Effective Digital Marketing In The World of Business
Everyone has a digital device or two these days. Entrepreneurs and business owners must adapt to the change and accept digital technology or they will lose out to their competitors
Photo credits to Pixabay
The History of Digital Technology
Technology is ever changing in our lives. Effective digital marketing in the world of business helps the growth of your brand. It is a challenging experience for many entrepreneurs and business owners in today’s economy. The history of digital technology goes back to the early 19th Century.
Personal computers were first introduced to the public in the 1980’s, as well as the internet. The internet in the 1980’s was to send files from one computer to another. Tim Berners-Lee changed the internet to World Wide Web in 1990’s as a web of information and data. Ever since then, the internet is always changing – Google is always changing!
How can entrepreneurs and business owners adapt to the fast-moving pace of digital marketing and technology?
What is digital marketing?
A survey based on Malaysian online users
Photo credits to Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia
Enter the world of digital marketing. Digital marketing is defined as promoting and creating awareness online using digital channels such as:
- Search engines.
- Websites.
- Social media.
- Email.
- Mobile apps.
Digital marketing changes rapidly and mobile is the trend. It is important for businesses these days to adapt to these digital changes or lose out to your competitors. Countries like China are evolving at a super speed, whereby majority all businesses are going cashless. In China, they are using WeChat pay for all their transactions. If not, they will have QR codes for you to scan using your mobile to make the purchase.
To put many of us to shame, the beggars in China are even using QR code or Wechat pay! No more excuses for not sparing some change.
As for Malaysia, we are a group of people who are good in adapting to change. However, we are not fast enough. According to Mr Sean Quah, Chief Marketing Officer for Building Material Online (BMO), a number of industries in Malaysia has already started to migrate into digital. Few key industries will be going digital entirely soon and they are the essential need industries.
- Clothes.
- Automobile or transportation.
- F & B.
- Living or home.
Effective Digital Marketing In The World of Business
Digital marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways for a brand to create awareness
How can entrepreneurs use effective digital marketing in the world of business to gain loyal consumers? Consumers are getting smarter and how are we going to entertain them? Gone were the days whereby we educate our audiences about our brand. Companies and brands MUST adapt to their consumer’s lifestyle. To do this, they need to understand their consumer’s mindset and buying habits. Understanding consumer’s behaviour is just one part of marketing, and this is one of the hardest parts as well.
Companies and brands MUST adapt to their consumer’s lifestyle. To do this, they need to understand their consumer’s mindset and buying habits. Understanding consumer’s behaviour is just one part of marketing, and this is one of the hardest parts as well.
During a seminar, Mr Andrew Chow, author and Key Note Speaker, mentioned that entrepreneurs and business owners must have a Buyer Persona. The seminar was held at Malaysia Retail Chain Association (MRCA) office in One City, Subang. Those attended the seminar are MRCA’s members.
So, What is a Buyer Persona?
Mr Andrew Chow explaining the importance of digital marketing
So, what is a Buyer Persona and why is it important for all businesses? There are many explanations of what a Buyer Personal is. However, Mr Andrew Chow calls it Customer Audit System. Buyer Persona is a system for you to audit, and understand your target audience’s mindset. This system allows you to understand how a customer thinks, react, do and what attracts them to be interested in buying.
Mr Andrew shared few steps which can help us to understand our target audience better.
Their pain
What are the challenges they are facing?
Motivation
What motivates them? What are the benefits or gains are they looking for?
Excuses
What excuses are they giving? Is it due to budget, time, location, etc?
Fear
What are they fearing of? What is stopping them from buying?
Buying decision process
Is your customer an impulsive buyer? How long will it take them to make a decision?
Where else are they looking for information?
Do they go to your competitors? What other alternatives they are looking at?
Once you have all the answers to the above, put it on an Empathy Map.
Empathy Map
Empathy Map enables you to find the needs and insights of your target audience. You need to pen down few things to further understand your audiences.
Empathy Map
Say
What are some quote and defining words your target audience said?
Do
What actions and behaviours did you notice?
Think
What might your user be thinking? What does this tell you about his or her beliefs?
Feel
What emotions might your audience be feeling?
With this map, you will be able to create a marketing campaign based on the information you have. This map will help you to prepare a digital marketing strategy and to find the right keywords for content and SEO.
Digital and Content Marketing
Every business needs a strong content to enhance their digital marketing strategies
Photo credits to Content Mart
Content Marketing
In digital marketing, content is King! Content marketing involves sharing materials online such as video, articles, blogs, social media postings, and emails.
Content marketing involves creating and distributing informational materials online such as video, articles, blogs, social media postings, and emails to capture your target audience.
As we had shared earlier, digital marketing consists of few different types of channels on the internet. These channels will transport your content to the right destination.
For your audience to find you, your content needs to have the right keywords which will be captured by the internet.
Social Media
Since content is King, our dear Queen is conversation or engagement. With these digital channels or social media, entrepreneurs and marketers are able to engage with their audience directly. However, engagement is very challenging because it takes time to cultivate.
People need time to come out of their comfort zone. Engagement on social media depends on the public as well. Businesses need to know how to entertain their target audience so they like what you are offering.
There are few ways for you to capture your audience attention on social media. Since there are many social media channels available, select those which suit your brand and target audience.
Take Facebook as an example. Every one of us has at least one active account, and every brand has a Facebook page. Do you know, as of June 2017, Malaysia has 19 million Facebook users?
Mr Marcus Teoh, Author of Now or Never, and Zero Budget Facebook Marketing Instructor shared with us on 3 Facebook hacks.
3 Tips on Facebook Marketing
- Have an attractive profile, profile photo and cover photo updated because that is your first impression online. More people will check out your Facebook profile without you knowing as they won’t inform you.
- For entrepreneurs and business owners, make sure you have content related to your business and post it at least one in every five posts. This way, your Facebook friends are reminded of what you do. If they can’t remember who and what you do, they won’t be able to recommend you opportunities.
- Ensure your content have MEMEPO elements. Regardless any content needs to incorporate motivational, educational, moving/touching, entertaining, public service announcement or an opportunity to your audiences.
Keywords
These days, consumers will explore the internet using the search engine for further information. Consumers use keywords either a phase or question to search for the answers.
Any content regardless your article title, summary, postings will be recorded by the search engine. By using these keywords, the search engine will locate and us to the information which we need.
With the help of the Buyer Persona and Empathy Map, you will be able to create your unique keywords for your content to increase your page awareness.
We have spoken to Mr Kevin Leong, Business Advisor-Internet Marketing of Infinitude Solutions on SEO tips.
3 Quick but Powerful SEO Tips To optimize your website for search engines
- Mention Keywords.
Use keyword planner to help you to identify the keywords. Make sure your “keyword” is in the site title, domain name and description. Do not stuff the keywords. Remember to write your web page for human readers and not for search engine robot. - On-Page SEO.
Make sure you have a good linking to internal pages on your website so that the search engine understand the keywords which your content is based on. Focus on relevancy. Example if you talk about makeup services, you can do a linking and promote your bridal makeup, Halloween makeup, men’s makeup, fantasy makeup, etc. - Off-Page SEO.
Make sure your link to other websites has relevant content. The focus is on authority. You can develop external links such as directory, blog, forum, etc to obtain natural inbound links back to your website. Each click from external content tells the search engines you are a trusted authority on your particular topic and this will certainly boost your ranking.
In the meantime, here are few types of keywords.
Generic or short tail keywords
These are common words or phase which are available in any content. Your content will be fighting will millions more to be located on the first page.
Niche keywords
Niche keywords work extremely well if you know what your audience is looking for. It’s an added bonus if you are within a niche industry such as homegrown Malaysian designers.
Long tail keywords
Long tail keywords consist of a sentence or question into the search engine. These are very specific details and your content will have a better chance to be featured on the first page.
Conclusion
As the technology is evolving at a fast pace, entrepreneurs need to find effective digital marketing in the world of business to stay ahead of their competitors.
Creating a Buyer Persona and Empathy Map will help you to further understand your target audience. Plan out your digital marketing strategies using the Buyer Persona details so you may prepare a content with the right keywords.
Using the right keywords will help your audience to notice your online presence.
However, you may need to study your audience’s engagement such as comments, likes and shares. Remember, you need social media engagement for your brand.
Who Are The Experts
Mr Andrew Chow
Mr Andrew Chow is known to be pragmatic, visionary, competitive, intuitive and a giving person. He is a successful social media and public relations strategist, entrepreneur and speaker based in Singapore. He is also the best-selling author of a highly popular series of books:
- Social Media 247.
- Public Relations 247.
- Personal Branding 247.
Mr Sean Quah
Photo credits to Mr Desmond Sia
Mr Sean Quah, Chief Marketing Officer for Building Material Online (BMO). BMO is an online directory which allows consumers to search for the best suppliers within the construction, building, ID, raw material industries.
In the meantime, Building Industry Alliance (BIA) is a platform which gathers building industry companies to grow and learn together by utilizing online marketing tool and providing on the ground supports.
These two platforms held a joint event for their launch in Puchong.
Mr Marcus Teoh
He is the author of Now or Never. Mr Marcus Teoh droned on for years with soul-searching questions etched on the back of his mind, looking for his passion in life. At the time, he thought Entrepreneurship was his passion but after transforming multiple business ideas into fully-fledged businesses, he soon realized his true infatuation was in teaching.
He is best known for his “Start a Business with only RM199” (#SWORM199) program that helps aspiring entrepreneurs start their first business on a bare-minimal capital and his “Zero Budget Facebook Marketing” (#ZBFM) that helps budding entrepreneurs attract new prospects on the social platform while retaining the interest of existing customers.
Mr Kevin Leong
Mr Kevin Leong specialises in ranking businesses on Google and in Market Psychology. He is great at simplifying, guiding and coaching entrepreneurs to get started on digital marketing. He is organizing digital marketing boot camps for corporates and for entrepreneurs as well.
