We know digital can be scary to navigate, especially if you’re hands-on in your business and don’t have the time to learn all the platforms, software and social channels available to you.
We want to see you smash your marketing goals, so we’ve put together a list of 22 tips to help amplify your digital marketing in 2022.
Tip 1: It’s probably time for a website refresh
If you’re not ahead of the game on digital marketing, chances are your website hasn’t been updated since you first created it.
Websites are the source you should link ALL your digital marketing back to! No matter if you’re a hospitality venue getting bookings, an eCommerce business selling products or a professional service educating your audience – all of this should be happening on your website!
Typically, users spend very little time on your site (an average of 45 seconds). You don’t want to lose users because your site is not up to date or user-friendly. This should be a priority for you this year if it’s time for a website refresh.
Tip 2: Optimise for mobile
Due to the COVID pandemic, the use of mobile devices has sharply increased since 2020. It is more important now than ever that your website, and all the content you’re putting out, is optimised for mobile.
A mobile optimised website also puts you in Google’s good books. More specifically, it helps with Google’s “Core-Web-Vitals”, helping you measure speed, visual stability, and responsiveness.
Tip 3: User experience is everything!
According to Google, users have shown that they prefer sites that provide a great page experience. It makes sense because who wants to spend hours struggling to navigate web pages online, right? Prioritising user experience on your website encourages visitors to stay engaged on your company website rather than checking out your competitors.
The user experience of your website can be measured in the Core Web Vitals mentioned above.
Tip 4: Create content to answer your user’s questions
The best and most engaging content always answers your user’s questions. If a user feels that they aren’t finding the answers to their queries, they’ll search for it elsewhere (usually with your competitors).
Your content should either inform or add value to the user’s experience and ultimately help solve their problems. This goes for all platforms – from websites to social media and everything in between.
Tip 5: Take advantage of Paid Ads (If you haven’t already)
Traditionally, businesses have used radio, TV, print, or other forms of media to boost their business’ exposure. However, the pandemic has reduced the effectiveness of most of these platforms. Digital has been the least affected during these times and has in fact improved during the pandemic.
To lower costs and increase returns, businesses are allocating less of their marketing budgets to traditional marketing strategies and more to their digital marketing strategies.
Doing this helps improve the business’ website traffic, and more traffic means more people finding you, which means more potential sales and profits in the long run.
Tip 6: Add some new marketing tools to your toolbelt!
There are literally MILLIONS of apps, websites and programs designed to streamline your marketing efforts. Introducing a few new programs to fill a void in your digital marketing approach is a great idea for 2022, particular in the video content area that Meta is moving heavily towards. This brings us to tip 7…
Tip 7: Use video on social media
Video is the way of the future with Meta taking a big step in that direction during the last few months. Consumers are increasingly engaging with video content over written content and even still imagery.
We’ve seen vast shifts in almost every social media platform and landscape this past year. Times have changed and apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels are taking the lead, forcing other platforms to follow suit in order to keep up with consumer behaviours.
Tip 8: Automation is your friend
Automating your tasks can help you save time and prioritise high-importance projects. Automation in the right areas can greatly increase the benefits to your Digital Marketing Strategy.
Here is a short list of some areas to consider automating:
Automate Marketing Emails – Schedule your marketing emails in advance to your selected contacts. You can also set up email series’ that are quickly sent off to different audiences once they reach a certain part of the sales funnel to provide quick follow-up.
Automate Lead Flow – If a potential customer/client downloads a brochure, you can send them an email right away. You can continue to send them scheduled automated emails with additional information on the topic to help them move along the decision making funnel.
Automate Social Media Posts – Schedule all social media posts on multiple platforms in advance using scheduling software to save time.
Automate Analytics Reporting – Use Google Analytics and your CRM to track consumer behaviour. These metrics are vital to observing the growth of your marketing activities.
Tip 9: Create Content that your customers are searching for
SEO tools and Google Analytics data will tell you what keywords and topics consumers in your industry are searching for. Use this data to create blogs and resources that educate your website visitors.
The goal is to make quality, valuable content. Alternatively, you can use these topics to improve and re-purpose the information on your current highly searched blogs. It is also key to focus on the human connection, instead of selling your product. By providing helpful and valuable content, you’ll begin to gain trust and credibility with potential customers.
Tip 10: Know when your audience is active
Knowing your pages’ best times to post can greatly increase your reach and engagement, and makes your content creation efforts more worthwhile.
There are third-party tools that can analyse previous content and suggest your best times to post. Alternatively, you can deep dive into your post analytics and determine the similarities between your best performing posts to create an effective posting schedule.
Tip 11: Repurpose your content
Content repurposing is when you find a new use for existing content. It typically involves changing up the format of your content, e.g., from a video to a blog post.
Repurposing your content is efficient as it means you won’t have to create every piece of content from scratch. Not only is it time-consuming, but it also makes it difficult to scale up your content creation. Instead, take advantage of what you’ve already created. You’ve put in the hard work to create that piece of content, so make full use of it across multiple channels.
Tip 12: Use tools to increase customer connection
In a digital age, customers want to be able to get in touch with you when they have any queries or concerns. The easier it is for a customer to reach out, the better their experience with your brand.
Implementing live chat apps on your website, and ensuring your social messages are responded to in a timely manner, help customers build trust with your brand.
You can host a live chat on your website, or send customers to your Facebook and Instagram inbox to start an informal conversation where you can assist their needs.
Tip 13: Analyse, analyse, analyse!
If you’re generating weekly, or monthly reports then that’s great! But, are you actually analysing what they’re telling you?
Understanding your reporting data will help you create a better digital marketing strategy and ensure you’re allocating resources in the most worthwhile channels.
There’s little point in allocating hours each week to creating Google Ads, for example, when you’re not getting sales from them and could instead be allocating that budget and time into something more effective that is generating leads or sales.
Using tools such as Google Data Studio and other report dashboards, eg. Facebook and Instagram insights, will help you understand what your business needs to focus on for further growth, as well as determine which areas are a waste of time and money.
Tip 14: Create self-service options
As we discussed in tip 12, people today want instant solutions.
Create a great customer experience by providing resources and answering questions while customers and prospects are engaged (and save them waiting hours – or days – for an email response). This can be as simple as a FAQ page on your website, or as complex as a customer portal full of troubleshooting videos and tutorials – it depends on your product or service.
Minimising customer wait time and friction points help to increase trust and customer satisfaction.
Tip 15: Invest in SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art and science of getting found online through people searching for relevant terms in Google or other search engines. With successful SEO, you can expand your reach to new audiences and online communities dramatically. Attract them to your website where you can hopefully convert them to paying customers.
Investing the time to learn SEO, or bringing in a SEO expert to help your business, is a must to help your brand grow.
Tip 16: Google My Business is a MUST
Getting your company on Google My Business (GMB) is so important. Not only can you showcase your brand through photos and posts as well as display important details such as your opening hours, website, address, and phone number; but it’s the only way for you to appear in local searches!
Local searches are when people search for ‘your services near me’ and the closest businesses that offer that service are shown. This is so important for all businesses as the number of ‘near me’ searches is growing each year!
Having a GMB listing is free and it’s quick to set up, so don’t wait!
Tip 17: Brand consistency makes a difference!
Brand consistency is key for developing brand recognition! But it’s more than just a logo on display, branding runs deep.
It’s fonts, layout and colour pallets that create brand recognition when re-created over and over again. We strongly recommend hiring a professional to create a branding guide for your team to follow, no matter where they’re sharing your brand. Having a clear and consistent image will assist your customers with brand recognition and recall.
Tip 18: Track & measure spending
As the saying goes, “you’ve got to spend money to make money”. Prepare to spend, but spend wisely. Spending your marketing budget haphazardly is ineffective and unsustainable.
Deciding what platforms are worth spending on starts with analysing each channel, platform or tool and what they offer your business. Having measurable goals for each activity will assist in analysing if these channels are helping you achieve your desired goals and therefore if they’re worth the investment.
Feed recommends running a test campaign on any new platforms to test if your target audience responds to the new channel. If successful, you know you can utilise your marketing budget here and expect results – and if not, then you haven’t wasted month’s worth of resources on an ineffective channel.
Be sure to continuously measure and have reviews of the results of each of your branding and marketing tactics and promotions. This will ensure you’re getting the best bang for your buck, and alter or cease activities that aren’t meeting your goals.
Tip 19: Know where your customers hang out online
Knowing your customers is business 101, but knowing your customers online is a newer concept.
Do you know where your target audience spends their time online? With so many different social networks available, you may be wasting your time talking to a platform that your customers don’t use. But how do you know where to find them?
The largest age group on each social media platform:
TikTok – 10 to 19 year olds (25%)
Twitter – 18 to 29 year olds (42%)
LinkedIn – 25 to 34 year olds (58.4%)
Pinterest – 50 to 64 year olds (38%)
Snapchat – 15 to 25 year olds (48%)
Youtube – 15 to 35 year olds (no data)
Are you utilising the correct platforms to reach your target audience?
Tip 20: Use your email lists
Email is the number one underutilised owned marketing network. Meaning, you own the data you can use in email campaigns – your existing customers have most likely given you their email address, so why not use it?
There are so many email marketing platforms available to use, such as Mailchimp and Klayvio. Many of these tools also provide free tutorials on how to best use their platforms, along with tips and tricks to help you create email campaigns that convert.
Tip 21: Be authentic
One of the most compelling ways to attract new customers is to be authentic. Rather than creating a brand that you think people want to learn about, why not be true to your core values and attract customers with similar goals to you?
In doing so, your voice will be heard through your sincere brand storytelling, and your audience will respond in a much more genuine way. Authenticity will convey a message about your brand that will attract a more relevant customer base to your business.
Tip 22: Build an online community
If feasible, create an online community that your customers/clients will get extra value from. For example, creating a private Facebook group just for your existing clients/customers to hear first-hand about upcoming products, exclusive offers and ask questions can create a sense of belonging associated with your brand and create loyal customers.
Bondi Sands, a self-tanner brand, does this well with a private Facebook group their customer can join to get tanning tips, share reviews and ask other users questions. They also run exclusive competitions within the group.
We hope these tips will help you achieve your marketing goals this year!
If you’re left feeling a bit overwhelmed and not sure where to start with your digital marketing, get in touch with us today to see how we can help your business grow online!
