Our Golden Rules for Digital Marketing

There are no shortcuts in the world of digital marketing – no sure-fire hits to make sure every campaign is a success. However, there are plenty of best practices or what you might call ‘golden rules’ that many people will follow to give websites the very best chance to succeed. 

Here at ICAAL, we have many years of experience across SEO, PPC, web design and more. With countless campaigns for a whole range of verticals under our belts, we know a thing or two about what works. That’s why companies across the globe choose us to run their digital campaigns. If you’re interested, talk to our team today. 

Keep It Simple

Whether it’s designing websites, creating content or promoting services on social media, it’s important to keep things relatively simple. Everything is so fast-paced, even more so online. We’re all hit with so much information, content, videos, adverts, one after the other, relentlessly, every time we pick up our phones or open a browser. It’s no surprise that customers aren’t able to take in everything about your business all in one place. 

That’s why it’s so important not to overcomplicate things. If you’re designing a website, make sure it’s clear where you want your customers to click. You don’t need dozens of calls to action – what are the key two or three conversions you want users to make? Prioritise those. When you’re creating content – blog posts, service pages, PR or features – focus on your favourite few points to get across the messaging that matters. 

With so little time to make an impact and potentially only a few touchpoints available before your customers choose you or decide to go elsewhere, keep it simple; make it count. 

Put Users First

With SEO, there are countless search engine algorithms to contend with – hundreds of them each year – which constantly calculate which websites to rank above or below the others. As such, there are always proposed ‘best practices’ for digital marketers to follow. Sometimes, Google stays quiet about what it’s looking for, but occasionally the representatives will provide insights on what should be done. 

These Google guidelines might concern website load speeds, topical trending content, authoritative blog posts, high quality link building… But while it’s easy to get caught up in what Google is looking for, it’s important to remember why. Search engine algorithms are put in place to help users find what they want. If Google is looking for load speed, it’s so users don’t have to wait. If it’s looking for types of content, it’s so people find content they can trust. 

Digital marketing needs to put users first. You don’t want to chase algorithms; you want to address the concerns that customers might have and give them a good experience. On a less technical level, make sure your website is simple to navigate and your content is easy to understand. If your potential customers are happy, they’ll stay loyal and convert.  

Find Your Audience 

Whether through paid media like social posts or Google Ads pay-per-click, it’s vital to find and market to your chosen customers. You know your audience – you understand their interests, their demographics, age range, and geographic location, to name a few. And when you’re investing in digital marketing, you want to make sure you’re spending the right money to deliver the right ads to the right people. 

With clever marketing strategies, you can create a smart ‘funnel’ approach that shows different ads to customers wherever they are in the journey. Perhaps once they’ve found you by searching for your brand name organically, you want to retarget them on social media so they see your products and services as they’re scrolling. Want to find customers who are in the market and looking at your competitors? It’s possible to bid on other companies’ brand names through Google Ads, so you can intercept some of that traffic. 

What’s more, when you’re creating content, you need to target the right keywords to match customers’ intent. Someone using a search term around costs or prices is more likely to be ready to convert than someone who is asking Google what your product even is in the first place. It’s important to understand the intent of your content – informational, transactional, and more. You don’t want to win ‘vanity traffic’ and bring the wrong customers to your website. Find the right audience, convert them, and grow your business.

Keep Customers Engaged

Digital marketing is all about standing out from the crowd. And once you’ve managed to catch the attention of new customers, you need to hold it for as long as possible – certainly long enough for them to convert to a sale, an order, whatever your desired conversion action is. That’s why the next step is so important, and so challenging – keeping them engaged. 

There are a number of ways to do this depending on the channel. On social media channels, for example, it might take a little longer. If a potential customer starts following your Facebook page, you’ll need to put our clever, engaging, informative content that tells them all about you and what you can offer. It may take a little while to encourage them to finally get in touch, so you want to feature on their feed as much as you can to win them around. 

Alternatively – perhaps if you’re operating an e-commerce business – then you may not have to keep your customers engaged for too long. Which, of course, comes with its own challenges. You’ll need to make sure you have offers, USPs, incentives across the website to get them over the line and make their purchase. Could you implement engaging product visuals like CGIs, design tools, Quoting Engines or Chat Bots? Is there an advantage in presenting people with a pop-up when they go to leave the website, with a unique offer code or newsletter sign up option – email marketing is another excellent way to keep your customers engaged over time. No matter which method you’ve used to hook your potential customers in, don’t let them go without presenting as much as possible about yourself. 

Talk to Our Team Today

Here at ICAAL, keeping customers engaged is one of our specialities. We’ve developed a wealth of bespoke tools to encourage people to convert, and we understand that the websites we build and the content we create must sell you and your business quickly and effectively. 

If you need support on how to keep your customers engaged and get them ready to buy, or if you still need to reach those customers in the first place, talk to ICAAL. We’ll consult with you to understand what you need, and we’ll tailor our recommendations to create a bespoke digital marketing strategy that works for you.