The 4 most popular types of digital marketing services

Can digital marketing services help your business grow?

Digital marketing services can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. This largely depends on the needs and goals of your business. Not every company will require the same level of support. Some may have limited digital marketing resources in-house and only require a little extra input. While other organisations could be at the very beginning of their online visibility journey.

The truth of the matter is as consumers we’re spending more and more time online. It is estimated that more than 60% of Google searches are done on mobile devices. This implies two important considerations for businesses.

1. Your potential clients are more likely to be conducting their research phases online. Is your site mobile-friendly?
2. This statistic demonstrates the magnitude of our digital society and further affirms where your consumers are spending their time.

If your consumers are spending more time hanging out online, then that’s exactly where you need to be. But…it’s not that simple. You’re not the only one who realises this and that makes the digital world a crowded one.

Enter – digital marketing services!

In this guide, we breakdown the four most popular digital marketing services that you might want to consider. Don’t worry, we know there is a lot of information to take in. That’s why under each service, we’ll include some questions you can ask yourself to help you make a decision. 

1. Pay Per Click

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is sometimes misconstrued as being only a viable option for the big players.

“Don’t you need loads of money?”

“I heard you need to spend at least £100k to see results”

We’ve heard it all and we’d like to put these assumptions to rest. While you do need a dedicated budget for your PPC campaigns, you don’t need to be Jeff Bezos! You just need to be strategic and realistic.

The main thing holding back your PPC campaigns is likely to be a committed time resource. PPC advertising does require maintenance. We can’t stress enough the importance of not just setting up your ads and letting Google run away with itself. You do need to have someone who is dedicated to getting the most out of your budget.

How can you include PPC campaigns in your marketing strategy?

Cold traffic

Do you want to reach more people who haven’t heard of you before? Of course you do! You can use platforms such as Google Ads and Bing to find cold audiences. Put your name in front of them and get them onto your website. But don’t be fooled into thinking that this is the end result. Increasing new website visitors is a small cause for celebration but there’s much more to come.

Don’t let them get away!

After a visitor has landed on your website, a number of things could make them leave. That doesn’t necessarily mean that your site is bad or difficult to navigate. Any number of things could have distracted them and caused them to leave. But this doesn’t have to be the end of the story. Once they have become a visitor, the real digital marketing magic happens.

PPC platforms will let you retarget (or remarket) to your website visitors. Have you ever been looking at a product, then you switch to a different website and…oh there are those shoes! How did they do it? It’s the magic of well-placed, strategic marketing. Retargeting your website visitors means giving yourself a second chance. Or third…fourth…tenth – you get the point.

Are PPC digital marketing services for you? Ask yourself:

• Do you want to reach more potential customers?
• Do you want to keep in touch with website visitors and help them remember you?
• Is your site attracting and converting enough new and returning visitors organically?

If you answered: yes, yes, no, PPC could be a good option for you.

2. Search Engine Optimization

There is some bewilderment around Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for a few reasons.

1. People often assume that they need to be a website developer to perform any SEO strategies.
2. They see SEO as content marketing’s more complicated sibling.

The truth is that SEO and content marketing really go hand in hand. In order to see successful results, the two must work together. For example, you could write the most insightful, revolutionary content but without SEO very few people will see it. The same goes for SEO. Your site could be optimised perfectly, but, if your content is poor, your visitors will likely bounce.

SEO support is one of the most popular digital marketing services because of the long-term benefits it can have. SEO is what Marketers call a ‘long game’. But the results can be astronomical for your businesses’ visibility.

As consumers become more tech-savvy, more of them opt for the organic search results – that’s where you need to be. Of course, striking a balance between paid visibility and organic is best, but you can’t ignore your organic positioning.

What does SEO typically involve?

A few strategies that most digital marketing services will include are:

• Creating blogs/resources that are not only insightful, but strategically optimised.
• Working with your website developers to increase the loading speed of your website. This will be particularly important as of May 2021 when Google rolls out its Core Web Vitals update.
• Gaining links from external sites that tell the search engines that you’re reputable.
• Optimising your videos and images and increasing the chances of your visuals appearing in the SERP.

Does your business need SEO support? Ask yourself:

• Where does my website currently ranking in search results?
• Do my website analytics show that I am getting enough organic traffic to actually convert into sales?

If you answered no and no, then an SEO service is a good start.

3. Social media management

Now, onto social media. The very words ‘social media’ tend to divide business owners. Some get excited and some would literally rather do anything than post on social channels. We understand that social media can seem very daunting and often the results of organic posts are hard to measure.

Many businesses use their social channels primarily for brand awareness and engaging with followers. Like we said earlier, you have to be where your consumers are. Yes, that could mean sharing a cute cat meme if your followers go mad for it (depending on your industry).

What might seem futile and unrewarding can actually be doing more than you think.

When enlisting digital marketing services to manage or improve your social media, the following will likely happen:

• A social media strategy will be developed. This strategy will detail things such as when you post, the type of content and what needs to be created.
• A comprehensive set of brand guidelines will be created if you don’t already have them. These guidelines will determine how your brand sounds and looks on social media.
• Your goals, targets and how you measure success will also be compiled. This will help you to assess your efforts versus the rewards.
• A scheduling plan will be created so that posting happens automatically.

Do you need some support to enhance your social media strategy? Ask yourself:

• Does my audience hang out on social media?
• Would I be happy for a prospective customer to only see my social media and make their buying decision?
• Do my posts currently get any or enough traction in the form of clicks, shares or impressions?

If you answered yes, no, no, external social media support is something you might want to consider. 

4. Email marketing

“Email marketing is dead” – you’d be surprised how often we hear this.

Wrong! Email marketing has certainly changed but it is by no means dead.

Your email contacts are certainly more savvy and commercially aware. They can identify a spam email from the subject or even the email address. But, that doesn’t mean you should rule out email marketing. You just have to be clever.

Whenever we implement email marketing strategies at Vocal, we always ask ourselves:

“Would I open that?”

If the answer is no, then it’s back to the drawing board we go.

Smart email marketing consists of multiple audience lists and communications at various stages. We know from experience, that when we segmented our email lists to be more granular, our open rates soared. Depending on your service offering, you can segment your audience into many categories, such as:

• Industry
• Services
• Interests
• Stages of the buying process
• Location and so on.

Making your subjects and content as specific to that contact as possible will drastically increase your open rates.

Do you need support with email marketing? Ask yourself:

• Do I have time? (Time for formatting and segmenting data, crafting compelling subjects and headlines and strategising the email journey.)
• Are my email marketing efforts currently producing leads and do they convert into sales?
• Do I know my audience well enough to engage them with content they want to see?

If you answered no, no and no, digital marketing services focussed on email communications are a good place to start.

Have a chat with our team

At Vocal, we provide digital marketing services that help you see results.

There’s no time like the present. Get the ball rolling by contacting us. Have a relaxed chat with a member of our team about your businesses’ goals and your marketing requirements. 

If you still aren’t sure whether to enlist digital marketing services, there is a quick and free way to decide. Ask your current and new clients where they first heard about you. From here, you can either choose to go all in and improve what you are clearly already doing well. Or you could ask Vocal to help you increase your visibility in the areas you aren’t utilising yet.