Speaker 1: Thanks to HubSpot for sponsoring today's video. When I was younger, I knew I wanted to go into marketing after a quick career change. So I started working at a large advertising agency, but soon realized that traditional marketing, like billboards, print ads, and also TV commercials, weren't really for me. I didn't want to do traditional marketing. I wanted to get into digital marketing. Because when I stopped paying attention to traditional marketing ads, I realized that everyone else stopped paying attention as well. And their attention shifted to online, where the rules are totally different. The type of media and content that gains attention online behaves so differently to traditional marketing campaigns that we once knew. Here's how I would explain digital marketing to a complete beginner like I was back then, and how you can leverage this powerful type of marketing to grab attention online, generate more sales, and also creating a community of loyal fans for your products and services. Hi, I'm Lori. I'm a digital marketing strategist currently based in London. On this channel, I simplify digital marketing and social media so you can leverage the content here to level up your business and marketing strategies. Make sure to hit the subscribe button and notification bell so you get notified every time I release a new video. And I want to share with you this amazing free resource from HubSpot, their marketing plan template to help you drive business results from your digital marketing strategy. It covers everything you need to know in a simple and also effective layout and plan. And as you know, I always talk about this in the channel before, is that it doesn't matter if you ever were all at once online, but at the end of the day, it's about choosing the right strategy, the right channels that's relevant to your target audiences. And this plan really helps you to summarize it all in one place. What I really liked about it is that there's also a section in the plan that helps you link up your business goals with your marketing goals on digital marketing channels. And this is really important because what's the point of driving all that effort and budget behind your marketing when it doesn't actually link up to the business results that you want to achieve? And now you can get started for free to create a marketing plan for your business. All right, let's now talk about the differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing. So some of us may remember traditional marketing, let's say TV commercials, radio ads, and also print ads in magazines and newspapers. And I do because I'm definitely dating myself a little bit here. While these can be really effective, they can also be very high in cost and also limited in reach because you don't know exactly who's seen the ads and actually taking action in the back of it. And on the other hand, digital marketing is all about leveraging online marketing channels to reach your target audience. These can include social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, and also content marketing. In my opinion, digital marketing can be really cost-effective because there's a low barrier to entry for all business sizes alike. And the most important part is everything is trackable. So you can see who's taking action in the back of your ads, who's actually engaged with your ad, and you can also retarget individuals based on the action they've taken on your digital advertising and also your digital content. There are many channels and tactics to consider in digital marketing, but at the heart of it really is connecting with your audiences online. So you have to know your audiences really well. And this is actually the heart of everything in marketing, but especially in digital marketing. Without this, everything else really could be useless. As a first step, you can check the analytics on your website to see who is coming to your website, what's their demographic, and how do you create more content that they're currently reading and engaging with on your website? You can also check the insights behind your social media accounts. A lot of these will give you lots of useful info about who is currently your follower base and who is currently engaging with the content that perhaps you can make more content like these going forward for those target audiences. Now you might be wondering, what if I don't have any existing audiences and I'm currently starting with absolutely zero? That's absolutely fine because you can use public forums, let's say Quora or Reddit, to find out more about the kind of questions that your audiences might be asking for or searching for right now. And alternatively, you can use websites like answerthepublic.com to see all the top questions that people are asking for on a specific topic on social media platforms. Ultimately, be super, super clear on the type of audiences that you want to target and even down to the details of their challenges, their pain points, the publications that they may be reading, and also other competitors that are currently following as well. Now that we understand more about your target audiences, we can now think about diving into the different digital marketing channels that you can think about in your overall strategy. First, we have your website, and your website is the foundation, really, of your home on the internet. It's where you can showcase your product and your services, the story behind your brand and your business, and also the place where you can convert your visitors into your customers and clients. This is the one asset that you currently do own in your digital marketing strategy, so make sure not to overlook this. There's also a video on this channel all about creating an effective online website. You can check out here as well. So your website should be visually appealing, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines. Speaking of search engines, let's look into search engine optimization, or SEO for short. It's always a mouthful. So SEO is a long-term process of improving your website's visibility on search engines like Google by optimizing your website content with keywords, improving your site loading speed, which is so important nowadays with people with very low attention spans, and also acquiring a good amount of backlinks from online trusted websites, as well as improving the overall look and feel and usability of your website on different screen sizes, especially for the smartphones, because nowadays the majority of your website traffic comes from smartphones. By improving all of these over time, slowly but surely you can increase your organic traffic, and also, most important of all, converting more potential traffic into customers and clients. Another powerful digital marketing channel is social media. With billions of users worldwide on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, this really offers a massive opportunity for brands and businesses to attract and engage with a large online international audience. And the heart of social media marketing success involves creating compelling content, building a community, and engaging with your audiences over time. You can also run online advertising campaigns on social media, which in my opinion is also very cost-effective if done correctly. Email marketing is also another great way to nurture and create that relationship with your audiences over time, because emails is probably the last frontier where we still guard it as our personal details, but to be able to reach your audiences in their inboxes and establishing that relationship with them over time is so important. By sending personalized emails, delivering useful content, and also running targeted campaigns in your email marketing can be a great way to increase your conversions of your products and services over time. Paid search, or known as search engine marketing, or PPC campaigns is another great way to drive targeted traffic to your website. By bidding on keywords in your business, your ads will appear on top of search engine result pages. Last but not least is content marketing, and content marketing focuses on creating and delivering useful, engaging, or entertaining content. Blog posts, infographics, podcasts, YouTube videos, any other kind of content that may be relevant to your audiences. By providing valuable information, you're establishing yourself and your brand as an authority in your industry, and ultimately building that trust with your audience over time. And one thing I wanna talk about here is the concept of a marketing funnel. Imagine a funnel that essentially directs your audiences from very cold, individual audiences that never heard about you and your brand before, all the way down to the decision stage where they become a customer and client by deciding to purchase from you and your brand. So in the very top of the funnel, which is the awareness level, you want to create content that are compelling and educating, so these content can be all kinds of format, but especially using that content marketing strategy where you can leverage, let's say, YouTube videos, podcasts, blog posts, or infographics to attract and also educate your audiences. In the middle of the funnel, in the consideration stage, considering providing your audiences with content that maybe can give them more info about the product and services behind your product and services, so these can be eBooks, maybe perhaps educational webinars, or product demonstrations, or perhaps case studies, most importantly, from other brands and businesses that have leveraged your product and services effectively. In the very last piece of the funnel, which is essentially the decision stage, this is where you can provide content that provides that social proof to your audiences. So for example, customer testimonials that previously have used your product and services and absolutely loved it, and also reviews from them, perhaps online, and any limited discount offers, and also free trials that really kind of nudge them towards making that first purchase. Ultimately, remember that digital marketing is really powerful because everything can be measured and tracked, and this is where you can dive deep into the insights behind the different channels you're currently using in your digital marketing strategy, and then tracking that result over time and eventually optimizing it to be better and better each time. And I always say, in digital marketing, to have a testing-first mentality. Essentially, every business is different, every audience is different, but you can then tailor your digital marketing strategy to that specific audience and that business, and ultimately embracing this testing-first mentality by testing out in the real world. Then you can learn from the results, then refine your processes and your strategy to make even better next time. So some key metrics like website traffic, engagement levels of your content, and also conversion rates are really key to track over time. Digital marketing is also changing all the time. So it's really important to stay up to date with all the changes and updates that are happening in the industry right now. So for example, make yourself a regular reader and viewer of YouTube channels, podcasts, and also any other online publications that might be relevant in your industry right now. This is something I embraced personally in my own career and my business so far by becoming a Forever Student, and I hope that you can become one too. By integrating different digital marketing channels, you can make the best effective digital marketing plan for your business going forward. Thank you so much for watching. If you liked the video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and also share it with a friend who might also be interested in digital marketing. And remember to hit that subscribe button and notification bell to get notified every time I release a new video. And I'm curious, which channels in digital marketing are you currently looking to use in your digital marketing plan going forward? Make sure to share it in the comments below. All right, see you next time in the next video.