeping

the contents of that email brief and to the point means they’re going to read it. Finally, having an understandable,

clickable CTA means they’re going to reach the page you need them to be on to convert.

If you’ve already managed to capture a lead or maybe on board someone with a free trial, sending them messages

triggered by specific actions within your platform or site can dramatically increase the likelihood of them

converting into a paying customer.* Source Salesforce


https://secure.sfdcstatic.com/assets/pdf/datasheets/mc_2015stateofmarketing.pdf


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Useful Tools

MailChimpThere’s lots of things to keep on top when you’re using email to

market yourself and MailChimp helps a lot with that. Covering

everything from designing templates and email campaigns,

managing lists and tracking the success of your email marketing

efforts. It allows you to AB test many things, something that is

very useful when optimizing your campaigns (you should really be

optimizing). You can also use it to create forms to capture email

leads on your website or via social media.

If you’re looking for a way to handle transactional emails, MailChimp

also offers their Mandrill API.

YesWareOffering a lot of the same functionality as MailChimp, but with a

more sales team oriented approach, YesWare is great for optimizing

your direct sales channel. It provides valuable analytical data on

open rates, device types, click through rates and how your potential

customers are viewing your sales presentations.

CONVERT THEM INTO CUSTOMERS



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KEEP THEM LOYALDealing with churnChurn is a problem for any business, but it can be especially problematic

for those whose product is SaaS. It’s inevitable that a percentage of

your customers will stop using your service at some point, due to

things beyond your control. But there are things that you do control

and can act upon to keep people onboard.

Satisfaction, guaranteedUsing short surveys to understand why customers have stopped

working with you can help you understand where you went wrong

and where you need to improve. Avoid using leading questions that

can end up contaminating your results. Most importantly, don’t make

it seem like “work”. If it’s 20 questions long and looks like an exam

paper, people are going to close it the moment it’s loaded. By keeping

it short, you’ll get better responses, and people will be less likely to

start randomly clicking to get it over.

Know Your WeaknessesUnderstand where you need to improve is key to retaining customers.

You need to give them the opportunity to easily contact you if

the have a problem - whether that’s through an easily reachable

feedback form or asking for their feedback every time you email them.

It’s Not What Happens,It’s How You React That MattersYou’re going to mess at some point. It happens to the best of us. But

what happens after is what really matters.

• Say sorry.

• Tell people what went wrong and what you’re doing

about it.

• Share what you’ve learned and the measures you’re

going to put in place to prevent it from happening

again.

• Make it clear that you’re looking forward to their

continued support.

Keep Telling Them How Great Your Product IsCustomers these days have a huge amount of choice. Use every

interaction they have with you as a means to reinforce the message

that your product is the best out there. Keep giving them reasons

to stay with you and they will.



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Useful Tools

SurveyMonkeyIf you want to run surveys to find out how your customers feel

about your product, Survey Monkey is a great place to start. It offers

MailChimp integration, so you can use your existing customer lists,

without having to re-add them. It contains all of the question types

you should need and allows you to randomize answers and test email

subject lines.


• Google Forms: Super simple, super free. If you’re just getting

started and you want a simple way to reach out for feedback.

• Qualtrics: Enterprise grade surveys and feedback. It may be

out your budget range if you’re just getting started, but it offers

a lot of powerful tools and flexibility that is sometimes missing in

SurveyMonkey.

KEEP THEM LOYAL



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IMPROVE EVERYTHINGUse your data to deliver better marketing

The key advantage you have with digital marketing is that everything

is measurable. So, measure it. From the very outset make sure you’re

tracking everything that can possibly be tracked. If you’re not tracking

early on (read: from the beginning), there’s no way for you to go back

a get that data. It’s gone.

Small changes. Big returns.

The idea of “marginal gains”, making small changes that, in the long

term can have a huge impact on performance, is nothing new. There

are examples of these kinds of test being run on everything from

WW2 aircraft (reducing crashes on landing) to Google themselves.

These kinds of experiments can be run on virtually any element of

your digital marketing. It can be something like slight changes in the

hue or colour of an element, changing the font size.

But don’t be afraid of trying BIG changes. Sometimes if you have a

completely new idea that is a total departure from, say, your normal

copy or design language, test it. There’s almost never any harm in

running it as a variation of your existing page or mailing.

What if you’re test yields no or poor results? Good. You’ve learned

something. Take that learning and feed it back into your overall

marketing process. It’s surely better to test something new, learn from

it and understand that it doesn’t work than just push a change out

based on a gut feeling and damage your marketing in the process.

How you can use your data to improve:• Look at your social media following and identify posts that have done well. Look at the kind of copy you used on those posts and try integrating it into your ads.

• A/B test subject lines in emails (in fact, A/B test all the things)• Use analytical tools to identify where in your website’s sales funnel potential customers are dropping off and try to streamline things.

• Similarly, you can see if certain elements in registration forms are acting as barriers. Try removing them and seeing if your signups increase.

• Ask your customers if they are happy and if not, why?



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Useful Tools

OptimizelyWith its powerful, easy-to-use interface, creating testing and optimizing

your website and platform is simple. You can use it to quickly create

multivariate tests, experimenting with copy, images, colours - basically

anything you can think of you can test and optimize. It also provides

you with actionable insights, so you can see what’s working and push

the winning variation to 100% of your traffic.

Not only that, you can use it to create and display targeted page designs

and copy based on things like location, device, browser language and

more. It’s not cheap, but used correctly the ROI can be immense.


• Google Content Experiments: Tucked away in Google Analytics,

Content Experiments allows you to A/B test variations of websites.

It is pretty basic and requires a lot more effort than Optimizely,

but it’s a good place to start.

• Visual Web Optimizer: The entry-level packages give you a

lot more to play with the Google’s offering, including a similar

interface to Optimizely.

IMPROVE EVERYTHING



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If you’re testing,you cannot fail.



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IN SUMMARY

Defineyour audience and goals

Understand how you will engage with them

Use data to educate yourself and refine as you go

Test and experiment with new ideas

Defineyour metrics for success

Establish where you want to reach your audience



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WHO ARE WE?

Adcash is a real-time advertising

trading platform that delivers

maximum exposure for advertisers

and a simple, effective way for

publishers to make money.

We use a unique combination of

industry experience and advanced

optimization technology to

provide our customers with digital

advertising solutions that deliver

results.



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This eBook has been lovingly hand-

crafted by the Adcash Head of

Marketing, Liis Ristal.

Liis’ career has been focused

on many areas in and around

communication.

From public relations to sales,

through to marketing strategy and

beyond, she has a huge wealth of

experience. Just one small element

of that experience is what she has

condensed down into this eBook,

for you to read and share.

She is always open to feedback,

new ideas and concepts for further

eBooks and you can get in touch

with her using [email protected]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


mailto:liis%40adcash.com?subject=Comment%20from%20Ebook

the definitive guide to digital marketing success definitive guide to digital...the definitive guide...

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