Marketing is an ever-changing and complex industry. Often, brands face some of the same marketing problems, no matter the industry or background.

Answers to the 5 Most Common Digital Marketing Questions | Union

Answers to the 5 Most Common Digital Marketing Questions

<p>“If we had a dollar for everytime someone asked us…”</p>
<p>That’s really what the title of this post should be.</p>
<p>Marketing is an ever-changing and complex industry. Often, brands face some of the same marketing problems, no matter the industry or background. Here are the most common digital marketing questions we see and our advice to best tackle:</p>
<h2>Should my company invest budget in social media? What’s the benefit?</h2>
<p>Before you join and invest time in every social media platform available, there is one thing you absolutely need to do first: research.</p>
<p>You must first determine WHERE your target audience is spending most of their time in consuming content. Make those platforms the priority. <strong>Investing time is just as important in how you invest your budget.</strong></p>
<p>Depending upon the social media platform, investing a portion of budget to promote content will be important to increase reach and grow actions. Facebook, for example, has the ability to setup ad campaigns based on objective (page likes, conversions, website visits, engagement, reach, special offers, etc.) making the desired action easier to achieve and track. In many of our client’s campaigns, we’ve achieved a lower CPC and higher (quality) CTR on social media ads vs other digital channels.<br /></p>

<h2>Is email marketing still effective?</h2>
<p>See above.<br />Again, it goes back to where your target audience is consuming content and information.</p>
<p>Email marketing CAN be effective IF it’s done well.</p>
<p>There have been plenty of brands that have inundated inboxes with the wrong messaging, targeting, timing…any and all of the above. Because of this, email marketing often gets a bad reputation and is quickly abandoned by brands.</p>
<p>The important piece about email marketing is providing relevant messaging to segmented lists and, of course, patience. It often takes months to fully build engaging email lists and A/B testing should be done often to make sure your creative + copy is performing the best it can be.</p>

<h2>How can I create content that converts?</h2>
<p>Research. Plan. Test. Revise. Test. Revise again.</p>
<p>Creating content that meets an end goal of taking a certain action, like converting, really needs to start with <a href="http://info.thesouthagency.com/a-practical-guide-to-content-strategy-whitepaper" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A STRONG CONTENT STRATEGY</a>. Starting with a strong strategy helps to:</p>
<ul><li>Prioritize your brand’s marketing objectives: awareness, consideration, online or offline sales, or loyalty.</li><li>Add content-related details to audience personas for your target audience on social channels. What do they view? What do they like?</li><li>Research your competition. What opportunities are they missing?</li><li>Decide what success looks like. What do you want to achieve with this campaign? Set the proper metrics for your content plan.</li></ul>
<p>Offer value with whatever content you create: make sure it speaks to topics that mean the most to your target audience and speak to your brand’s overall messaging.</p>
<p>Also, don’t forget the importance of a strong CTA. Ask for what you want the reader or viewer to do.</p>

<h2>What’s the one thing I could do that my competition probably isn’t doing?</h2>
<p>Good question. We don’t have the answer, but we do know how you can find out.</p>
<p>Taking a quick glance over the shoulder to see the competition’s playing field and how they are performing helps set up your brand for opportunities and learnings at their expense. However, notice we said quick glance. Spending too much time analyzing your competitors and watching their every move takes away energy and time from your own efforts. Building a competitor analysis report at least twice a year will help in keeping an eye on opportunities and learnings while compiling data to best compare apples to apples. Often times, it’s not really the thing you could be doing that you learn, but the one thing you should never do.</p>

<h2>I have a small team and limited budget, what channels should I invest in first?</h2>
<p>This question goes back to the answer in the first question.</p>
<p>With a small team and limited budget, investing in the right channels will be important to create the desired success needed. Conducting research of where your target audience spends most of their time will help pave the way for which channels will be worth your time and investment.</p>
<p>What channels are currently attributing the most (quality) traffic to your website? What sources are counting for the most referrals?</p>
<p>Often it’s a case to get creative and think about the situation differently:</p>
<ul><li>Time savers like teaming with a partner brand to create content can help grow reach and save media spend</li><li>Test targeting long tail keywords in website copy and ad buys to avoid overly saturated and costly keywords</li><li>Make sure your customers feel valued and appreciated. This doesn’t have to be a huge act, a simple email or note from your sales or front line staff can spur word-of-mouth referrals</li></ul>

<p>Valtech Union is a creative &amp; performance marketing agency that creates omni-channel campaigns, unleashing creativity on a data-driven world, helping brands produce memorable, measurable and repeatable results. Obsessed with data-driven performance, we believe every marketing dollar should be viewed as an investment. Our clients expect a meaningful return and we prove the ROI of our work with quantifiable data. </p>