Digital Marketing for Beginners – 7 Executable Strategies

Approaching the task of digital marketing as a beginner can seem like an amazingly daunting task.

When you hear the term Digital Marketing topics like social media marketing, SEO, email marketing, paid ads often follow.

The real question is… How do you use these as marketing strategies to help your business grow?

Note: This page contains affiliate links, which means that if you buy something using one of the links below, I may earn a commission.

Why Use Digital Marketing?

Everyone knows that it is essential to have an online presence in today’s business landscape. For you that might be a website, blog, or business Facebook Fan Page.

Setting up your online presence is easy. But the real trick is getting traffic to your site. That’s where digital marketing come in.

The goal of digital marketing is to bring traffic to your site so that you can gain buying customers and sell your products or services.

Today’s Buyers

If you’ve already launched your business your might have noticed that it’s not as easy as you thought to sell on the internet.

The internet gives your a doorway to billions of people around the world, so it should be pretty easy to find customers… right?

Wrong!

It is just as hard to cold sell on the internet as it is if you were walking around in a neighborhood selling door to door. The people who you are trying to sell to don’t know you.

So why should they trust you and buy your products?

How do you get past this road block?

Helping people solve their problem by providing content that helps them breaks down the wall. By providing solutions that are related to your products or services you are helping people while marketing your services at the same time.

Digital Marketing Strategies

There are multiple digital marketing strategies for you to use to grow your business. However, you should not try to do them all.

Digital marketing strategies take focus and effort. And to put it bluntly… they just don’t work if you don’t do them right.

You should choose the digital marketing strategy that goes best with your business and puts you in front of your target audience,

Here are a few types of the most popular types of digital marketing.

#1 – Blogging

Have you noticed that more and more large brands have blogs? This is because blogging allows them to solve their customers problems and explain how their products can help.

In order to use blogging as a successful digital marketing strategy, people who are in need of your help must be able to find you. On the internet this is done mainly though search engines line Google.

As a blogger, your goal is to write content that solves the problems of your target customer. You would then use SEO techniques to ensure that your target customers are able to find you when searching for their problem in Google.

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For example, if you sell car parts your potential customers may go to Google and search for things like:

• Why doesn’t my car start?
• How much does a starter cost?
• How do you know if its the alternator or the starter?

From the list of questions above you can see that your target audience has clear questions that they are seeking answers to. In your blog, you would focus on writing blog posts to answer these questions.

Using our example above you would include links to starters, alternators, and batteries in your blog post.

#2 – Video/YouTube

Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google? This means that people use YouTube to find answers to their problems just like they do with Google.

Because of this fact video can be an effective digital marketing strategy. Video can be utilized the same way as blogging. By creating videos that help solve problems you can attract more visitors to your business.

#3 – Social Media Marketing

Social Media marketing is a no brainer. For the most part you can find your perfect customer on one of the many social media platforms.

The trick to marketing on social media is to choose the right platform and to not try to market on too many social media platforms when you first start out.

Most experts agree that you should start with one platform and only move to the next once you have mastered it. As I mentioned earlier, digital marketing only works if you do it right.

Choosing the right platforms to target is an important part of your social media marketing strategy. You must choose the platform that contains the audience that you are trying to reach.

For example, if you are selling your own brand of custom designed swimwear, you might choose to start with Pinterest as Pinterest is the most popular image search engine in the world. Pinterest users are actively searching for items that they can see visually and purchase online.

When building your social media numbers, your goal should be to not only gain followers but to gain engaged followers. Having a large number of followers that do not engage with your content will not get you the desired results you need to grow your business.

#4 – Paid Advertising

Most social media sites allow for paid aids. You can advertise on Facebook and Instagram, YouTube, or even Pinterest.

What I have mentioned earlier still holds true when it comes to paid advertising. You should choose a platform that you know caters to your target audience.

Also, when choosing the paid advertising route you must consider your budget. You will have to do research to determine if your monthly advertising budget is enough to give you a positive return on investment (ROI) for the keywords that you need to target.

For example, if you target audience can be found on both Facebook and Pinterest. Choose to advertise on the platform with the lowest cost per click (CPC) for your targeted keyword. This will ensure you get the highest ROI.

#5 – Podcasts

Podcasts are steadily rising in popularity. They are free and easily to subscribe to and most importantly very informative and entertaining.

When thinking of podcasts for digital marketing most people assume that you have to start your own podcast. This is only one way to use podcasts to grow your business.

The second method of using podcasts is to have someone who has a podcast interview you. This will provide you good exposure to the podcaster’s audience. Which if chosen correctly puts you right in front of your target audience.

#6 – Email Marketing

Email marking can be a great way to make sales. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “The money is in the list”.

This saying is definitely true, but building an engaged email list is not as easy as it sounds. Getting people on your email list is just one piece of the puzzle. You then have to build a relationship with your list so that they know and trust you.

Only then will you be able to count on your list to bring you sales. Here are a few things to take note of if you choose to do email marketing:

• Build your email list from day one
• It takes time to build a list and gain engagement
• You must have traffic to build a list
• Engaging your list is required to build a relationship with your subscribers

#7 – Forums & Community Boards

Yes, forums and community boards can be used to market your products or services.

BUT…. and this is a big but.

You must play by the rules. Forums and community boards are not designed for you to post links to your products and services. They are designed to help solve problems for the community.

Popular forms and communities include:

• Facebook
• Quora
• Reddit

You should approach forums and communities as places to share your knowledge on topics related to your products or services. This will allow you to build relationships with your target audience.

You should never spam forums and communities with direct links to your products. This will always lead to negative results.

It’s time to make a decision. Which of these digital marketing strategies for beginners are you going to try first?

Leave a comment and share you experiences with each of these strategies.

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