The tools used to market businesses online can be complex. Technology changes fast.  Here are 5 underlying concepts with ideas and strategies that will help you create a vision for your marketing and advertising, as well as develop a plan for long-term, sustained success.

You’ve searched online to get tips and ideas on how to market your business.  No doubt you’ve found plenty of lists, how-to’s, and suggestions on how to get more clients from your business’ online presence.

But you still may be struggling to get your mind around the concept as a whole.

Below are five aspects of marketing online discussed at a more conceptual level.  Get these concepts and you’ll be able to discuss online marketing with a much better sense of what the details mean for your company’s marketing and advertising needs.

 

#1.   Search Algorithms Love Satisfied Users

Digital marketers use the term “optimization” so often it comes across as a buzzword.  When you’re trying to get clients to find you on Google or Bing search engines, what does optimization mean?

The best way to visualize this is to consider the people involved in this search equation more than search engine technology itself.  This includes three groups:  the searcher, the business, and the search engineers that create the parameters of the algorithm.

Google’s business model is built around delivering search results that satisfy the searcher’s intent.  That, in a nutshell, is what the algorithm is trying to achieve.  A satisfied searcher is more important to Google than a business that wants its sales copy to rank to make money.  Search intent gets priority.

Today, optimization is all about understanding the intent of the searcher and creating content that connects to it.

So, if someone is doing an informational search on how to choose a divorce lawyer, Google will look to rank information that’s helpful to that searcher.  Articles and videos are likely to rank higher.

If that same person does a search for “divorce lawyers in Denver”, it will understand that she may want to hire a lawyer, and so it will display more firms’ services in the results.  These firms will, of course, be in Denver since the search designates the location.

Anything your content does to prove that it’s useful to the searcher will, in the long-run, improve your search marketing campaigns.  As a mindset, you need to put the searcher’s needs first.  How can you make their experience useful and interesting?  How can you streamline your content so they can complete their task efficiently?  How can you ensure what you’re offering is relevant to their search?

Don’t worry about what the algorithm is doing.  Focus on being helpful to your audience, and the search engines will both recognize and reward it.

Important tip:  For local search results, make sure to set-up and optimize your Google My Business page.  This is now your “maps” listing and is what will come up for geo-targeted searches.  It’s a free listing, but the content needs to be properly optimized for your services and location.  It’s also a review platform, so try to get happy clients to write you positive reviews, which will help your ranking.

 

#2.  Great Marketing is Modification

There is an old adage in marketing that goes

I know half of my marketing is working, I just don’t know which half.

Digital marketing does a lot to change this because it’s more trackable than traditional marketing.  Most platforms, from websites to social media, have analytics systems that track user behavior.  Over time, you can gather data that lets you understand what’s working – and what isn’t.

Your overarching goal is to improve your campaigns based on data.  Here are some things to keep in mind.

First, gathering accurate data takes time.  It’s the main reason marketing executives will impress upon you the need to plan your marketing for the long-haul.  You’re unlikely to hit on the best concepts or executions on your first try.  You’ll need the time to understand how your audience is responding to your content.

Second, keep in mind that data is excellent for telling you what’s happened, but you can’t rely on it to tell you what to do.  Digital marketing data is not a crystal ball.  The creative, innovative ideas you need to gain a competitive advantage still need to be generated by your professional instincts.  You may be surprised to find what works well in motivating prospects, but you won’t know that until after you’ve run the campaign.

Important tip:  Many business owners like things to be planned and predictable.  Change this mindset when you start a marketing campaign.  It’s more likely than not that you’ll have to adapt your efforts as you get data and new insight into what works.  Today’s digital marketing has a natural quality to it that’s like personal networking.  The place you make your most important new contact may end up being where you least expected.

 

#3.  Attention is a Valuable Commodity

With online marketing, one of the biggest challenges you face is gaining – then holding – attention.  Sometimes it feels like you have to be a virtual vaudevillian to get anyone to notice you.

There are times you’ll just use direct-response advertising to get leads who are actively looking to hire you.

But much of what you’ll create on your website, blog, and social media channels will more resemble story telling.  This doesn’t mean you’ll be writing novels.  But it does mean you want to create content that resonates emotionally with prospective clients.  Personalize your business value.  Create a sense of tension followed by resolution.

It’s impossible to overstate how challenging it can be to connect with impatient, fast-moving web consumers. When they give you their attention, they’re giving you something of great value.  You have to earn that opportunity by being relevant and interesting.

 

#4.  Trust

All other things considered, if your online marketing is failing to drive new business, it’s likely you have a trust issue.

The stakes are high with online consumers.  They don’t just want to know what you do.  It’s not even always enough to clearly convey that you can solve their problem.

They want a level of connection that makes them feel they can trust you.  They want to know that you’ll put their best interests ahead of your need to sell them services.  They want evidence that you’re an expert at solving their problem.

This content will go beyond your advertisements or marketing story.  It also comes in the form of reviews and online comments from your previous clients.

As you design your website, develop your story, write ads, and plan your conversion strategy, keep the trust factor in mind.  But also realize that trust has its roots in your customer service.

The internet ushered in an era where customer service has more repercussions – in reputation and marketing – than ever before.  Your “story” is rooted in the way you treat clients.  Strong personal connections and deep satisfaction need to resonate through your online content.

Review content is now so important that you need to make an active effort to get more positive reviews from your happy clients.  Expect potential customers to check your online reputation and be influenced by it.

You can be doing a lot of things right with your marketing, but if the client doesn’t trust you with their problem, it will pull the rug out from under everything.

 

#5.  The Growing Influence of Demographics and Interest Targeting

Say you’re a divorce attorney.  Imagine you want to put advertisements in front of men who have been married more than 10 years, are ages 35-50, have an income of over 100k per year, and who moved into an apartment or stayed long-term in a hotel in the last 6 months.

Or say you sell a style of ladies jacket.  You’ve had good sales on the West coast, and you want to target an audience on the East coast based on the profiles of your current customers.

That’s some precise targeting for an advertisement, but it’s no longer hypothetical.  Demographic and psychographic data, particularly on Facebook, is becoming incredibly detailed.  Facebook is an amazing platform for capturing personal information on people because of the social nature of its use.

Likewise, Google has vast data on its users, based on their search histories and online browsing tendencies.

The next step (already starting to happen) will be targeting ads to people before they know they need the product.

 

#6.  Change is Permanent

The last digital marketing concept to keep in mind is one that will help you avoid a lot of frustration.

Accept and welcome changes in technology.

There is simply no way to get around the fact that both hardware devices and software applications change fast.  It’s a modern reality.

Furthermore, the specific strategies you use to market your business will change with the technology.

5 years ago, you could get away with not having a mobile-friendly website.  Today, it’s marketing death.  Over half of all searches are now conducted on mobile phones.

A few years ago, you could shrug off social media marketing.  Today, so many people (including prospective clients) are on social media platforms that it’s perilous to ignore them.

Tomorrow promises more dramatic changes.  The internet is embedded in homes, cars, refrigerators…an ever-increasing array of everyday objects.  Today, you need to envision how a potential legal client will interact with your marketing material while sitting in their car.  Tomorrow, you may be making a presentation in a virtual reality setting.

You have the choice to embrace this reality or resist it.  And many businesses do resist marketing through new technology because they’re skeptical of how it will actually bring new clients.

Not everything that develops is necessarily a marketing tool, but you do have to move with behavioral changes at the cultural level.  If you wait just a few years, you may find yourself behind in the game.

Marketing 360® is built to help you understand digital marketing technology and the business concepts it impacts.  If you’re thinking that all of this is involved (and time-consuming) enough that’s it’s worth hiring a professional marketing firm to help, you’re right.  After all, you didn’t start your business so you could spend your days trying to figure out how to reach prospects on Facebook or Google.

Make sure you have a grasp on the five concepts we discussed here.  If you don’t, you won’t even know enough to help your digital marketing executive promote your business.

Then you can leave the details to us.  With the right execution, your digital marketing efforts will keep you more than busy with new customers.