The goal of all marketing activities should be sales. Selling your product or service is the only way to get an in-flow of cash. The goal of your digital marketing road map should always be the sale. Sales can be done in your store or on your website. Ultimately the goal is not just to have the customer visiting you, but to have the customer handing over money in exchange for a product or service.

Digital marketing can be broken down into the following categories;

Website

You should always treat your website the same way you would treat a physical store. It is not a “set-and-forget” business tool and needs consistent attention to get it working for you.

3rd Party Advertising

There are a host of sites that can help you drive traffic to your website, leads to your inbox or direct sales. These are mostly classifieds or listings sites and,
depending on your product or service, information can be fed between your CRM system and the site.

Search Marketing

When a person is looking to solve a problem, they can turn to a search engine like Google or Bing. These search engines will have categorised your website, read all your keywords and determined if your site is relevant to answer the question being asked.

Social Media

Social media has become an entertainment format; much like TV, radio and print. Social media gives you a great opportunity to communicate why people need your service or product. It is also a great channel to educate customers on topics that may interest them which will cause them to want or need your product or service.

Display Ads

Display advertising is very much like traditional print advertising. These are adverts that sit alongside content with people are consuming like news article, blogs or learning information

Video Ads

Using videos for marketing has been around for a long time. Ads which interrupt content, much like it was done on TV, are still present on platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo.

Email

Email marketing is a great way to keep your customer updated on what is happening in your business. One of the greatest benefits of email marketing is that it drives action. If your CRM system can help you understand what a client wants, then you can tailor the email message to suit their interest.

SMS

SMS boasts an open rate of 99%. It is a quick way to reach your customer where they are with a short marketing message.

Ultimately you will need to make use of multiple marketing channels to get the most out of your marketing effort. At first, you don’t need to get all of them working, but as you grow it is important to diversify your marketing plan.

Click here to download the Digital Marketing Roadmap and learn more about how the different channels fit into the consumer decision making cycle.

The post How Digital Marketing Fits Together appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

That said, there are some times when it is well worth it to spend a little extra on a tool that helps you make money. But, if you are still small and need some help, these companies have got your back with an awesome free tool.

There is no order to this list, but I can assure you that I have used all of these and they are 100% free for the basic functions.

Media Creation

In order to advertise, you need to be able to create slick media. This is not just for print ads, but social media as well as email or Whatsapp campaigns.

Canva

Canva is free and has loads of free templates for all social channels, print designs, and even animated posts. It is easy to use and can make your content look like it has a professional touch. https://www.canva.com/

Stock Images

Pixabay and Pexels are my go-to for free images. Pexels also has some stock videos for you to use. I currently pay a subscription for Adobe stock. After a while, you start to see other advertisers use the same free stock images and I prefer my content to be different. These 2 are great for free images and videos.

Video editor

While on the topic, I use iMovie on the iPhone to edit and create video content. There is a debate still going between Android and iOS, but for a content creator, iPhone has amazing tools on board that allow you to create 4K video with no subscriptions and no watermarks. Even a slideshow video with music will take seconds and look amazing. Here is a sample from a few photos and videos on my phone. (If you’re on a budget, get an older iPhone with larger storage capacity)

Video Messages

Soapbox is a Chrome add-on that allows you to record yourself and your screen simultaneously to send a personalised video presentation. I use it all the time and it is amazing.

Social Media tools

There are a few scheduling and posting tools available. Facebook’s Creator Studio is an excellent tool to manage Facebook and Instagram pages. You can find it on the Facebook page menu.

For other social channels, I use Buffer. It can post to multiple channels and you can schedule pretty far in advance. For LinkedIn content, it doesn’t keep the same aspect ratio for your images so you need to plan your media carefully. It will also shorten links automatically for you.

Website tools

The best website tool I suggest for any business is Google Analytics. If you don’t have any tracking installed you are missing out on a wealth of information to improve your business.

URL Builder

If you have analytics you can use UTM codes in your links to track the campaigns. Google has a good one here.

Website Chat

A website chat is an amazing way to encourage people to contact you while on the site. Often people get lost (or lazy) and don’t want to look through the site for what they want. Using a chat function means they can ask the question with ease.

Tawk is a live chat that you can respond by using an app on your phone or with your browser.

Facebook has a chat function that links to Facebook Messenger. I have used Google’s Dialogflow to build an automated chatbot within Facebook Messenger. This is definitely for the advanced user.

CRM Tools

Without a doubt, Hubspot is my go-to for CRM. The free functions are so useful with add-ons for Gmail, Outlook and Google Chrome. They also can extract lead data from Facebook and LinkedIn lead ads and add them directly to your CRM.

I use Mailchimp for my bulk emails. Under the free package, you get enough functionality to maintain a good list for emails. I pay a small fee per month for the basic package and have automation campaigns, and a free website and domain. The website function is quite limited though. I stick to WordPress for my customers.

Zapier helps me move my contacts instantly from Hubspot to Mailchimp. This means I can automate campaigns from Facebook to Hubspot, to Mailchimp and initiate a series of emails without touching a thing. (I love technology)

I’ve also recently started using Calendly to schedule meetings. I’m new to this one so if there is a better tool on the market let me know.

Whatsapp Business is almost exactly like private Whatsapp but you can have an automated response and template responses for frequently asked questions. You can also get a link for people to message you instantly. Click here to send me a Whatsapp and try for yourself.

Get help

You might not always have time to manage these marketing efforts and that’s where I come in. You can visit my website here, to see the services that can help grow your business.

Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to get information and tips like this direct to your inbox.

The post Best Free Marketing Tools -Tested appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

Whats in it for them?

Remember that Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snap Chat, etc are all in it for the advertising money. This is why they favour content that is posted natively to their platform. Every piece of content you post keeps eyes on their app or website.

This can work for you and is a great brand awareness tool. However, I’m here to tell you about something that works even better.

Also read: Digital Performance Analysed: YouTube vs Facebook vs LinkedIn

Who owns what?

The worst problem with Social Media is who owns the database you are marketing to? It’s not you. They create algorithms that limit how many of your followers see your content.

A 2014 study by Ogilvy showed that reach was between 2-6% of the followers.

Email is all yours

The email database you collect is yours to manage and interact with. With a good email campaign you can get an open rate of over 50%. Utilising drip campaigns you can increase that to 60-70% of the list opening your email.

As long as you focus on providing value, and don’t annoy your audience, your list will remain intact. Social media and other display marketing methods online can help you grow your email list.

Social media has it’s place in marketing, but email will be a huge driver of engagement and business.

The post Forget Social Media- This is WAY more Effective Marketing appeared first on mediaholic marketing.