Marketing is more complex now than ever before. Reaching your consumer by placing an ad or submitting a press release to THE major newspaper, magazine and news channel that reaches your targeted demographic used to be THE way. Today there are so many different mediums you can use to reach your target audience. Marketing was never easy, but now it is especially complex with the countless TV channels and millions of websites at our fingertips.
The digital age has vastly changed how we reach our end-users. A digital marketing strategy based on solid principles is key to any successful business, large or small. And a focused plan will help you bring the results you need.
So, how do you do that? It requires having a good marketing strategist on your team. But before you begin a Twitter page or posting YouTube videos on the fly (don’t post on the fly, have a plan!), think about these things:
- What is your message?
- Who are you trying to reach and where are they?
- What are your goals?
A digital marketing strategy happens AFTER you have a solid branding strategy. This will be your guide for what your message is and what the voice of your company will be on the public forum. So, you know what you want to say, now you need to know how to say it, where to say it, and when to say it.
There are certain times of day that are best to post on Twitter, Facebook, etc, and certain posts that take precedence for those peak use times. A business cannot just create a Twitter account and think they will succeed and go far… You must keep tweeting. Here’s a great article that shares “Best Time To Post/Tweet” details:
- 10pm-6am: This is the dead zone, when hardly any emails get opened.
- 6am-10am: Consumer-based marketing emails are best sent early in the morning.
- 10am-noon: Most people are working, and probably won’t open your email.
- Noon-2pm: News and magazine updates are popular during lunch breaks.
- 2-3pm: After lunch lots of people buckle down and ignore their inbox.
- 3-5pm: Property and financial-related offers are best sent in the early afternoon.
- 5-7pm: Holiday promotions & B2B promotions get opened mostly in the early evening.
- 7-10pm: Consumer promotions are popular again after dinner.
The beautiful thing about marketing in the digital age is that you can track the results of any campaign. On Twitter you can see how many times your post was re-tweeted. With Facebook you can see how many people viewed, liked and shared a post. On YouTube you can see how many views a video has. The list goes on and on. Oh, and the hashtag! The #craze is going full speed ahead. So much so that I’m going to honor the hashtag craze with an upcoming blog of its own.
Another great thing about digital marketing channels is that you know more about the people who “LIKE” or “FOLLOW” your social media pages. You have insight into their favorite music, brands, likes, dislikes, friends, followers, etc and this gives you a better understanding of your target market. You might even be surprised by what you will learn!
