Top Digital Marketing Must-Do's

16-08-2013Tags: Strategy

We have put together a quick-fire check list for B2Bs to help them make the most of their digital marketing lead generation.

Thank you to everyone who got in contact to let us know which areas of digital marketing your B2B most wanted advice and guidance on. We hope the below goes someway to helping you plan, control and develop your digital marketing lead generation. Enjoy!

1) Understand Your Target Audiences Search Behaviour

This may seem like the very basics of marketing, but many businesses don't take into account that online search behaviours vary dramatically from offline. The right research and insight can literally save you hundreds, and in some cases millions of pounds.

For instance, if you are targeting a younger target audience, social media can be a key channel for breaking down barriers and enhancing engagement and interaction with your brand. But what social channels would work best? What type of content are they sharing and interacting with?

Email marketing can be an amazing tool to build and evolve your client relationships. But how do you incentivise people to handover their details in a world of overloading spam? Once you have their details how do you keep them interested?

Making sure you answer all the 'what if' niggles will allow for you to plan a much stronger marketing campaign.

2) Plan

Planning is fundamental to ensuring you understand and control your B2B lead generation. The planning document should be a 6-month Digital Marketing Plan (DMP), which ties into your overall marketing and business plan. The plan should detail your overarching objectives and then filter down to what strategies and tactics you are going to use to achieve your objectives.

The planning document will help you highlight any issues in resources and plan how these can be resolved. For instance if you want to implement a paid marketing campaign, who's going to manage it? Do we outsource or invest in-house? How are we going to monitor and control each channel?

3) Brand Image & Values

Your online brand image is no different to your offline brand image. It needs to be consistent and embody all the brand values which your clients would expect to see. Some pitfalls to watch out for....

If you have a paid display marketing campaign, make sure your adverts only appear where you would want your customers to find you. Automatic placements can see your brand appear on low grade websites, which can damage your reputation.

Many B2Bs outsource part or all of their content writing. Make sure you work with copywriters who understand your business, your tone of voice and industry.

Make sure your content across all channels (websites, blogs and social) adds value, insight and ties into your overall marketing goals. All marketing should have an aim and purpose. What do you want people to think or do once they have read your blog? Once they've seen your latest social update? or landed on your website?

4) Feed The Beast

The search environment is a dynamic and evolving ball of energy, which needs feeding. Feeding fresh content into your digital marketing supports SEO and enhances engagement with your target audience. This is why a plan is so important. Your Digital Marketing Plan should be a working document, which can be adapted to the changing needs of the online environment.

Every business strives to be on the first page of Google, but what are the tools which will help you get there? Good quality online content and link building can deliver some amazing results for businesses. If you invest enough time and energy into making your website a hot bed of valuable content, you might just reach Big G's first page.

However, the hard work doesn't stop when you reach the first page position. You may have earned your right to be there, but now you have to earn your right to stay there.

5) Monitor, Control and Evolve

Never stand still online. What works today, might not work tomorrow. Your Digital Marketing Plan should be for 6-months to a year, but should be continually monitored. A 3-month review is advised to ensure you are able to spot any issues and trends early on. Make sure you use Google Analytics for insight into your website visitors, search behaviours, social channels, paid marketing and conversions metrics.

So there you have it! Our top five digital marketing must-do's.