15 Jul answering your digital marketing questions
Read time: 7 minutes
Recently, we asked our Instagram followers to ask us anything about digital marketing. In this blog, our team of experts answer your most frequently asked questions about tracking results, websites, social media and email marketing!
General:
How do I know what kinds of digital marketing I need?
Every business is different, so every business’ digital marketing strategy will be unique. There are many different digital tactics you could be using to market your business, but to determine what kinds of digital marketing you need, you should first look at your audience. Where are your customers spending their time on the web? Are they using Google to find your products/services? Are they using social media? Do they listen to Spotify or watch YouTube? Your business should be wherever your customers are directing their attention.
To start with, we recommend assessing whether these digital marketing tactics could help you reach your customers:
- Website
- Social Media (Facebook & Instagram are a good start)
- Email campaigns
- Google Ads
- Facebook ads
How do I know if my digital marketing is working?
There are many ways to assess whether your digital marketing efforts are working effectively to bring you more leads and sales. If you can’t see from your sales records where your customers are coming from, you can use a range of different tools to track your digital marketing results:
- Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your website performance
- Facebook Ads Manger to track your Facebook and Instagram ads performance
- Google Ads Reporting to track your Google Ads performance
- Facebook Insights to track the performance of your page and the content you’re posting
Google Tag Manager is a great tool for those with no website development knowledge to help you with tracking clicks, video views, purchases, file downloads, phone calls and contact form submissions in your site. If you need help setting up these tools to track performance of your site, get in touch.
Websites:
How often should I be updating my website with new posts?
The more blog posts, the better in our opinion. If possible, we recommend uploading a new blog post at least once a month. However, you need to make sure the content you’re uploading includes quality information. Quality over quantity applies when it comes to posting blogs on your website. Google will be looking for quality content that helps people who are searching for information. If your content is less helpful than your competitor’s, Google will show your competitor’s websites first in the search results.
What should I include on my website?
Your website should include any information about your business that your customers might want to know. We recommend you include the following:
- Contact details (email, phone number, business address, links to your social media pages)
- Product/service listings
- Information about your business (who you are and what makes you great)
If you’re a service-based business, it is also great to include a portfolio of work you have completed for your customers.
From here, FAQs, testimonials and a blog are also great things to include on your website. These can help to add value to your website, increasing credibility and providing useful information for your customers.
How do I get my website to show up on Google search?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a practice that digital marketers use to get websites showing up organically in Google search results. SEO aims to improve unpaid search result rankings (as opposed to paid search engine advertising like Google Ads). SEO focuses on website health and keyword optimisation – two things that search engines look for to decide whether the website is relevant to search requests.
There are a few things you can do to optimise your website:
- Regularly update your website
- Use keywords throughout your site that customers might search in Google (eg. “Plumber in Melbourne”)
- Upload quality blog posts to your website
If you’ve had a go at SEO yourself but your website still isn’t showing up on Google, we recommend employing a digital marketing agency. At Redsteps, we offer a range of SEO services. Contact us today to find out more.
Social Media:
How do I get more followers on Instagram?
Instagram is a fantastic tool for many businesses. But growing your followers can be tricky. We recommend avoiding companies that pay for followers – Instagram know if you’re doing this and will penalise your account. Instead, we recommend consistently posting quality content, using relevant hashtags on your posts, running competitions and paid advertising.
Which social media platforms should I be using for my business?
Each social media platform serves a different purpose for businesses. Which social media platforms you should be using for your business depends on your goals. Here’s a breakdown of what some of the major platforms are most useful for:
- Facebook is great for advertising your products, creating an opportunity for two-way communication with your customers and engaging your customers with your brand.
- Instagram is fantastic for showcasing products and/or completed projects. Instagram is also a great tool for selling products as you can directly link customers to your website to purchase whatever you’ve posted a photo of.
- LinkedIn is a platform with a business-to-business focus. If you want to build relationships with your stakeholders (businesses you want to sell to, suppliers, staff), LinkedIn is a great tool.
- Twitter is great for communicating with a large audience. With Twitter, you can share updates on new launches, industry news, company changes and links to relevant articles. We recommend Twitter to large businesses with a broad audience.
- TikTok is proving to be a great tool for creative brands who want to engage with young audiences. It’s fantastic for showing off products in fun and unique ways.
- Pinterest is amazing for showcasing aesthetically beautiful products. This platform is particularly suited for fashion, homewares, art, and cosmetics brands.
- YouTube is a great tool to use if you want to demonstrate how a product or service works. This platform gives brands the opportunity to be creative and produce engaging content.
- Snapchat should be considered by brands wanting to connect with young audiences. It is a fantastic tool for creating brand awareness.
What should I be posting on social media?
When creating content for social media, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What do you think they’d want to see? Are they interested in your products and new launches? Your sales and special offers? Tips and advice related to your product/service? Keep your customer at the centre of everything you post to your social media accounts.
We recently created a blog with 10 tips on creating social media content – check it out here!
Emails:
Is email marketing still effective?
Email is still a fantastic marketing tool. It gives businesses the opportunity to directly communicate with customers and maintain loyal relationships. Emails are a great way to let your customers know about your sales, new products and upcoming events. It’s also still a relatively cost-effective way of reaching your customers and can have fantastic results.
Check out our blog on creating email marketing campaigns!
How do I get more people to sign up to my email list?
There are few great ways to build your email database:
- Install a sign-up form on your website
- Ask customers if they want to join your email list when they purchase your products/services
- Run a competition where entrants enter their email address to go in the running to win a prize
When collecting emails for your database, remember that you always need to let your customers know how you will be using their email and obtain their permission before contacting them.
Got more digital marketing questions? Email us today! hello@redsteps.com.au
Follow us on Instagram so you can ask us more questions in the future!