Change is inevitable.
With time, everything changes.
While the fundamentals of digital marketing might be more or
less static, strategy and tactics are subject to change.
The changing market, technology trends and consumer perception make it difficult to achieve business growth using the same mindset.
In this post, I will talk about some core things businesses should do
to stay top of their omnichannel digital marketing game next year.
To set expectations right, this post is directed towards a mindset
rather than talking about technical tools and tactics.
This will greatly help you shape a realistic and productive
digital marketing action plan in 2020.
Embrace Technology & Automation
In our discussions with business owners, we experienced
an uneasiness in trying new things with marketing.
A CEO of a wealth management company recently said:
“we don’t want to automate marketing.”
Shocking, right?
You will find it surprising that this is not uncommon in the Industry.
Automation can save you time and money.
Moreover, it can have a direct impact on your bottom line.
Thankfully, marketing automation is affordable.
You can easily create email marketing automation either for
free (depending on audience size) or for a small monthly fee.
I recently blogged about the impact of artificial
intelligence on digital marketing.
Give it a read to understand
how artificial intelligence affects digital marketing.
The digital marketing world is moving towards automation at a
faster pace due to advancements in AI and machine learning.
Focus On Search Engine Optimization
This is an aspect of digital marketing that, again,
several businesses fail to understand and respect.
SEO is not about churning dozens of articles stuffed with keywords.
It is a science and an art.
It involves hours of research, critical thinking, understanding of algorithms, and several other aspects of marketing.
Search Engine Optimization will be a key factor in 2020-
especially voice search.
Did you know Organic Traffic captures more than 40% of the revenue?
SEO also affects PPC (Google Adwords, Bing Ads) performance.
Content Marketing 2020
Storytelling can take you miles ahead of your competition.
Earlier this year, we covered useful Content Marketing tips
to keep your digital marketing game strong.
2020 will be about quality content as well, with video
dominating social media platforms.
Focus your efforts on adding useful,
valuable content for your readers.
This goes for all channels/platforms- email marketing,
website content, social media posts/ads, etc.
Take a look at one of the email marketing campaigns
we did for one of our clients:
These were AWESOME results.
Now, not all clients and campaigns get the exact same numbers.
But with this client, we had a good engagement with the audience.
And the key was- Quality Content.
Audit Your Audience
Different audiences behave differently.
The faster you understand this, the better
the marketing results you will get.
If you are not paying attention to your audience demographics,
you are wasting a lot of money on incorrect marketing.
We were running Facebook ads for one of our clients.
This e-commerce client believed that women aged 20-30
would be the right target audience.
Before assuming (which is more common than you can think),
we decided to let data show us the audience’s response.
With a very small budget, we were able to identify that for this
client’s product, women aged 55+ were the most useful.
We tested more creatives and experimented with different
funnels as well before we concluded this.
Only after experimenting, we decided to scale the budget,
getting over 3x ROI for this client.
And this goes not only for paid social marketing.
You can look into analytics to understand how your
audience behaves with your organic content as well.
Here is another recent example of another client.
We found that 90% of engagement was from men.
And of those, 45% were between the age of 45-54.
Had we not paid attention to these numbers, we would be
wasting money marketing to audiences that are not interested.
Audience Analysis should be a key part of your
social media marketing strategy for 2020.
Digital Marketing Action Plan 2020: Measure Correctly
One of the key advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing is its ability to measure.
With digital, you can calculate how much you spent
and what was the ROI.
The level of granularity of measurement depends
on your skills and tools.
For a newly launched business, KPIs such as website users,
bounce, and ROAS (among others) can be sufficient.
But for larger companies and growth-driven startups, CAC, LTV,
and Churn among others play an important role in defining a digital marketing strategy.
Here is an example of a PPC campaign we have been
running for an ecommerce Shopify store.
Only upon deep-dive of metrics, we can understand how a business is doing, and where are the opportunities to improve.
I strongly recommend being metric driven to grow your business.
With Digital Marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Data Studio, Facebook Insights, and several others, measurement is within your reach.
The key is to get insights out of these tools.
This is where a professional digital marketing agency can help.
Strategy Before Tools
I find it amusing when someone asks me which tools
do I use for digital marketing.
It does NOT matter.
I can give you a list of all the tools…
but without the knowledge and skills (experience ),
it might be overwhelming for you to digest everything.
Don’t focus too much on tools.
Focus on what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve first.
Tools help you implement your digital marketing strategy.
Some businesses go crazy on spending too much money on tools.
You don’t need all that unless you are a global business
with millions of dollars in annual revenue.
We were able to generate 20X ROAS for a client using
only Photoshop and Google + Facebook Ads.
The cost to use Photoshop = a license
Google Ads/ Facebook Ads usage cost = FREE
Only spend was on the ads itself.
Keep an Eye On Algorithm Changes and Updates
Google and Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn)
dominate digital marketing.
They often release updates (esp. Google) that can have a
direct impact on your online presence.
Recall the Facebook Video Algorithm Update earlier this year?
Or the Google Search June Core Update?
The latter cost Daily Mail Online 50% drop in Search traffic.
Paying attention to these updates can help you
plan your digital marketing action plan better.
Experiment
All the research out there is based on trends and data.
While it is good to get an idea and an overall feel,
you won’t understand the impact of those trends until you experiment.
Earlier in this post, I showed you data suggesting engagement and conversions for a particular client in the 45+ age range.
If we had just gone by the trend, we would have never
known these invaluable insights.
Growth Hacking is all about experimentation.
Interesting Read:
growth hacking b2b saas
Don’t let news and industry trends frustrate you.
Use them to aid your experiments.
What’s your digital marketing action plan for 2020?
Leave your comments below.
About OmniDigit
You want business growth- more traffic, more conversions,
more revenue.
We help you get there with digital marketing, website design,
SEO, PPC, Social media marketing, email marketing, CRO,
Content Marketing, and Consulting.
OmniDigit is a professional full-service digital marketing agency
with a single goal- to help you grow.
