Are you an attorney, doctor, dentist, engineer, architect, accountant, or other professional services provider that is interested in learning and honing digital marketing skills so that you can grow your business? If yes, please read this!
While it’s likely that you’ve invested hundreds if not thousands of hours in school educating yourself and preparing you for your career, it’s likely that little to none of that time in the classroom involved learning how to develop and implement marketing strategies to grow your professional services business. But, to keep your business afloat, especially during this economic crisis, you need to learn the basics of digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing
According to the Team here at Vimagery, digital marketing is a modern method of promoting and selling products and services through strategies like content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and email marketing.
Nowadays, customers are mostly online, and they may be chatting on social media sites, reading website blogs, and searching on Google about any information they want to know. With that, digital marketing is the perfect way to build awareness and engage with your audience because you can make an offer to the right person at the right time simply by being visible in the online world. Your audience can see your brand, learn more about you, your business, and your offer.
If you're a beginner in digital marketing, you will be overwhelmed by all these online digital marketing strategies and tactics. There are many things you need to learn, but everything will be easy if you know the basics.
Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
Both Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing aim to promote a brand, product or service with the ultimate goal of walking a stranger through the business’s sales cycle from stranger to audience member to interested prospect ultimately to paying client. When we talk about Traditional Marketing, it mainly refers to offline marketing like TV ads, billboards, print, broadcast, direct mail, telemarketing, and newspaper ads. For many years, these offline promotion strategies were effective in gaining more customers.
But as time passes by, the world is evolving. People are constantly creating new, highly advanced technologies that seek to make our lives easier. This evolution, however, is forcing a migration away from traditional marketing methodologies to a more modern, digital approach. Today, more and more people are using the Internet to research and purchase goods and services. With that, businesses are also using the Internet as a means of promotion. There are 4.05 billion Internet users worldwide, and 77 percent of Americans now own a smartphone. That's why digital marketing or online marketing is so critical today.
But, how can you use digital marketing as a means to grow your business and gain more clients when you have no idea about Digital Marketing, its Channels, and Usages?
The 4 MOST EFFECTIVE DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS
To utilize digital marketing strategies in the right way, you must first learn the Digital Marketing Channels. All channels can be effective when leveraged correctly, but we find these 4 channels to be most effective for entreprofessionals wishing to grow their businesses.
1. Content Marketing
Content marketing is the soul of every marketing strategy. It focuses on providing blogs, landing pages, website copy, video ads, thumbnails, product copy, podcasts, email copy, sales pages, and more to build awareness and attract prospects. In fact, LYFE Marketing said that content marketing generates 3 times the leads for about 62% less cost than traditional marketing. That's why it is noteworthy that you create compelling content. Remember, content is king. Make sure that when you write a blog, there is value because value creates interest to your audience. And with interest, you attract more people and increase profits.
2. Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is the most convenient way to advertise your business. Through social media websites, you can post information and cultivate awareness among the public with just a few clicks. With over 2 billion Facebook users and 330 million Twitter users, these websites are one of the most effective ways to promote your brand. There are 2 types of social media promotions, paid promotion, and organic social media promotion. Both are proven to drive more leads and traffic. However, going social is not just being active on social media sites. It's being relatable to your target market, which means that you need to engage with your audience, build relationships, and present offers at the right time.
Takeaway: Don't be blinded by the number of likes, shares, and vanity metrics. Remember, sales and profits are what matter … not heart emoji. Make sure to provide offers and services to the best-fitted customer.
3. Email Marketing
Email had a median ROI of 122%, according to a study from DMA and Demand Metric. Your ROI can increase up to 4 times that when done right. That's why email marketing is considered as an efficient way of reaching out to your target market. But there are things that you must remember when using email marketing.
- Make your emails personal because people don't like the idea of being sold, but they love to buy.
- Make sure emails actually get delivered to their inbox and not the spam folder by carefully choosing your email and subject text.
- Understand their pain points and create engagement with your prospect.
- Guide them to the next step by creating a CTA button that will land them to a page where they can easily engage your services.
Note: If you master email marketing, you will grow your business in no time by closing more sales.
4. SEO Marketing
Many people use the Internet to learn more about topics that interest them and to research services they are considering. The internet is their most versatile resource. About 93% of online activities begin with using search engines. With that, you must properly optimize your websites and blogs by using top searched keywords, apply on-page, off-page optimization, link building, and page audit.
Moreover, Google often updates its algorithm, challenging digital marketers to stay abreast of what’s going on at any given time. So the tweaks you make today, may need to be changed or updated tomorrow.
Sure, all of this can be a lot of work. But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. It’s those businesses wise enough to invest their time and resources to leverage the technology of today that will thrive into tomorrow.
-------
If you would like to learn more about how Vimagery helps entreprofessionals like you to navigate these digital marketing strategies, click here to see if you qualify for a Vimagery Strategy Session. Together, we can help you to gain an unfair advantage regarding your efforts to cultivate, convert, and close new clients in the weeks and months ahead.
