Digital marketing in Cumbria – the options to consider
Posted on December 15, 2016The elements of digital marketing
From social media to smartphones, and from wearable technology to reading emails on the go, the world has gone digital and online. However, most importantly for businesses, their customers are online. This is nothing new, but this short guide will give you a range of digital marketing approaches through which to target customers.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
In a nutshell, SEO is the process behind improving a website’s ranking within search engines. But how does it work? Search engines such as Google and Bing trawl websites and rank them on relevancy and popularity in relation to a search term. To improve in this area, it is vital to undertake extensive keyword research that informs site structure, and link building, which is the process of outreach to gain quality links directing to your site that will improve its authority.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
While SEO efforts result in higher organic rankings on search engines, PPC is bidding on relevant keywords and subsequently placing ads relating to these on the top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). As an advertiser, you only pay when someone clicks on the ad, helping to improve your business’s visibility. Also, it’s a great way to test out keywords!
Re-marketing
An individual may visit your website and then leave without making a transaction. Although this could be down to any number of factors, your products are likely to still be relevant to them, which makes re-marketing vital. So, once they’ve left your site, you then serve them relevant ads based on the pages they visited on your site elsewhere online.
Although you might think email marketing is extremely annoying, it is in fact an extremely effective digital and important direct channel of marketing. Effective email marketing can be personalised and targeted to specific customers’ needs or wants based on previous behaviour. With the emergence of email automation, it can make this process extremely easy and target situations such as abandoned baskets, which is when a person leaves a website but has items in their shopping cart.
Social media
This is a big one, however more often than not, it’s used ineffectively by businesses. When used effectively, social media is a fantastic tool for business, with the addition of being able to utilise paid advertising or PPC on these platforms. However, when launching your social media, be sure work out which platforms suit your business, where your target audiences are, and how you’re going to use each platform with regards to content.
Mobile
As outlined at the beginning of the guide, it seems like everyone has a smartphone. Thus, it is important that your website is optimised for mobile users and even tablets. A responsive website design will take care of it and ensure your website visitors have the best experience possible, even on the go.
Content
In the digital sphere, content is king! Whether it be a blog post, infographic or a video, it is crucial that you place a content strategy within your digital marketing plan. Not only can it help with SEO and social media efforts, but it is what we all consume more and more on a daily basis.
Need digital marketing help?
Our guide gives you an overview of the channels available to you. If you need any digital marketing assistance in Kendal or other Cumbria areas, then Mintcake Digital can provide marketing expertise that has been honed over 10 years of helping businesses just like yours. So don’t hesitate and get in touch today!