5 essential digital marketing tips for small businesses

DIGITAL MARKEETING TIPS FOR BEGINERS

I'm gonna help you become a better digital marketer

by showing you some of the most important things

you need to know about digital marketing right now.

You see, digital marketing has been made

to seem way more complicated than it actually is.

That's a shame really

because it's actually pretty straightforward.

That said, if you do want to get the best results possible

from your digital marketing,

you're going to need to know and understand the strategies

that I'm gonna be sharing with you in this episode.

So, my promise to you is this.

If you watch this entire video,

you will be a better digital marketer at the end.

So, let's get to it.

(bright upbeat music)

So, the very first thing that I need to share with you

are the differences between digital marketing

and traditional marketing.

Brace yourself for this one 'cause it's pretty profound.

Actually, it's not profound at all.

And that's what makes it so interesting.

You see, digital marketing is really just marketing

done through the use of digital channels.

That's it.

Again, these are designed to appeal to mass markets

and to try to reach everyone.

Probably not your goal.

Rather what you wanna do is be laser focused and selective

with your marketing and reach again

only those people most likely to buy.

Digital marketing also allows you to get immediate feedback.

And this is probably one of my favorite benefits

of the channels.

After all, if you think about running,

say a magazine ad where you've got to think of the copy

and the creative and what you're going to say,

and then you've gotta get it all written up

and sent to the magazine.

It's gotta get published and then distributed.

Well, you could be looking at weeks at best,

months and maybe many, many months

before you ever figure out if this worked or not.

Digital marketing on the other hand.

Well, in theory, you can write an ad

and have it online in a matter of minutes.

Immediate feedback, immediate correction, immediate results.

Plus, digital marketing tends to be a whole lot easier

to measure and to track because everything's digital

which means we've got a digital trail allowing us to measure

costs and results and everything in real time

so we can make adjustments and tweaks

and optimizations on the fly.

Again, contrast that with waiting three months

for your magazine to come out

and figure out if things worked or not.

And you can't measure clicks on a magazine.

So, the best you can hope to do

is well, really, either have them fill out

some kind of a form on the magazine

or visit a digital channel

which ties us back into digital marketing.

Anyway, there's obviously some serious advantages here

to choosing digital channels going with digital marketing.

But again, that's not to say that traditional marketing

doesn't still work.

It does.

The point here is to take a look at either traditional

or digital marketing and then sort of take a few steps back

to the strategies and the fundamentals and the principles,

the consumer psychology, the buyer behavior,

why people do the things they do

and then focus on mastering and learning that.

Then, you can apply that to digital channels

or traditional channels or any other channels

that come out in the future.

All right, the next thing that'll really help you

become a better digital marketer is to understand

the differences between strategy and tactics

and when to use them.

Strategy is all the big picture stuff.

And this is really where you wanna focus your efforts.

First and foremost, because this is the foundation

that all of your future marketing efforts and tactics

and tools and software and things like that

are gonna be built on.

Get this part wrong and nothing else matters

because nothing else will work.

Now, there are a ton of different strategies and approaches

and ways to look at your digital marketing,

but pretty much no matter how you look at it,

it always comes back to four basic

and really solid principles

that have stood the test of time

and are gonna be just as relevant today

as they are a hundred years from now.

I call these things the core four

and they make up the center

of my "Hub & Spoke" model of marketing.

The core four are made up of model, market,

message and media.

So, let's unpack those now.

The model is essentially your business.

Your offer, your package, your servicing,

the pricing that goes with it,

how you deliver whatever it is

that you deliver to the market.

It's important here to design your model,

design your business around what is the most enjoyable

and profitable and in demand by the market.

'Cause the worst thing you can do is build a business

that you absolutely hate.

Next is the market.

These are the people that you're going to serve

and you don't wanna say everyone or anyone with money.

You wanna be focused, laser focused

on exactly who is going to get the best results

from your product or service.

And also the market that you're going to most enjoy serving.

In marketing, we call this an ideal customer avatar

or an ideal client avatar.

And it's made up of demographic details

like age, gender, income, occupation.

Geographic details like what city or state

or province or country they live in.

And psychographic details like what are their values,

their attitudes and their lifestyles.

Next is your message.

And here's where you're going to clarify

and connect with your ideal target market

by speaking directly to them about their pains

and their problems and their frustrations,

and how your business is uniquely positioned

to help solve that for them.

Telling stories about previous customers

and previous client results

is an incredibly effective way to do this

as are getting testimonials directly from them

and running case studies

proving that you know what you're talking about

and have done what you say you're going to do.

I think that made sense.

The point here is that to craft truly effective messages,

well, you've gotta understand who your market is

and what really makes them up

and what makes them do the things they do.

So, a little bit of market research

and having a few chats with your customers never hurts.

And the fourth part of the core four, and again the center

of that "Hub & Spoke" model of marketing

is all about media.

And this is where you're going to go,

where you're going to do your marketing,

which digital channels you're gonna choose.

Most businesses do this completely backwards.

They start with the media by hearing a great thing

about Facebook ads or YouTube marketing.

 

sentially, a user on these platforms may have intent

but they're probably more casually browsing.

After all, nobody really shows up in the morning,

logs onto Facebook or Instagram with a credit card in hand

looking to buy something.

This is why if you're doing search marketing,

well you can afford to be direct.

They're looking for something?

You have the answer.

So you can just give it to them.

With discovery marketing on the other hand,

you've gotta be a little more creative

and a little more entertaining.

You've gotta get their attention and then keep it,

and allow them to become interested

in what it is that you're selling or promoting.

Now, both search marketing and discovery marketing

are incredibly important parts to building

an overall successful and sustainable business.

But just like with direct response marketing

and brand awareness marketing,

you wanna make sure that you're using the right tool

for the right job at the right time in the right place.

All right, next I've got something

very important to share with you.

And it's something that rarely gets talked

about when it comes to marketing advice.

And that is the difference between marketing products

and marketing services.

Here's the deal.

Most of the marketing information out there

whether we're talking about textbooks

or courses, or even trainings,

they revolve around the marketing of products.

A product being something tangible that you can hold,

that you can see, that you can touch and that you can taste.

A service on the other hand is intangible.

You can't hold it.

You can't touch it.

You can't see it.

You can't taste it.

Plus, with services you often need to pay in advance

which requires a whole new level of trust.

This is why if you're marketing a service-based business

and you try to market it like a product-based business,

well, you're gonna be very disappointed.

Now, when it comes to marketing products,

you have the opportunity and the advantage

of being able to explain and to show and to demonstrate

how a product works, what it looks like.

You wanna show it in action.

Show the features, show the benefits

that the features will deliver.

Show the story behind it.

Everything like that.

Here's an example.

Let's say that I'm trying to promote and sell this pen.

Well, the fact that this pen has a lid is a feature.

The fact that it will prevent me

from getting ink all over myself, that's a benefit.

but you can take it further and you probably should.

For example, this pen lid also has a clip which means

that I can attach it to my papers or my notebook,

or even my clothes if I'm trying to sport that nerdy look.

Another feature of the pen lid itself

is the fact that the lid has holes in the top.

Maybe surprised to hear that the reason that pen lids

have holes in the top is to prevent suffocation

in case they accidentally or purposely get swallowed.

After all chewing on pen lids is an age old

albeit highly unsanitary practice.

Sometimes you just get hungry.

Services on the other hand,

well, they don't have that advantage.

So, the main thing when you're promoting

and marketing services is you want to sell the end.

Essentially, the end state or the benefits, or the outcome

or the results that someone will experience

after working with you.

In fact, when it comes to marketing services,

I'd go so far as to say it's pretty much

all about the end state and the benefits

and the outcomes and the results someone will experience.

.

The key here is to highlight the current pain
or dissatisfaction or discomfort of their current state.
And then of course, paint the picture
of how they'll be so much better
after having worked with you.
All right, the next thing you really need to be aware of
if you want to become a true expert in digital marketing
is to understand the differences
between B2B and B2C marketing.
B2B stands for business to business.
And this is where your main customers,
your main clients aren't regular everyday people,
but rather other businesses.
B2C on the other hand means you are a business
that sells to consumers.
Regular, everyday people and not businesses.
B2B, business to business.
B2C, business to consumer.
And just like everything I've shared with you so far,
there's some significant differences
in the way that you wanna market your business,
market your service, market your product, market whatever
depending on whether you're selling to businesses or people.
And this is why the next thing you're gonna wanna do
is check out the video I have linked up right here
on B2B versus B2C marketing.
So, make sure to check that out now
and I'll see you in the next episode.
Basically, B2B marketing typically focuses
on fewer but larger customers
and B2C marketing on more but smaller customers.
This means for B2B type marketing,
you're gonna have a little more incentive
to put a little more punch behind your pitch

because you're gonna have to market to fewer customers.