10 Must-Do's for Effective Digital Marketing in 2018

#1. Dedicate time to learn how social media and digital marketing works.

The basics are actually similar across the board, yet businesses need to alter their strategies slightly in order to capture the attention of their specific target audience. So, it’s important that you invest the time to learn how social media marketing works for your particular business. Consume maximum of the resources available online and begin focusing on your specific areas & objectives.

It’s not very complicated if you take the time to educate yourself.  Jaydee Media do Social Media Training, keep ’n eye on their next course.  How to Grow your Business with Social Media and Smart Online Marketing Seminar.

#2. Listen what your customers have to say

The only and best way you are going to know what your customers want is by listening to what they have to say. It’s important that you use your social media platforms as an extension of your customer service, where you can engage on a daily base with your customers. You’ll continuously find customers uttering their opinions on social media than through emails or over the phone in majority.

Get real reviews, recommendations and testimonials of your business
Reviews, recommendations and testimonials have always been a effective way to offer third party proof that your company does what it says it does and that your customers are happy and willing to talk about it. So, it should come as no surprise that the wrong way to go about this would be to pay for reviews, recommendations and testimonials.

Free Review and or testimonial tools?  TripAdvisor, Google Reviews and or Facebook Reviews

When you listen to your audience, you open the door to other and or new opportunities.  For instance, when we plan a social media strategy campaign for a client or a brand, we first audit their social media followers to identify their target market, audience and key influencers. Learn to listen to your audience -- it can provide you with valuable information.

#3.  Establish your online marketing goals

A good strategy always starts with goals. When you have a clear idea about where you want to go, it’s easier to get there.  Establish your goals and objectives.
Ask yourself, why do you need or want to use digital marketing for your business? List your basic marketing objectives, which may include a few of the following:

• Build brand awareness
• Increase sales
• Expand into a new market
• Increase profit
• Target new customers
• Develop brand affinity and loyalty
• Grow digital presence
• Launch new products or services
• Grow market share

Once you pinpoint the general goals you want to focus on, set clear objectives for each goal. Use SMART goal planning to develop each of your plans, so they are:

• S- specific, significant, stretching
• M - measurable, meaningful, motivational
• A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriente
• R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented
• T - time-based, time-bound, timely, tangible, trackable

#4. Content is Still King

Make sure your message is relevant to your consumer.
Be useful. The more you can help your consumer, the more likely they will remember where they got the useful information from.
Focus on good writing! (Enough said!)
Tell a Digital Story. There is nothing better than when a customer remembers your product or service based on a story or testimonial they read  or see a video about you. Video stories will be even bigger this year!

#5. Use automation (scheduling) to be consistent

There is smart automation and then there is spammy automation.  Don’t blast out promotional offers all day long, people don’t like it and it’s a quick way to lose all your followers. 

Here, your approach should be to communicate with your audience and deliver them with treasured information.
Make sure they are consistent and push out content across all of your social media profiles.

We use Buffer, but there are several other free automation and or scheduling software out there, like Buffer, Hootsuite, SocialOomph, Tweetdeck and SocialPilot that can greatly increase your efficiency.

Use smart Automation:  If you schedule your posts in advance it will give you more time to engage with your followers.

#6. Engage with your audience

Engagement is the most important part of your social media daily marketing.
I see a lot of business owners posting up to 5 time a day, thinking that they are doing the right thing. You can’t just post and walk away. You spend hours on social media campaign strategies, post and than don’t engage with your customers.  

Engaging with your followers also allow you to uncover problems or issues other customers might be experiencing as well.

#7. Don’t spread yourself to thin with social media channels

Trying to implement and execute on every new social marketing channel leads to frustration and wasted resources.

My suggestion to new brands to start with 2 - 3 social media accounts where your target audience are active on.  Once you add your business to a social media account you need to feed that channel on a regular basis.
Achieve mastery with these, and after that expand your social reach as yor business grow.

#8:  Discover your core digital marketing channel(s)

Today’s business owner has more than a handful of channels to choose from and most feel the pressure to use all of them. Here is a list of what we use for Online Marketing:

• Social Media Marketing
• SEO - make sure your website is optimised
• Content Marketing
• Training | Education
• Advertising
• Referrals
• Networking / Partnering

#9. Advertise (boost) on social media channels

Advertising is an essential part of growth for your business and in many cases best used this way: to move people from awareness of your brand to trusting your brand by incorporating a small call to action that benefits them such as downloading a checklist, ordering a guide, receiving an saving offer, or scheduling a demo.

This is also a great way to find your target audience.

#10. Track and measure everything (Return on Investment)

Remember, if you don’t quantify your results, you will never run a positive social media marketing campaign
The data you collect and analyze can then be used to make changes to your campaign.
The goal of your social media marketing should be to put your message before the right audience and trigger engagement.  So as to do that, you have to track and measure everything.

Couple of free measure Tools to use: (there are 100’s out there)

• Facebook Insights
• Twitter analytics
• Pinterest Analytics
• Google Analytics
• Google and Bing Webmaster
• Simple Measured
• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Klout
• Social Mention
• Followerwonk