In the same way the offline world of marketing revolves around media, PR, sales material, product brochures etc., the online world too has a number of elements - each of which require managing. The strategy or plan within your business needs to identify how each of these elements operates in isolation and as part of a larger framework. At a very basic level, every business is trying to connect with more customers - the diagram above shows all the various online (digital) activities involved in driving traffic (new customers) into your business. There's a lot going on - social media activities, content (dynamic v's static), email marketing, online advertising. To start, let's take a quick run through content - then later we'll delve into social media and email marketing.

Content

Content lies at the heart of the strategy. It's the fuel which is going to drive the digital engine - and really that's the best way to think of this. We want to get to a point where the processes in the diagram run like a well oiled machine and with the correct type/volume of content available on tap this is achievable. We call this dynamic content as opposed to static content (more on this later). It's all the news, blogs, case studies, testimonials, videos, podcasts - the stuff which is going on in your business right now, perhaps unnoticed, which should be talked about and used to promote your excellence, your high standards, your new ways of working - whatever! Best bit, when it's used right, treated seriously within your business and optimised for search engines it can set you apart in your niche - massively!

Today, we're all working in a competitive environment, customers have multiple choices when they buy anything, particularly online, and if that's not enough, media bombardment subjects each of us to multiple and repeated marketing messages on a daily basis - whether we like it or not. This is why we need to be different, to stand out from our competition and have something unique to say. If the content we produce can do this, our prospects will start to see us as the first stop in their search for answers and this is really important!

Increasingly, customers are spending longer and longer searching the internet for answers to their problems - they're reading the information and reviews which will drive their purchasing decisions. The challenge therefore, is to consider how everything going on in your company and industry can be presented to customers in a way which meets their informational needs. The end game is for a prospect to make the link between your expertise and their willingness to pay you. Brilliant content will help this, but if it can entertain as well as educate and inform, then prospect conversions can occur even more quickly. 

When we think about all those people out there searching for the information you have in your organisation, there's two things we must remember. First, make sure you provide the content in the first place. In the digital world it's easy to assume the really important stuff is happening in the offices, on the street, face-to-face or on the phone. And sometimes this mindset can get in the way of developing your content - often this means little time is set aside for creative brainstorming, for identifying those juicy news stories your prospects may find useful. Secondly, remember that all those customers searching in your niche market will use a particular set of keywords and phrases to find you. This might seem obvious, but too often, content of any description is poorly optimised for these search terms - the upshot, less likelihood of your content being found and less chance of converting prospects into customers.

So we're starting to build up a picture of content. There's all the dynamic, ever changing stuff happening in your business right now. It needs to be captured, written about, filmed, recorded and made available. It should be optimised for keywords and presented to prospects in an educational, informative way - remember it's about solving your customers' problems, helping them find a solution to some issue they may have. Done correctly, you'll start to be viewed as the expert and this will make it easier to drive new customers into the areas of your business where you can convert them into lifelong payers. Dynamic content shouldn't be confused with static content. Really, this is the 'get-to-the-point' sales copy customers first see when they visit your website - perhaps your homepage? It's the content which immediately hits prospects with the benefits you offer and how you can solve their problems. If this content is absolutely spot on, it needn't change too often - and this is why we call it 'static'.

Ensuring prospects find your content needn't be a passive process driven by Google searches. Once you've blogged, filmed and recorded yourself silly, you have at your disposal a considerable arsenal which can be distributed via other digital marketing channels - in particular email and social media. Once again, the objective is the same, to pick up those prospects who are active in your niche and demonstrate to them your expertise and knowledge. This highlights the importance of building your email database - remember all those networking events you've attended, all the business cards you've gathered and delegate lists lying on your desk. Well, it's time to get all the email addresses properly captured and segmented. 

The question I posed at the beginning of this blog was, Why you need a digital communication strategy. To this point we've just touched on driving traffic using content and you've seen how much there is to talk about with that alone. Looking at the diagram again, we can see the number of processes, interactions and multiple points of customer contact with your business. Imagine trying to start this engine of processes without a plan. How would it ever get going, how would it be sustained if it did and how would you know it was working?

With a strategy in place, the allocation of time and resource to particular activities would be clear. Better still, if the strategy incorporated a six monthly or yearly digital communications plan, all your resources would know when to set aside time for creativity, content development, social media, advertising or email activities. In planning to drive more traffic to your business there are a number of steps to be performed, in a particular order, by a variety of people. Plus there's the involvement of third-party suppliers (technology partners etc). It needn't be a process filled with complexity, but to get it right calls for some level of organisation and this is why we recommend a robust digital marketing strategy to each of our clients.