digital marketing book

I would like to take this opportunity to personally welcome you to Like Follow Engage.  Like Follow Engage is aimed towards business owners and corporate marketing departments looking to harness the power of digital for their companies.  You could be the Managing Director or the Head of Marketing looking to utilise a digital-first approach.  Either way, this website and the Like Follow Engage book will help you to create a powerful digital marketing strategy and plan for digital implementation.

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing, in its simplest form is the promotion of one’s products and services via electronic media which could include for example, the internet, mobile phone technology or emails.  Most of us now have access to at least one digital device and marketing through these channels is a natural progression from the off-line forms of marketing of yesteryear.

Digital marketing channels include search engine optimisation and marketing, paid search marketing via for example Google pay per click, social media optimisation and marketing, display marketing, email marketing and a lot more.

Whatever digital channel is used, the core marketing principle of sending a sought-after message to a well targeted consumer remains key.  Giving someone exactly what they want is much more likely to lead to a sale than offering someone something they are vaguely or not interested in at all.

As a Business, Should I Be Using Digital Media?

In short YES.  No matter what your business, digital marketing must form the cornerstone of your marketing plan.  Put it this way, if you don’t use digital technology, your competitors certainly will and you will very quickly find yourself lagging behind them and could ultimately risk losing your business.

Digital spend within corporations is on the increase and many companies have favourable budgets to help ensure that they embrace digital change and are digital-ready.  With the correct digital corporate governance and effective implementation of digital plans, businesses can retain market leadership within their industry sectors.

Digital media allows you to build your brand online and can enable you to understand how your consumers behave and why they buy or don’t buy from you.  Consumer buying behaviour has changed and in a world of tech-savvy consumers, digital marketing is an absolute must.  This is why it’s so important that you and your team are familiar with current and emerging digital technology and its application to your industry sector.

Social Media Is an Important Element of Digital Media

Digital media includes all popular social media channels.

A question I hear quite often is, “should I have an account on every social media channel?”

And my answer is … “certainly not”, as there are hundreds of them!  Your success on social media isn’t down to how many channels you have a presence on, but is more to do with how active you are on those channels.

Which social media channel you do use depends on your business and the demographics of your consumer.  Think consumer and brand first, and then target your consumers with the appropriate model to your business mission.

Consumer behaviour has changed immensely in the last decade.  Buyers are performing their own online research at unprecedented levels before committing to purchase.  Prospects will ask others openly about your products and services and are more likely to trust their views than anything you say.  However, any objections to purchase can be quashed via content you put out there, social proof and other information your consumer finds online.

People with similar interests congregate online in communities and groups, have a voice and love to talk.  If someone is happy with your products and services they may let others know.  If they are unhappy, they will let everyone know and when this is done via a mobile device, can result in instant negative exposure to your brand.

The current conversational economy is an opportunity for you as a company to raise the bar.  Your service should be so excellent that the opportunity to complain never arises.  And if it does, your online presence via an exemplary customer team and loyal fan base should handle it so well that any negativity is minimised immediately.

As an organisation, you can build your own communities and groups on various social sites.  Your captive audience will then effectively market your products for you.  You need to harness the power of digital media so that customers always come to you first.

Constantly pushing advertisements and sales literature at increasingly social-media-savvy consumers no longer works.  Businesses need to take on a more strategic, relationship-building approach and this can be done so easily via digital media.

One of the primary reasons that social media is such an effective marketing tool is that it gives brands and businesses the ability to interact and engage with more and more people globally.  Social Media when harnessed correctly will ensure that your business remains successful and that your reach extends to customers that would never have found you otherwise.

Digital marketing is a dangerously powerful tool and when used carefully and correctly, can bring you a steady feed of rampant hungry consumers.  Through your social media presence, your fans can ‘like’ and ‘follow’ you.  This attachment to your brand can be utilised to encourage communication, interaction and hence engagement with your audience.

It’s this sequence of events that leads to the ultimate sale in this conversational economy.  Successful engagement will result in not only a purchase from your fan base, but a lifetime community of fans that with continued targeted messaging will result in repeat custom and referrals.

If you would like a hand with your digital marketing, please get in touch.  We’ve helped hundreds of customers for over a decade and would love to work with you too.

You can contact the Like Follow Engage team by clicking here.

Like Follow Engage is available from Amazon.