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Digital Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step GuideDo you know who Chandler Bolt is?

If you’re a Digital Marketing nerd like me, you probably do.

But, if you’re part of the other 99.9% of the world who isn’t

super excited about this “Internet marketing stuff,” you’ve probably never

heard of this man.

So, what is he doing with this headline on Business Insider?

Is he rich or something? Yes, he is indeed.

That’s part of the beauty of Digital Marketing.

This 21-year-old kid has made hundreds of thousands of dollars

from his kitchen table.

No need for fame, magazine interviews, talk show visits, or acting

classes (you know, to act in a blockbuster movie).

You have no clue who Chandler Bolt is. But he has made tons of

money, and he’s also helping others do the same.

His company, Self-Publishing School, helps people publish books on

Amazon and make a living from it.

If you’re an introvert, that’s a cause to celebrate!

Fewer than 20 years ago, extroverts had a way better chance of

becoming rich and successful.

Why? It involved a ton of networking.

You had to hire employees and build a huge company. Or, for a

career in arts, music, movies, etc., you had to get every person in your

industry to know you.

While connections are still a huge deal, today you can get them

right from your couch (or from your living room floor in my case).

As a single individual, you can build a huge business from the

comfort of your home after work, during your afternoons, and on your weekends.

I don’t think that I’m being overly dramatic when I say that Digital

Marketing is your shot at the life of your dreams.

Trust me — I would know.

I want you to have as much fun at work as these guys and I do. So,

today I’ll introduce you to this world with my Digital Marketing guide.

Note: Even if you’re deep down the rabbit hole already, you can

still learn a ton of new things from the following examples.

If you’re interested in a particular topic, feel free to jump

ahead:

DefinitionOverviewSEO – Search Engine OptimizationOn-Page SEOOff-Page SEOSEM – Search Engine MarketingContent marketingWhy content marketing?Social media marketingPay-per-click advertisingEverything that you need to know about Google AdWordsAffiliate marketingEmail marketingDefinitionIf you’ve read my previous guide on digital marketing, you already

know that it’s different.

Not every digital marketing campaign is automatically an Digital

Marketing effort.

According to TNMedia, Digital Marketing is “…any tool, strategy or

method of getting the company name out to the public. The advertisements can

take many different forms and some strategies focus on subtle messages rather

than clear-cut advertisements.”

Want the drop-dead simple version of it?

Digital Marketing is any effort to spread the word about your

company that uses the Internet to reach people.

Basically, it’s anything that you do online to get more eyeballs

on you, grab people’s attention, and hopefully, at some point, get them to buy

from you.

There are seven major sub-categories of Digital Marketing that I

want to cover in this guide.

OverviewWe’ve already talked about search engine optimization (SEO), and I

showed you all of the important aspects of it that you have to get right.

Next to SEO, there’s search engine marketing (SEM), which is

simply the paid version of SEO.

Marketers pay Google to display ads in their search results in the

hopes that they will drive traffic (especially interested people, or leads) to

their product landing pages.

Then there’s content marketing. This is where marketers try to

create valuable media and content to distribute to potential future customers.

This is the good guy version of Digital Marketing where you mostly try to guilt

people into buying.

Of course, you already know social media marketing, which is where

you use one or several social media channels to engage with customers, build

relationships, and then send them to your products and services.

Pay per click advertising (or PPC) is similar to search engine

marketing, but it isn’t limited to Google and its competitors. Most social

media networks let you create ads that integrate naturally into their feeds,

allowing you to pay for clicks to your website.

Affiliate marketing is a kind of referral marketing where you

share profits with fellow marketers in exchange for promoting each other’s

products.

And finally, there’s email marketing, which some already consider

old-school. But it’s still one of the most effective channels. Once your

customers have given you permission to contact them, you can email them at any

time, providing value and asking them to buy when the time is right.

You can already guess how big Digital Marketing really is. You

know how huge of a space each of these individual categories fill.

I mean, just think about how many social media platforms you can

name off the top of your head:

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr,

Google+, YouTube, Periscope, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon…

OK, you get the point.

I want to give you a good grip on all of these categories just

like in our beginner’s guide, yet not drown you in the vast information that’s

out there.

That’s why I’ll give you one example in each category of someone

who absolutely crushes it in their niche along with some great points to help

you get started.

Ready. Set. Go!

SEO – Search Engine OptimizationIt goes without saying that I think Quick Sprout is one of the

best sites when it comes to SEO (we’re kind of a big deal, I think).

Our Advanced Guide to SEO alone has gotten thousands of shares.

But, instead of spending an entire category bragging, I want to

point you to someone who is a true search engine marketing ninja who has worked

for us at Quick Sprout for quite some time.

I want to point him out not only because he has all of the SEO

skills you need up his sleeve, but also because he is super underrated.

Every time I read an article like“15 SEO Gurus That You Should

Know for 2015,” I’m shocked that he’s not on there.

Brian Dean, aka Backlinko, might be flying under the radar. But

when you start Googling around and learning SEO, you’re bound to bump into him.

He outranks huge sites like Wikipedia, Forbes, and Copyblogger,

and he completely dominates the SEO space with his super long case studies that

provide actionable, step-by-step instructions for upping your SEO game.

backlinksBacklinko ranks #1 AND #2 for “how to get backlinks.”

What’s great about his blog is that instead of just rounding up

SEO news like Search Engine Land and others do, he actually shows you how to

implement good SEO techniques that work.

As I outlined in one of the previous guides in this series, SEO is

the process of optimizing your online content so that a search engine likes to

show it as a top result for searches of a certain keyword.

Brian is one of the best sources on the web for you to learn how

to do search engine marketing right.

For example, Brian recently published an article called “How to

get backlinks with guestographics.”

There, he does two things.

1. He shows you the results that prove that the strategy works.

results2. He gives you detailed steps that you can follow to execute it.

As a case study, he talks about someone who he’s helped pull off

this strategy in their niche.

You see the results, and then you can just scroll down and follow

along as you read. In this case, the steps are:

Step 1: Publish an Awesome InfographicStep 2: Simple (But Effective) Link ProspectingStep 3: Show Them Your InfographicStep 4: Bribe Your Prospects With Free ContentStep 5: Get Your Contextual LinksThat’s easy to follow, right? So, what’s the catch?

It’s hard to execute. It takes time.

And that’s the reason that not many people do it. Be one of the

few who does and you’ll get the results.

Just check out this backlink that we got to a Quick Sprout

infographic:

oldschoolseoDo you want more proof?

Go through the entire Backlinko blog. You’ll find fewer than 40

posts over the last several years.

If Brian’s SEO didn’t work, then he would never have been able to

grow Backlinko to 100,000+ monthly readers, 100,000 email subscribers, and such

a massive SEO brand with fewer than 40 blog posts.

The following three blog posts are the best ones to help you get

started:

How to rank for any keywordLink Building: The Definitive GuideGoogle’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete ListWithin search engine optimization, there are two big sectors to be

aware of:

On-page and off-page SEO. Let’s dive into each.

On-Page SEOOver the past few years, Google has made numerous updates to their

algorithms.

Data tells us that Google makes up to 600 changes to their

algorithm every single year.

It’s almost impossible to keep up with Google’s rapid pace and

changing user behavior.

But one thing that’s remained relatively constant is conducting

on-page SEO.

Most on-page activities for SEO aren’t linked to direct ranking

factors, but rather to indirect factors like click-through rate and time on

site.

For example, an on-page SEO task that’s common is to optimize your

meta description and title tag:

pasted image 0 378Your title tag and meta description are what shows up on a given

Google search result. For example, if someone searches for “SEO Tips,” my post

will show up with the headline and description that I’ve personally customized.

While placing keywords in the title and description can help users

navigate the content faster (as seen by the bolded text), it doesn’t directly

increase rankings.

So simply stuffing keywords in your meta and title tags isn’t an

option.

But they do contribute to click-through rate. When your title tags

and meta descriptions are more compelling or related to the topic that someone

is searching for, you can expect higher click-through rates.

And the higher the CTR, the higher the chance of ranking better.

Google is all about providing the best user experience possible.

So if Google notices that your post that ranks at #10 is getting a higher CTR

than the post above you, they will move your content up.

On-page SEO consists of a few major elements to be aware of:

Crawl errorsKeyword researchPage optimizationSpeedIn this section, I’ll walk you through how you can improve each of

these elements to get your on-page SEO on the right track.

Crawl errors

Crawl errors can be anything from a 404 error (broken link) to

duplicate content. And all of these issues can plague your website with:

Slow speedsImpacted rankingsPenalties from GoogleIncreased risk of users leaving your site (bouncing)If you’ve ever seen this on your site, it’s a broken link error

that can cause major problems:

pasted image 0 315For example, 404 errors can impact your traffic heavily if another

external source is linking to them.

If you’ve gotten your content featured on another site, but the

link is broken, you’re losing out on tons of traffic.

One of the fastest tools to fix crawl errors that could be harming

your site is Screaming Frog.

It’s a technical SEO tool that can scan your website for free,

telling you detailed information on what you need to fix and how to do it:

pasted image 0 365When scanning your site, be sure to look for common problem areas

like:

Duplicate or missing content404 errorsThese issues are all too common on the majority of sites.

Keyword research

Keyword research is a fundamental process in any Digital Marketing

game plan for SEO.

Keywords are what you search in a search engine to find the

content you are looking for.

For example, type “SEO Guide” into Google — that would be a keyword.

And pages can target these keywords to compete in the rankings.

There are a few types of keywords to be aware of before conducting

a basic keyword research strategy. There are two major kinds:

Long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords are longer keywords made up

of 3-5+ words. They are often easier to target due to specificity, less

traffic, and less competition.Head keywords: Head or short-tail keywords are one-word or

two-word keywords that are more general. For example, “basketball shoes” would

be a competitive head keyword.pasted image 0 259A good SEO strategy will target a mixture of both of these kinds

of terms.

Short-tail keywords will be much more competitive because they are

more general (and therefore have a higher volume).

On the other hand, long-tail keywords will get you less traffic

but will convert better:

pasted image 0 354To conduct keyword research, all you need to do is head to a

keyword tool like Moz or the AdWords Keyword Planner.

Simply start by entering the basic topic that you want to cover

for your next post or page:

pasted image 0 276Searching for your basic keyword will give you a list of metrics

telling you the volume (how many searches per month), difficulty (competition

ranking for it), and the number of clicks that come from organic search.

Lastly, it will also give you keyword suggestions.

Generally speaking, when looking to target keywords for your next

blog post, you want to find long-tail terms with higher volumes and lower

difficulty scores.

Then, you can take that keyword and follow the next steps under

page optimization!

Page optimization

Page optimization is a critical step in the process of SEO. Page

optimization involves doing a few basic tasks to optimize your page for

specific keywords and for search engines.

Remember: You’re writing content and optimizing pages for both the

user and the search engine.

Everything from URLs to internal links can have an impact on your

page performance.

This on-page SEO checklist from Backlinko is one of my favorite

ways to stay on top of every new blog post that I write:

pasted image 0 293All of these factors help you to both add context to the page for

Google and structure it in a friendly way for the user.

For example, when you search for an article on Google, you expect

to get something similar to your search:

pasted image 0 341Everything from the permalink (URL) to the title and structure of

your post (h1 and h2 headings) makes a difference in how Google scans your

content and how user-friendly it is.

The better on-page optimization you have, the longer users will

stay around to consume your content.

Plus, optimizing things like internal links (where you link to

another article on your site from a new post) will help you drive users

throughout your entire site.

Always be sure to follow the on-page SEO cheat sheet above when

you write new blog posts.

Improve your page speed

One of the biggest factors for success is improving the speed at

which your page loads.

When it comes to SEO, you want your content to load fast. Google

prefers websites that load fast as well.

Studies have shown time and time again that top-ranking sites are

faster than their lower-ranking competitors:

pasted image 0 312According to their latest reports, as page load times increase by

just a few seconds, the likelihood that someone will leave your site increases

dramatically.

pasted image 0 318If your site loads in ten seconds, you can expect users to run for

the hills.

Google’s current standards state that best practices are three

seconds or below. Yet the majority of businesses in every industry are still

too slow:

pasted image 0 266Thankfully, Google offers free tools like Test My Site and

Pagespeed Insights. Each of these can help you improve your site speed

dramatically.

pasted image 0 334When you improve your site speeds, you can expect users to stay

around on your site, reducing bounce rates that can negatively impact your

organic rankings.

Always continue to test your site speed and improve where you can.

These tools will help you fix any lingering problems by offering detailed,

step-by-step solutions under each problem area.

Off-Page SEOWhat’s off-page SEO? It’s simply the opposite of on-page SEO.

pasted image 0 329That means that it’s all of the factors and activities that you

can do (off-page) to raise the ranking of your site on search engines.

There are a few major ways that off-page SEO comes into play.

Everything from link building to social promotion and content syndication can

improve your off-page SEO.

Even things like guest blogging or writing a promotional piece on

another site can result in a link (i.e., off-page SEO).

Here are a few ways to rank higher with off-page SEO.

Link building is critical

Link building is the most important factor in any off-page SEO

strategy. According to a video from 2016 featuring Andrey Lipattsev, a Search

Quality Senior Strategist at Google, links and content were tied as the top two

ranking factors.

Google confirmed this official video. Links are one of the biggest

factors when it comes to ranking in a given search result.

When Brian Dean of Backlinko tested this with his own study, he

found that the sites that rank number one dominate the competition in terms of

backlinks.

pasted image 0 290The more links you have back to your site from other sites, the

stronger authority you have in the eyes of Google. It means that your content

is relevant.

But not just any links will do the trick. That same study found

that top-ranking sites with backlinks had links from hundreds of different

sites:

pasted image 0 343And the vast majority of those links were from the highest-ranking

authorities in their space:

pasted image 0 281Link building is tough, but it’s necessary to compete with SEO for

Digital Marketing.

Ranking higher with links involves everything from your total

number of links to the quality of those links and the diversity of the sources.

When it comes to getting links, you need great content. The

majority of content ranking #1 on Google is stellar.

And that’s why they have thousands of links. The content is nearly

unmatched!

In Moz’s book “How to Rank,” they explain the 90/10 rule of link

building:

pasted image 0 345That means that you should spend 90% of your time creating amazing

content and dedicate 10% of your time to link building.

Without great content, you won’t get the links you need to bring

in more traffic and drive sales.

One of my favorite ways to build backlinks fast is by mentioning

other influencers in my content. This adds great value to your content while

also mentioning and giving praise to others.

And as we all know, humans love it when people lift their egos.

It’s a great feeling to get compliments and praise for your knowledge in a

space.

By tapping into that and getting value and input from influencers,

you can easily drive backlinks.

For example, Shopify recently mentioned me in this post:

pasted image 0 257I was a featured influencer on the post because I gave them tons

of input. So in this post, I received a backlink to my site in exchange for my

time and effort.

pasted image 0 360But I have also linked to this post multiple times since simply

because it mentions me.

Mentioning influencers is a great way to get them to share your

post!

Do you want to build backlinks fast? Here are a few key resources:

How to Build High-Quality Backlinks in a Scalable Way9 Link Building Resources That’ll Increase Your Search Rankings13 Efficient Link Building Strategies for Busy MarketersThe Advanced Guide to Link BuildingSocial sharing

Social publishing is a great way to indirectly contribute to your

off-page SEO strategy. While it’s not a direct ranking factor, it’s an off-page

tactic that can lead to more backlinks.

Sharing your latest post on social media helps to spread it to new

audiences. The more users you attract, the more brand awareness you get, and

hopefully, the more links you can get as well.

Try using a tool like Buffer to schedule your content in advance:

pasted image 0 258Using platforms like LinkedIn is one of my favorite ways to

conduct off-page SEO with social media as well.

Beyond simply sharing your latest posts, a great strategy is to

write articles on LinkedIn, directing traffic back to your site.

Let me show you an example of a recent article I posted on

LinkedIn:

pasted image 0 303LinkedIn articles are much different than simply pasting your blog

post into the status update bar.

These articles are published content that alerts all of your

connections each time a new article goes live. That means that each person who

follows you will get a notification rather than having to stumble across it

while scrolling through a timeline.

My favorite strategy for LinkedIn articles is to copy the

introduction paragraph of my latest blog post and end it with [click to

continue reading…].

I then hyperlink that phrase back to my full blog post on my site,

driving tons of traffic and engagement!

To get started with this off-page SEO tactic, head to LinkedIn and

select “Write an article”:

pasted image 0 352Next, add your featured image from your blog post and copy and

paste the headline and intro paragraph:

pasted image 0 284Add your “click to continue reading” tag at the end and watch your

traffic and links skyrocket.

SEM – Search Engine MarketingSearch engine marketing is the paid cousin of SEO.

Instead of optimizing your content and promoting it a lot to

eventually show up as a top result for organic search engine results (which can

often take a few months to happen even if you do it right), you can pay your

way to the top.

And since it’s the first thing searchers see on the page, you’ll

likely get a lot of hits to your site. But you also pay for each and every one.

semservicesDepending on what keyword you want to show up for, you pay

different prices.

The keywords that people search a lot for are more competitive and

are therefore more expensive.

Some keywords can cost several hundred dollars per click.

Some cost over $600 for a single click!

So, while it is a great strategy, it only works if you can

immediately recoup your advertising costs.

Companies easily blow tens of thousands of dollars on Google

AdWords campaigns, failing to make sure that they get their money’s worth.

To win with SEM, you have to offer a paid product or service.

When you’re still in the phase of producing free content to build

an audience, don’t waste your time with SEM. You’ll run out of money faster

than you can spell S-E-M.

Thankfully, avoiding the mistake of paying for worthless clicks is

not as hard as you might think.

By setting up conversion goals inside of your campaign, you can

track exactly who made a purchase from your ads, and you’ll know exactly how

much money you spent and how much you made at any time.

Google has published several case studies of customers who spent

hundreds of thousands of dollars on Google AdWords and yielded even better

returns.

Their ROI (return on investment) is often way higher than any

stock or real estate investment could be, creating 5x, 10x, and even 20x the ad

spend in conversions. That’s Internet marketing at it’s finest!

A great source to get started with Google AdWords, whether you’re

an established business or a solo entrepreneur sitting on his couch, is Jerry

Banfield.

Jerry made a living as a full-time instructor on Udemy, often

generating $30,000 or more in monthly income.

He was able to scale up his sales this much because of Google

AdWords.

Prior to his solopreneur career, Jerry ran a one-man ad agency,

helping businesses with their SEM. Once he had a few courses to sell, he went

on to transfer his SEM skills to his own business.

Look at the kind of results he creates:

pasted image 0 323That’s an ROI of 4700%! That’s how powerful Google AdWords can be.

Even better, Jerry teaches everything he knows, and most of his

lessons are free. By far, the best place to start learning Google AdWords is

his free course on YouTube.

It walks you through everything that you need to know to set up

your first campaign from scratch, and it’s over 3 hours long.

The lessons in this video alone are more than enough to help you

get started. And, once you’re ready to

kick it up a notch, you can just get his Udemy course for over 9 hours of

videos, detailed tutorials, and guides.

Content marketingJon Morrow is a master content crafter. After getting annoyed by

how great content often suffers from little traffic and exposure, he set out to

help people change that.

His blog, Boost Blog Traffic, boasts over 500,000 monthly readers.

As I taught you in the previous guide, content marketing is all

about providing timely and relevant value to your audience.

The first step to doing that is knowing your stuff. And Jon did

his homework! He’s built his blog into a six-figure income.

And that’s his monthly income!

That’s right: He makes more in a month than most people earn in a

year. So it’s fair to assume that he’s good at Digital Marketing.

pasted image 0 260And, he did all of it with just the power of his voice. Jon is

paralyzed from the neck down.

When he decided to make marketing strategy a key focus of his

blog, he knew that sharing the lessons that he learned when building his blog

and former businesses would attract a lot of readers.

But, he also knew that he could get even more fans and potential

customers by teaching people how to implement the marketing strategy that he

used to growth hack his companies to these huge revenues in such a short time.

Similar to Backlinko, he often breaks down a marketing tactic

step-by-step with screenshots, results, and detailed how-tos.

Super specific instructions like this are rare in any industry. If

you can take people by the hand from A to B, that’s when you’ll build a loyal

following.

What’s more, Jon often brings on guests to share their best

tactics in the same manner so that you can learn about other ways of Digital

Marketing as well, such as building relationships, Google Analytics, and email

marketing.

One way to learn what it takes to create awesome content is to

just look at Jon’s writing.

For example, take a look at this intro.

In it, Jon coins an entirely new term that he introduces the

reader to. He alienates the audience by addressing them as “them” even though

every reader knows that Jon is talking to him or her personally.

screencapture smartblogger small list syndrome 1515906683469Then, he explains his terms and compares a common blogger’s

problem to a sickness. Anyone would want to know how to cure it! He creates a

huge curiosity gap, and he immediately draws the reader in.

Another way to learn from him is by straight up reading his

content about, well, creating content. Three good articles to start with are:

Demystifying Epic Content: How to Actually Create It (Not Just

Jabber About How Important It Is)The Ultimate Guide to Writing Irresistible Subheads20 Rules for Writing So Crystal Clear Even Your Dumbest Relative

Will UnderstandWhy content marketing?So, why do you need content marketing? Because content marketing

is SEO.

According to Google, content is one of the top two ranking

factors. The more amazing content you create, the higher the chance you have of

bringing in new traffic and leads from organic search.

If you’re looking to start an SEO marketing strategy, you need to

produce content. The only way that people will discover your company from

organic search (from a non-branded search) is through content.

For example, if you are a law firm without a strong brand

presence, you’ll need content that users are searching for to drive traffic.

You could publish an article on “Top 10 Things to Know When

Getting in a Car Crash.” Blog content like this can drive inbound traffic to

your website that you don’t have to pay for.

According to HubSpot, companies that post 16+ content pieces per

month drive much more traffic than those that don’t:

pasted image 0 273Posting 16+ times per month not only drives traffic to your

website, but it also increases the number of leads you get:

pasted image 0 269The more blog-based content you have, the more indexed pages on

Google you have. Combine the two, and you have a lot of chances to get someone

to visit your site:

pasted image 0 346Content marketing is the key to powerful SEO.

Sure, you can optimize your product pages and your homepage. But

that won’t bring in traffic that doesn’t already know you.

Content marketing is the key to bringing in new visitors who

haven’t heard of you!

Plus, the ROI of content marketing is massive:

pasted image 0 271In the first few months, costs per lead can drop by 80%.

While content marketing isn’t an overnight success like PPC might

be, no other tactic can match its long-term viability.

Results might take a few months, but costs are overall much

cheaper than paying for customer acquisition.

HubSpot’s State of Inbound report found that marketers are still

focusing heavily on growing their organic presence through blog content

creation.

pasted image 0 301Content marketing is still the number one task for the majority of

businesses trying to generate more customers and sales.

Now is the time to hop aboard the content marketing train.

But what if you don’t want to blog? Well, you don’t have to. Here

are the different forms of content marketing and how you can use them to fit

your own business goals.

Forms of content marketing

Content comes in many more forms than writing.

For example, Daisy Jing grew Banish, her Shopify store, to earn $3

million in annual revenue by creating informative YouTube videos about acne.

Content can come in almost any form. It includes photos, blogs,

podcasts, viral videos, and more:

pasted image 0 370If your strength isn’t blogging or writing, or if they simply

aren’t a great fit for your business model, don’t stress about it.

As long as you are creating some form of unbranded content that

users need, you’ll find success.

For example, can you develop videos to upload to YouTube? I

currently create videos on the top marketing struggles or trends in my niche:

pasted image 0 362These videos serve as a form of content that can help me rank on

Google searches while also providing valuable content on YouTube searches.

As always, this content serves a few major purposes for my

company:

Building brand awareness: By spreading my content and my name with

tons of videos, people start to recognize my brand.Developing credibility and social proof: Posting informative,

data-rich videos shows that I am a thought leader in my space, giving me

instant credibility.Driving traffic and sales: I produce all of my videos with ROI in

mind.But what if you don’t have the resources or time to create

video-based content?

Try building a blog that focuses on photos like Pura Vida

Bracelets does:

pasted image 0 263Their company sells bracelets with a charitable purpose, so

blogging doesn’t really fit their niche.

Nobody wants to read about bracelets. They want photos of the

bracelets and downloadable, lifestyle-based content.

Pura Vida meets these needs perfectly.

Blogging isn’t for everyone or every business. You simply need to

find your content niche and start producing that content ASAP.

If you want to know more about other ways of creating content,

take a look at my content marketing guide.

Content mapping by customer journey

One lingering question you may have is this:

How does content help to drive sales and bring in new customers?

Well, that answer is complicated. But the best way to summarize it

is through a customer journey.

Let me explain:

When someone visits your site or interacts with your brand on

social media for the first time, there is no chance that they will buy from

you.

Why? Because they don’t know who you are!

Would you Google search for “shoes” and buy the first pair you

saw? You probably wouldn’t.

Customers buy in a logical manner, following a specific journey

from awareness to decisions. HubSpot calls this the buyer’s journey:

pasted image 0 321Customers move in progressive stages where they become aware of

their problems, assess possible solutions, and then come to a decision.

This means that your content marketing efforts have to align with

this journey. If you offer a user a lead magnet that requires them to give you

information in the awareness stage, you’ll simply scare them off.

They don’t know your brand, so how can you expect them to give you

information? You haven’t built the trust and credibility yet. The relationship

isn’t there.

But if you ask for their information in the consideration stage,

you’re right on track! They are brand aware and want high-value content.

Mapping your content to the customer journey means aligning your

content efforts with each stage.

For example, check out this content marketing funnel:

pasted image 0 262In stage one, the consumer is aware of their problem and need to

fix it. This would be a great opportunity to use an infographic or an

easy-to-follow video to capture attention and develop interest.

In the second stage, the user is researching their options. As

they move down the funnel, content starts to get better and better.

While blog posts are great for developing awareness, they aren’t

going to convert a user to purchase. They simply exist to bring users in.

Later down the line, you can push lead magnets like white papers

to drive a sale.

Be sure to always map your content to the buyer’s journey. If you

need ideas, here is a checklist of content types for each stage of the funnel:

pasted image 0 363Content publishing and syndication

Once you’ve created content, the next step is to publish that

content and syndicate it on as many platforms and sites as you can.

Content is great on its own, but it never hurts to boost it on

social media or share it with other content creators.

This will help you drive more traffic and links to your content,

increasing your chances of ranking and getting leads.

The most common step is to share content across social media

platforms.

For example, using a tool like Buffer, you can schedule a new

content piece to publish on every single social platform that your business is

connected to:

pasted image 0 356I use this strategy to share every new blog post on social and to

promote all of my latest pieces:

pasted image 0 287Syndication is another tactic to help expose your content to as

many people as possible.

Content syndication is simply the process of publishing your

content (blogs, videos, etc.) to third-party sites that will re-publish it on

their own.

Do you want to syndicate your content and get more traffic? Check

out my guide here:

The Step-by-Step Guide to Syndicating Content (Without Screwing up

Your SEO)Social media marketingSocial media is a beast. This industry is gigantic, and its growth

rate is scaring even me.

By now, there are hundreds of social media networks out there.

This topic deserves a whole guide on its own, but if you want to

be successful with social media (and you’ll HAVE to in the long run), your best

bet for a one-stop shop is Gary Vaynerchuk.

Gary is firing on all cylinders and platforms. He has written

three New York Times bestsellers (two of which solely focus on how to use

social media for your business), and he runs one of the biggest media agencies

around.

He’s successful on Twitter because he’s witty and engages with

lots of people individually. He has managed to amass 1.64 million followers on

the platform.

garyvOn YouTube, he dominates with his #askgaryvee show, which he

publishes every working day of the week.

Then, there’s his Facebook page with over 2.5 million likes and

his Pinterest board with nearly 20,000 followers. And, of course, he couldn’t

miss out on Instagram. He’s grabbed another 2.8 million followers there.

Several million people follow his every move. If you watch him

closely, you can learn the art of social media from him.

One of the biggest takeaways from Gary is that content follows

context.

He says, “Content is king, but context is god.” What he means is

that if you don’t respect the context of each individual social media platform,

you’re bound to lose.

For example, I could have posted this blog post as a Facebook

status update, but would that make any sense? No!

No one consumes long-form content on Facebook. That’s what blogs

and YouTube are for.

Twitter’s video platform, Vine, was immensely popular for a time.

But lots of people completely failed at building a big following on it because

they were putting out the wrong content.

cameronIf you only have 6 seconds to capture the attention of your

viewers, the feeling you try to excite in them had better be strong.

Only two kinds of accounts were able to pull that off

consistently: Musicians and comedians.

Go through the list of the top Viners, and you’ll see that 99% of

them were comedians making short, funny videos.

Instead of seeing social media as a distribution channel where you

push out the content that you created on one platform to all of the others, try

to tell stories that match the context of each platform.

Since Gary is also a speaker, you can learn a ton about social

media by watching his talks on YouTube.

But Gary’s not the only social media wizard out there, so here are

a few other resources to help you learn how to thrive on various social media

platforms:

17 Killer Facebook Post Ideas For Small Business Owners20 Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Pinterest Features You Didn’t

Know Existed (But Totally Should)Instagram Marketing: Your Complete Guide to Instagram SuccessThe Biggest Social Media Science Study: What 4.8 Million Tweets

Say About the Best Time to TweetHow brands are using Instagram

Instagram is becoming one of the most popular social networks in the

world:

pasted image 0 278At over 700 million monthly active users, they’ve surpassed

Snapchat and Twitter combined.

In just a few years, Instagram has seen incredible growth.

Brands are tapping into this growth to showcase their products and

drive sales.

One of my favorite examples of brand success on Instagram is

HubSpot.

pasted image 0 261HubSpot excels at producing marketing and entrepreneur-related

content for their followers.

Instagram is, of course, focused on visuals. And HubSpot taps into

this by producing beautiful images and video-related content with marketing

tips.

They perfectly combine inspiration with tactical tips for a great,

well-rounded Instagram account.

Do you want to get started with Instagram marketing? Create an

Instagram for your business and start posting content related to your niche.

If you need more tips, here are a few articles to get you going:

Beginner’s Guide: How to Build a Killer Instagram Following and

Increase Your SalesHow to Get 300 Real, Targeted Instagram Followers Per DayHow brands are using Snapchat

Snapchat is another popular social network channel that can be

huge for building brand awareness.

While it’s not as popular as Facebook or Instagram, it still works

to create a following that engages with your content.

Currently, brands are finding huge success by using influencers to

promote their content.

For example, Disney hired Mike Platco to post on their Snapchat

account:

Leveraging his following, Disney was able to drive big sales and

brand awareness.

Snapchat can be a great place to post behind-the-scenes content

from your company like Everlane does:

pasted image 0 325Snapchat is great because the options are so diverse. You can post

anything you want just like you can on Instagram.

Do you want to learn more about Snapchat marketing? Follow these

tutorials:

New Kid Alert: How to Drive Sales to Your Business Using SnapchatThe 4 Principles of Successful Snapchat Marketing2018 social media trends to be aware of

As consumer behavior changes and technology expands, trends will

always be shifting.

Current trends show us that social media marketing is changing

fast. While social platforms have always been amazing for organically reaching

customers (and for free), that is slowly becoming less of a reality.

While Facebook once was the king of organic reach, it’s been

declining for years now.

pasted image 0 336The organic reach levels are nearly at rock bottom compared to

five or six years ago.

Why? The social media landscape is becoming a “pay to play”

sector.

As social media platforms grow, they realize that ad revenue is

their number one money maker.

And simply giving away free organic visits doesn’t help their

cause.

With that in mind, you need to have a combination of both organic

and paid posts on social media to find the most success in your marketing plan.

Paid social advertising

All social platforms have their own forms of paid advertising.

From Instagram to Facebook to Twitter, you can sponsor posts and even create

powerful custom audiences.

On Facebook, advertising works in the display format. Here’s an

example of an ad that I’ve run on Facebook:

pasted image 0 372These ads show up directly in the news feed of customers you are

targeting.

Facebook has some of the best audience targeting options in the

market. You can effectively target audiences by income, interests, job

positions, and just about anything you can think of.

Here are a few articles to get you going with Facebook

advertising:

Facebook Advertising Made Simple: A Step-by-Step GuideBeginner’s Guide to Running Facebook Ads That ConvertOn Twitter, running ads is a great way to boost your posts. I love

running Twitter-based ads that boost my latest blog posts to get more traffic.

One of my favorite examples of a powerful Twitter Ad comes from

Simply Measured:

pasted image 0 375Using their content, they boost their posts to create ads for

relevant, targeted audiences.

This allows them to reach a larger audience than their own

following, bringing in more traffic, leads, and followers.

To get started on Twitter with advertising, I recommend reading

this resource:

Start to Finish Guide – Using Twitter Ads to Generate Sales for

Your BusinessLastly, LinkedIn is one of my favorite places to advertise and

promote content. LinkedIn not only offers successful organic posting, but it

also has a user base of high-level users.

It helps you reach people who are otherwise hard to reach, such as

c-suite executives.

Content promotion and audience targeting are the keys to LinkedIn.

Currently, the best ad I’ve seen on LinkedIn comes from IR:

pasted image 0 268They use LinkedIn’s lead generation ads to drive email sign-ups

with compelling content. LinkedIn, just like Facebook, has diverse audience

targeting options and ad options.

Get started today by following this tutorial:

Start to Finish Guide: How to Use LinkedIn Ads to Generate SalesPay-per-click advertisingPay-per-click advertising (or PPC) is exactly what the name

suggests. You pay for each click that you receive on an ad that you create.

Sounds similar to search engine marketing, doesn’t it? That’s

because it is. But, while SEM is only one type of PPC advertising (and a very

special one), many platforms offer to show your ads to their audiences with

PPC, too.

Twitter does it, LinkedIn does it, YouTube does it, and a couple

of years ago, Instagram introduced ads as well.

But, by far, the most popular platforms for PPC advertising are

Google AdWords and Facebook.

On Facebook, you create an ad that looks just like a Facebook

status update.

Then, you can pick a specific audience. For example, you could

target women in Austin, Texas between the ages of 32 and 45 who like Jon Bon

Jovi. Yes, it’s that specific.

Last, you set a budget based on how much you’re willing to pay per

click.

Facebook will then serve your ad to your audience in their

Facebook news feeds on their desktop computers or their mobile phones.

You can also place ads in the sidebar.

When people click on your ad, Facebook will redirect them to your

page, which can be part of your Facebook fan page or any URL you define.

This way, you can get people to buy your product, read your

content, or, as in this example, sign up for a free webinar. Grant knows how to

run Facebook Ads:

grantWhat’s good about PPC is that it integrates seamlessly into the

flow of its respective social media platform.

Ever since marketers first started advertising heavily, consumers

tried to avoid it.

Why?

Because in 99% of all cases, it’s not relevant to them.

What college kid needs to see a billboard about adult diapers?

None!

With PPC, marketers can be sneakier. And we need to be.

The ads show up as part of the natural “just scrolling through my

Facebook feed” process and are much less obvious.

Plus, thanks to the specific targeting, you can now make sure that

relevant potential customers actually see your ads.

A prime online resource is AdEspresso. They offer software that

layers on top of Facebook’s fairly complicated ad manager.

fbadsBut, the blog is where they hide the good stuff. They have a guide

to Facebook Ads for beginners, and it’s a great starting point.

Here are some other good articles and resources to help you start

your first Facebook Ad campaign:

What I Learned Spending $3 Million on Facebook AdsHow to Create Facebook Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on

FacebookBeginner’s Guide to Running Facebook Ads That ConvertEverything that you need to know about Google AdWordsIn pay per click (PPC) advertising, Google AdWords is the most

popular platform to conduct business on.

The net digital ad revenues of Google AdWords were nearly $30

billion in 2016, and they’re on track to grow to $45 billion in 2019.

pasted image 0 306Second to Google AdWords is Facebook, but they are still behind by

a large margin.

So, why does Google AdWords dominate the PPC space? It’s simply

because Google is, by far, the most popular search engine in the world:

pasted image 0 256Nothing else even comes close to the power and user base of Google.

That means that everyone wants to advertise on Google to capture

these billions of users daily.

Advertising on other search networks can be great, but the user

bases are much smaller, making it harder to reach your target market.

With that in mind, Google AdWords is one of the best places (if

not the best place) to focus your PPC strategy on.

How does it work?

Google AdWords operates on a bidding-based system. For example, on

the search network, you bid on different keywords against multiple other

advertisers who are looking to rank first.

pasted image 0 369Keywords can cost anywhere from ~$1 to $500+ depending on your

industry. Keywords will cost whatever advertisers are willing to pay for them.

For example, a keyword for a law firm might cost $100 per click

because their end profit from a single case could be thousands of dollars. That

means that they are willing to bid that high because their profits can justify

it.

On the other hand, cheaper products will result in cheaper costs

per click.

So, where can you advertise?

Google AdWords is made up of multiple different advertising

options. Here I will detail them for you and explain what works best for most

businesses:

Search network

The AdWords search network allows all advertisers to produce

text-based ads targeting a specific keyword to show up in search results. For

example, when you see results at the top of a search result marked “Ad,” that’s

the search network:

pasted image 0 338The search network is one of the most powerful PPC advertising

platforms the world has ever seen.

Why? It’s due to one single factor:

User intent.

Think about it this way:

On Facebook, people aren’t browsing their news feeds to see ads,

right? They are on Facebook to engage with their friends and family and maybe

to see some news on the side.

But the goal of it isn’t to find products or services. It’s social

media. It’s about interaction.

But the search network on AdWords is a whole different animal.

People are literally searching for things based on specific keywords to find

solutions.

For example, think about a search for “plumber near me.” What does

that keyword signify?

That user is trying to find plumbing services ASAP.

That’s intent to buy directly from a single search. Where

platforms like Facebook can take multiple ads and remarketing campaigns to

convert a prospect, the search network can convert someone from a single

keyword search.

It’s one of the main reasons why people love advertising on

Google’s search network.

Display network

The display network is another powerhouse of advertising that

Google offers to every advertiser on their platform.

The display network taps into Google-approved sites, allowing

advertisers to show image-based advertisements on related sites by topic and

keyword context.

For example, ads like these are from the display network:

pasted image 0 254These ads will show up on related sites or sites that you

frequently browse that use AdSense.

AdSense is sort of the reverse of the display network. Rather than

spending money to display ads on Google, AdSense allows publishers (sites) to

make money by displaying ads on their sites.

pasted image 0 376To clear it up:

Display advertising is PPC advertising where you create

image-based ads and pay for each click.

AdSense is the opposite end where websites can allow Google to

show those display ads on their sites to make money.

Here is an example of display ads at work:

pasted image 0 350They’re often sitting above the website or on the sides of the web

page, and they’re a great way to capture new users.

On top of that, the display network offers another powerful

feature:

Remarketing

Remarketing is the process of bringing back users who have

previously engaged with your company.

If you have remarketing enabled, you could use ads to target users

who landed on your website but didn’t convert.

This allows you to bring those users back for a second or third or

fourth shot at buying from you.

And you need remarketing because about 96% of your visitors aren’t

yet ready to buy from you.

One of my favorite examples of a powerful remarketing ad on the

display network is from Blue Corona:

pasted image 0 255Visiting their website and exploring their services leads them to

target me with a few different ads about SEO.

It helps reinforce their brand and hopefully get me to click back

to their site and convert me this time around.

The Google AdWords display network is great for remarketing, and

anyone can set it up.

Google AdWords is the largest and one of the best PPC networks you

can use.

Do you want to get started on it today? Here are a few key

resources for you:

Google AdWords Made Simple: A Step-by-Step GuideThe Entrepreneur’s Guide to Google AdWordsI Increased Sales When I Made this One Google AdWords ChangeUnbelievably Devastating Mistakes People Make with Google AdwordsRead those posts, and you will be on your way to dominating Google

AdWords and driving sales like you’ve never imagined.

Affiliate marketingYou can’t spell affiliate marketing without Pat Flynn. Well, you

actually can, but you shouldn’t learn it without him.

When Pat created Smart Passive Income in 2008, he was just

starting to get familiar with selling informational products online. His first

product was Green Exam Academy. It’s a course that he created to help people

pass the LEEDs exam for architects, and it sold well.

He wanted to learn more about the concept of passive income, which

is where you earn money without actively working for it (after an insane amount

of work up-front, of course).

Given his most recent income report, let’s just say he managed to

learn quite a bit:

earningsAffiliate marketing is his single biggest source of income.

But, what exactly is affiliate marketing?

Imagine that you know a great pizza place. You know the owner,

Luigi, and you go there all the time.

Naturally, you tell your friends about it.

When your friend Tim goes to the pizza place, he mentions that you

told him about the pizza parlor and proceeds to buy four pizzas for his

friends.

The next time you come back, Luigi says, “Dude, your friend bought

four pizzas because of you, and that’s the biggest order I had all week!

Thanks, man! Here’s $5 for referring him.”

Ka-ching!

You’ve just made your first affiliate marketing sale.

Except, it doesn’t usually happen in real life like this,

especially because a pizza place whose biggest order in a week is four pizzas

won’t be around for very long.

But luckily for you, there’s a place where it happens all the

time: Online.

Amazon is a prime example (pun intended).

When you sign up for their affiliate program, you can generate a

special link for every single product page that they have.

You can then put that link on your blog, for example, or send it to

friends who you want to recommend that product to. If they click your link and

buy the product, you’ll get a small commission from Amazon for referring that

customer.

Over the last seven years, Pat has built the best resource online

about affiliate marketing. Some great starting points are:

Welcome to Smart Passive Income3 Types of Affiliate Marketing Explained—and The One I Profit From8 Principles for Effective Affiliate Marketing on a BlogHow to get paid in affiliate marketing

Now that you have a basic understanding of how affiliate marketing

works, how do you get paid?

As I explained in the pizza example, you usually get paid every

time your referral leads to a sale.

One of the most popular ways to drive affiliate sales and get paid

is by blogging or creating content around those products.

NerdWallet is a great example of a business that thrives off of

affiliate marketing:

pasted image 0 367They focus on personal finance, so they review different credit

cards and help users find the best cards for their businesses or lifestyles.

But here’s the kicker: they make money every time someone signs up

for a credit card using their site.

For example, if someone clicks on “Chase Freedom” card and signs

up, NerdWallet gets a portion of the revenue for their efforts.

Do you want to take your affiliate marketing to the next level?

Follow this guide to add affiliate marketing to your Digital Marketing game

plan today:

Affiliate Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step GuideEmail marketingI want to introduce you to your new best friend when it comes to

learning email marketing.

Meet Bryan Harris, founder of Videofruit.

Think about those days where you keep complaining all day long

until you see your best friend and she immediately says, “Shut up, stop

complaining, and do this instead!”

That friend is Bryan.

In the past two years, he bootstrapped his blog from $0 to a

six-figure business. His latest course made a cool $220,750.

Originally providing freelance work for big brands like HubSpot

and our very own Kissmetrics, he eventually started focusing more on teaching.

He says that the single greatest asset in his business is his

email list.

In 2014, he grew his own list from 0 subscribers to over 10,000.

By now, he has more than doubled that number.

numbersemailLots of articles online show you “how to write better emails” or

“how to pitch anything.” But, before you

can send those emails, you first need the list of people to send them to.

That’s what email marketing is all about: Directly communicating

with your audience and customers.

Email trumps lots of social media platforms when it comes to

engagement. In fact, you’re 40 times more likely to gain a new customer through

email than through Facebook or Twitter.

Plus, email is a good, long-term method of contacting prospects.

Think back to the last time you changed your phone number. It

probably wasn’t that long ago, right?

Now, do you remember the last time that you changed your email?

You probably don’t.

Changing your email is an absolute pain, so people rarely change

them. That makes an email address a valuable piece of contact information to

have.

Bryan is not the only one who escaped from the cubicle by building

an email list, but he’s the best when it comes to teaching you how to do so.

He has a full-fledged course called “Get 10,000 Subscribers.” But

for starters, check out these three posts:

How we started an email list from scratch and got 205 subscribers

in 48 hoursDownload 11 Killer Lead Magnet Ideas & TemplatesHow to use a giveaway to get 2,239 email subscribers in 10 days2018 email marketing trends

Email marketing has evolved over time, but it continues to be one

of the efforts that yields the highest ROI for Digital Marketing.

pasted image 0 333Email marketing is critical for any business to develop loyal

customers and drive sales without spending a dime on advertising.

The current outlook on email marketing in 2018 trends on two

specific topics:

PersonalizationSegmentationPersonalization is one of the biggest factors for a successful

email marketing campaign.

For example, check out this amazing, personalized email from

JetBlue:

pasted image 0 327You need to personalize emails in the modern day. That means

everything from using the customer’s name to referencing their history or

interests.

Personalized emails deliver much higher open and conversion rates

when you compare them to boring, templated emails:

pasted image 0 309Writing better, personalized emails is a great way to boost your Digital

Marketing efforts.

Here’s a guide I recently wrote about personalization tips. Use

these in your next email campaign to see open rates increase dramatically:

8 Email Personalization Techniques That Work Better Than The Name

GameA second popular trend for 2018 in the email marketing sector is

segmentation. According to the latest data, segmentation can increase revenue

from campaigns by 760%.

pasted image 0 331So, what exactly is segmentation?

Segmentation focuses on splitting up your customer email list into

specific groups, allowing you to target them with much more specific content.

For example, let’s say that you have customers who have purchased

basketball shoes and customers who have purchased soccer shoes.

Sending a generic email about a coupon likely won’t generate

sales. But splitting those groups into two email lists and sending specific

basketball and soccer shoe coupons will skyrocket engagement.

For example, look at this email from Bryan Harris who was looking

to validate his online course. To do this, he segmented his email list for

users who downloaded content that was similar to his online course:

pasted image 0 264This customized, segmented email blast generated a 72% reply rate.

Making email marketing as specific as possible is going to help

you drive better open rates, response rates, and conversions.

Do you want to learn more? Here’s How to Use Email Segmentation to

Increase Your Conversion Rate.

The best email marketing tools

No good email marketing campaign is complete without a proper set

of tools.

Sending emails directly from your client, like Gmail, severely

limits your ability to both scale and customize.

Sure, it allows you to build lists, but it doesn’t offer

personalization tools or ways to schedule out emails and drip campaigns.

A good email marketing tool can help you automate your efforts and

consolidate your tools into one, saving time and money while improving

productivity.

The most popular email marketing tool on the planet right now is

MailChimp.

pasted image 0 358Their drag-and-drop builder allows you to create stunning email

templates for any type of business.

You can do everything from scheduling email campaigns to

automating, segmenting, and personalizing them, and more.

It’s safe to say that MailChimp is a one-stop-shop email marketing

tool that can help your business save time.

Other amazing email marketing tools include Constant Contact,

Drip, ConvertKit, AWeber, GetResponse, and ActiveCampaign.

Start with drip campaigns

Drip email campaigns are the bread and butter of a successful

email marketing gameplan.

Drip campaigns are simply automated email campaigns that send

follow-up emails to users who don’t respond.

For example, if a user doesn’t respond to email #1 about your

offer, you can re-engage them with a second, automated email in two days to

remind them.

Similar to remarketing, they offer another chance for a user to

convert.

One of my favorite examples of a drip campaign comes from Kapost.

Here is the first email in their sequence:

pasted image 0 348Later down the line, when the prospect isn’t responding, Kapost

taps into personalization to re-engage the user:

pasted image 0 298By referencing their interest in Kapost’s content, they are

showing a deep level of understanding for the customer.

Drip campaigns should be a big part of your online email marketing

efforts.

Get started creating a powerful drip campaign today with this

Quick Sprout guide:

How to Create an Actionable Drip CampaignConclusionDigital Marketing is the real deal. Of course, guys like Chandler

are the exception. But thanks to the power of the Internet, anyone and everyone

can become financially independent through Internet marketing.

You can ditch the boss, the nine to five, and the fear of losing

your job.

But, that’s easy to say. It’s far harder to do. If you do anything

right, it’s hard.

Digital Marketing is no different. To get ahead, you need to get

started.

I hope this guide will help you do just that.

The Beginners Guide to Digital MarketingThe most extensive and comprehensive introduction to Digital

Marketing that you’ll find anywhere.

Why We Wrote this Guide? Digital Marketing moves at the

speed of light. To keep up, you need a strong foundation with the judgment to

think critically, act independently, and be relentlessly creative. That’s why

we wrote this guide — to empower you with the mental building blocks to stay

ahead in an aggressive industry. There are plenty of guides to marketing. From

textbooks to online video tutorials, you can really take your pick. But, we

felt that there was something missing — a guide that really starts at the

beginning to equip already-intelligent professionals with a healthy balance of

strategic and tactical advice. The Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing closes

that gap.Who This Guide Is for? We wrote this guide for an audience

of first-time marketers, experienced entrepreneurs and small business owners,

entry to mid-level candidates, and marketing managers in need of resources to

train their direct reports. Most of all, we want you to walk away from this

guide feeling confident about your marketing strategy.How Much of this Guide Should You Read? This guide is

designed for you to read cover-to-cover. Each new guide builds upon the

previous one. A core idea that we want to reinforce is that marketing should be

evaluated holistically. What you need to do is this in terms of growth

frameworks and systems as opposed to campaigns. Reading this guide from start

to finish will help you connect the many moving parts of marketing to your

big-picture goal, which is ROI.

Want More Traffic?

Get help with improving your traffic, leads, and revenue.

Get Started1. Be Laser Focused on Your Customers

Your customers, prospects, and partners are the lifeblood of

your business. You need to build your marketing strategy around them. Step 1 of

marketing is understanding what your customers want, which can be challenging

when you’re dealing with such a diverse audience. This guide will walk you

through (1) the process of building personal connections at scale and (2)

crafting customer value propositions that funnel back to ROI for your company.

Get Started

2. Build Your Marketing Framework

Mediocre marketers think in terms of campaigns. Great

marketers think in terms of growth frameworks. Learn how to position your

marketing strategy into a sustainable, ROI-positive revenue engine for your

brand. Gone are the days of shallow branding. Leverage metrics to build a solid

revenue stream. Get Started

3. Develop Your Brand’s Story

When people spend money, they’re thinking with both their

rational and emotional brains. The most effective marketing frameworks appeal

to both. Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools that your company can

wield to build customer connections. This guide will walk you through the

mechanics of cultivating your company’s story. Get Started

4. Get ‘Em to Your Site: Foundations of Traffic Acquisition

You can have the most amazing web storefront, blog, or

product in the world, but if you’re not getting traffic, your business’s growth

strategy will fall flat. This post will walk you through some of the most

common free and paid traffic acquisition frameworks for bringing visitors to your

website. Get Started

5. Get the Plumbing Right: Foundations of Conversion

Optimization

Traffic acquisition is only half the marketing equation. You

need to invest the time in building a strategy for driving sales. Conversion

optimization is the practice of (1) converting first-time visitors into

customers and (2) converting first-time customers into repeat buyers. This post

will teach you how. Get Started

6. Build Audience Connections with Content Marketing

Content marketing is more than just blogging. When executed

correctly, content including articles, guides (like this one), webinars, and

videos can be powerful growth drivers for your business. Focus on building

trust and producing amazing quality. And most of all, make sure that you’re

capturing the right metrics. Create content to generate ROI. Measure the right

results. This guide will teach you how. Get Started

7. Find Customers with Paid Channel Advertising

Paid channel marketing is something you’ve probably come

across in some form or another. Other names for this topic include Search

Engine Marketing (SEM), online advertising, or pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.

Very often, marketers use these terms interchangeably to describe the same

concept — traffic purchased through online ads. Marketers frequently shy away

from this technique because it costs money. This perspective will put you at a

significant disadvantage. It’s not uncommon for companies to run PPC campaigns

with uncapped budgets. Why? Because you should be generating an ROI anyway. This

post walks through the basics of how. Get Started

8. Amplify 1:1 Connections with Email Marketing

Email marketing has a bad rap. Why? Because in the majority

of cases, it’s spammy. When executed correctly, email marketing can be

incredibly powerful. The trick is to prioritize the human-to-human connection

above the sale. Balance automation with a personal touch. This post will teach

you how. Get Started

9. Drive Incremental Sales Through Affiliate Marketing

It’s hard to believe that the Internet is now multiple

decades old. Affiliate marketing has been around since the earliest days of Digital

Marketing. It’s a great solution for businesses that are risk-averse or don’t

have the budget to spend on upfront marketing costs. Use affiliate marketing to

build a new revenue stream for your ecommerce or B2B business. Get Started

10. Get Found with SEO

Search engines are a powerful channel for connecting with

new audiences. Companies like Google and Bing look to connect their customers

with the best user experience possible. Step one of a strong SEO strategy is to

make sure that your website content and products are the best that they can be.

Step 2 is to communicate that user experience information to search engines so

that you rank in the right place. SEO is competitive and has a reputation of

being a black art. Here’s how to get started the right way. Get Started

11. Get the Word Out with PR

You’ve launched an amazing product or service. Now what?

Now, you need to get the word out. When done well, good PR can be much more

effective and less expensive than advertising. Regardless of whether you want

to hire a fancy agency or awesome consultant, make sure that you know what

you’re doing and what types of ROI to expect. Relationships are the heart and

soul of PR. This guide will teach you how to ignore the noise and focus on

substantive, measurable results. Get Started

12. Launch Your Social Strategy

Your social media strategy is more than just a Facebook

profile or Twitter feed. When executed correctly, social media is a powerful

customer engagement engine and web traffic driver. It’s easy to get sucked into

the hype and create profiles on every single social site. This is the wrong

approach. What you should do instead is to focus on a few key channels where

your brand is most likely to reach key customers and prospects. This post will

teach you how to make that judgment call. Get Started

13. A Quick Note on Mobile

Most businesses aren’t optimized for the mobile web, and

that’s a problem. We operate in a cross-platform world. Smartphones and tablets

are taking over. If you’re not optimizing your site for mobile visitors, you

are likely losing money. Learn how to craft a data-driven mobile approach. This

guide will help you learn the ropes. Get Started

What Is Digital Marketing? The Definitive Guide To Internet

VisibilityWhat Is Digital Marketing?Today, with nearly half the world's population wired to the

internet, the ever-increasing connectivity has created global shifts in

strategic thinking and positioning, disrupting industry after industry, sector

after sector. Seemingly, with each passing day, some new technological tool

emerges that revolutionizes our lives, further deepening and embedding our

dependence on the world wide web.

And why not? Human beings have always enthralled themselves

into one pursuit after another, all with a means to an end of improving our

lives. Clearly, the conveniences afforded by the internet are quite literally

earth-shattering to say the least. Three decades ago, few could have ever

imagined the present state of our on-demand-everything society, with the

ability to instantly communicate and conduct business in real-time, at a pace

that often seems dizzying at the best of times.

However, with all of these so-called modern conveniences to

life, where technology's ever-pervading presence has improved even the most

basic tasks for us such as hailing a ride or ordering food or conducting any

sort of commerce instantly and efficiently, many are left in the dark. While

all of us have become self-professed experts at consuming content and utilizing

a variety of tools freely available to search and seek out information, we're

effectively drowning in a sea of digital overload.

It's clear that Digital Marketing is no simple task. And the

reason why we've landed in this world of "expert" internet marketers

who are constantly cheerleading their offers to help us reach visibility and

penetrate the masses is because of the layer of obscurity that's been afforded

to us in part thanks to one key player: Google. Google's shrouded algorithms

that cloud over 200+ ranking factors in a simple and easy-to-use interface has

confounded businesses for well over a decade now.

Google's core algorithms and its propensity to shroud its

data in layers of obscurity is not something new. However, it is critical to

any understanding of marketing on the internet simply because this visibility

is at the heart of everything else that you do. Forget about social media and

other forms of marketing for the time being. Search engine optimization (SEO)

offers up the proverbial key to near-limitless amounts of traffic on the web.

The better you learn and understand SEO and the more strides

you take to learn this seemingly confusing and complex discipline, the more

likely you'll be to appear organically in search results. And let's face it,

organic search is important to marketing online. Considering that most people

don't have massive advertising budgets and don't know the first thing about

lead magnets, squeeze pages and sales funnels, appearing visible is critical

towards long-term success.

When traffic is coming to your website or blog, nearly

unfettered, it gives you the opportunity to test out a variety of marketing

initiatives. However, without that traffic, you're forced to spend money on

costly ads before really determining the effectiveness of your offers and

uncovering your cost-per acquisition (CPA), two things which are at the core of

scaling out any business online.

I liken this to a paradoxical Catch-22 scenario, because it

seems like without one you can't have the other. It takes money to drive

traffic, but it takes traffic to make money. So don't make the mistake that

millions of other online marketers make around the world. Before you attempt to

scale or send any semblance of traffic to your offers, be sure to split-test

things to oblivion and determine your conversion rates before diving in

headfirst.

Gaining Google's Trust

The biggest problem that most people have when trying to

learn anything to do with driving more traffic to their website or boosting

their visibility across a variety of online mediums, is that they try to do the

least amount of work for the greatest return. They cut corners and they take

shortcuts. Because of that, they fail. Today, if you're serious about marketing

anything on the web, you have to gain Google's trust.

Gaining Google's trust doesn't happen overnight. It takes

time. Think about building up your relationship with anyone. The longer you

know that person, the more likely that trust will solidify. So, the reasoning

is, that if Google just met you, it's going to have a hard time trusting you.

If you want Google to trust you, you have to get other people that Google

already trusts, to vouch for you. This is also known as link-building.

But I'm not talking about any kind of link building. I'm

talking about organic link building by getting out there and creating

insatiable "anchor content" on your website, then linking to that

content with equally-great content that's created on authority sites like

Medium, Quora, LinkedIn and other publishing platforms. It's not easy by any

measure. Google is far more wary of newcomers these days than it once used to

be.

However, if you're going to understand Digital Marketing,

you have to understand the importance of building Google's trust. There are

three core components involved here. These three core components are like the

pillars of trust that comprise all of Google's 200+ ranking factor rules. Each

of those rules can be categorized and cataloged into one of these three pillars

of trust. If you want to rank on the first page or in the first spot, you need

to focus on all three, and not just one or two out of three.

Trust Component #1: Indexed Age

The first component of Google's trust has to do with age.

Age is more than a number. But it's not just the age when you first registered

your website. The indexed age has to do with two factors: i) the date that

Google originally found your website, and; ii) what happened between the time

that Google found your website and the present moment in time.

Just think about any relationship for a moment. How long

you've known a person is incredibly important. It's not the be-all-end-all, but

it is fundamental to trust. If you've known someone for years and years and

other people that you know who you already trust can vouch for that person,

then you're far more likely to trust them, right? But if you've just met

someone, and haven't really vetted them so to speak, how can you possibly trust

them?

Trust Component #2: Authority

What's the authority of your website or webpage, or any

other page on the internet for that matter where you're attempting to gain

visibility? Authority is an important component of trust, and it relies heavily

on quality links coming from websites that Google already trusts. Authority

largely relates to the off-page optimization discipline of SEO that occurs away

from the webpage as opposed to the on-page optimization that occurs directly on

the webpage.

For example, what are the quality and quantity of the links

that have been created over time? Are they natural and organic links stemming

from relevant and high quality content, or are they spammy links, unnatural

links or coming from bad link neighborhoods? Are all the links coming from the

same few websites over time or is there a healthy amount of global IP

diversification in the links?

Trust Component #3: Content

Content is king. It always has been and it always will be.

Creating insightful, engaging and unique content should be at the heart of any Digital

Marketing strategy. Too often, people simply don't obey this rule. The problem?

This takes an extraordinary amount of work. However, anyone that tells you that

content isn't important, is not being fully transparent with you. You cannot

excel in marketing anything on the internet without having quality content.

Quality content is more likely to get shared. By staying

away from creating "thin" content and focusing more on content that

cites sources, is lengthy and it reaches unique insights, you'll be able to

gain Google's trust over time. Remember, this happens as a component of time.

Google knows you can't just go out there and create massive amounts of content

in a few days. If you try to spin content or duplicate it in any fashion,

you'll suffer a Google penalty and your visibility will be stifled.

An Overarching View Of Marketing On The Web

Okay, if you're still with me, fantastic. You're one of the

few that doesn't mind wading through a little bit of hopeless murkiness to

reemerge on the shores of hope. But before we jump too far ahead, it's

important to understand what Digital Marketing is and what it isn't. That

definition provides a core understanding of what it takes to peddle anything on

the web, whether it's a product, service or information.

When we talk about marketing on the internet, we're talking

about driving traffic or boosting visibility via a number of means. Any type of

advertising done on the internet to promote any product, person, service,

business or place for that matter, can be deemed as Digital Marketing. However,

to succeed in this arena, whether it's SEO, social media, email marketing or

beyond, you need to ensure you adhere to the three pillars of trust first and

foremost.

Types Of Digital Marketing

There are ten essential types of marketing that can be done

online. Some of these can be broken down into organic marketing and others can

be categorized as paid marketing. Organic, of course, is the allure of

marketing professionals from around the planet. It's free and its unencumbered

traffic that simply keeps coming. Paid marketing, on the other hand, is still a

very attractive proposition as long as the marketing pays for itself by having

the right type of offer that converts.

#1 -- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO should be a core tactic in any marketing strategy. While

it might seem difficult to understand at first, as long as you find the right

course, book or audiobook, and devote your time to learning, you'll be in good

shape. Considering that there are over 200+ ranking factors in Google's current

algorithms, learning, digesting and successfully implementing good SEO tactics

is essential to the success of your website or blog.

Pay attention to the often-overlooked on-page optimization

elements such as your page speed, which can be determined by using tools like

GTMetrix, Pingdom and Google's own Page Speed Insights.Leverage Google's new Accelerated Mobile Projects (AMP)

specification to ensure that you appear relevantly on mobile searches using

this new lightning-fast loading spec.Utilized Google's Webmaster Tools for suggestions on

fine-tuning your site's structured data, rich cards, and other HTML

improvements such as discovering duplicate title and meta tags, and so on.Read Google's Webmaster Guidelines and ensure that your

content and your overall SEO strategies are in harmony with what the search

giant is looking for.Always build high quality, relevant content that's unique,

insightful and engaging, paving the way for a higher likelihood of visitors sharing

that content organically and naturally.#2 -- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Organic SEO's flip-side offers up a paid method for

marketing on search engines like Google. SEM provides an avenue for displaying

ads through networks such as Google's Adwords and other paid search platforms

that exist across the web throughout social media sites like Facebook,

Instagram and even video sites like YouTube, which, invariably, is the world's

second largest search engine.

By utilizing SEM, it provides you with a great avenue for

getting the word out quickly and effectively. If you have the budget, then

marketing on search engines for competitive keywords might be the right fit for

you. But be prepared to pony up. Keywords can range anywhere from a few cents to

upwards of $50 and more. The quality score for any term is reflective of what

you can expect to pay for bidding on that keyword. The lower the competition,

the lower the quality score and the lower the price.

However, SEM doesn't just cover paying for clicks, but also

paying for impressions. That means, for example, that every 1000 times your ad

is displayed, you pay a pre-arranged amount, regardless of whether anyone

clicked on it or not. While this is a less popular form of advertising, it

still exists today on some platforms.

#3 -- Social Media Marketing

One of the hottest forms of marketing anything online right

now is through social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram, amongst

others. Social media provides a near-direct avenue for reaching the masses, but

it most certainly isn't a simple or easy thing to achieve saturation,

especially when we're talking about millions of followers.

In a number of recent articles, where I've interviewed some

of social media's rising stars such as Jason Stone from Millionaire Mentor,

Sean Perelstein, who built StingHD into a global brand and Nathan Chan from

Foundr Magazine, amongst several others, it's quite clear that

multi-million-dollar businesses can be built on the backs of wildly-popular

social media channels and platforms.

However, getting that saturation is a frustrating process.

Obviously, it doesn't happen overnight. Based on my conversations with numerous

rising stars in social media, there are a few things that should be done when

it comes to gaining attention through a variety of social media channels.

Find your voice: decide what your message is going to be and

stick to it. Don't try to be everything to everyone. Make a decision and stay

committed to it. Whether it's a topic, idea, niche, business or something else,

do your best not to waver.Be real and be yourself: people can see through those that

try to put up a front on social media channels. Don't try to be something that

you're not. Be real and be yourself. It will resonate with people.Deliver value no matter what: Regardless of who you are and

what you're trying to promote, always deliver value, first and foremost. Go out

of your way to help others by carefully curating information that will assist

them in their journey. The more you focus on delivering value, the quicker

you'll reach that proverbial tipping point when it comes to exploding your fans

or followers.Constantly engage with others: many of the social media

superstars I've spoken to have said that, in the beginning, they followed the

popular profiles and constantly commented, shared and engaged with others. Not

just on their own profiles, but by directly commenting on photos and engaging

in conversations on other feeds.If you're serious about finding your voice and discovering

the secrets to success in business, one of the best people to follow is Gary

Vanyerchuck, CEO of Vayner Media, and early-stage invest in Twitter, Uber and

Facebook, has arbitraged his way into the most popular social media platforms

and built up massive followings and often spills out the secrets to success in

a highly motivating and inspiring way.

#4 -- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads

PPC advertising is a method of advertising on search engines

like Google and Bing. As mentioned earlier, with PPC ads, you pay each time

that ad is clicked on. PPC ads also exist on social media platforms like

Instagram and Facebook as well. However, if you're going to engage in PPC

advertising, it's important that you determine conversion rates by using

tracking pixels.

By using the Facebook tracking pixel or the Adwords pixel,

you can help to define your audience and work to entice them to come back to your

site. Let's say the didn't finish their purchase or they simply showed up and

left after adding something to their shopping cart, or they filled out a lead

form and disappeared, you can re-target those individuals.

Re-targeting is one of the most effective ways to market

your business online, because you're marketing to "warm" traffic, or

people who've already visited your site. If you've ever gone to a website and

then seen those ads following you around the internet, then you're well aware

of what re-targeting is.

When running PPC ads, it's important that you keep careful

track of the specific ads and keywords that you're targeting. You can do this

by using the Google Analytics UTM builder to create campaign URLs that you can

use to track the campaign source, the medium and any keywords or terms that you

might be targeting. This way, you can determine the effectiveness of any

campaign that you run and figure out the precise conversion rate.

#5 -- Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the art of marketing products,

services or information for others. It doesn't require that you ever house or

warehouse a single thing. But it does require that you have an audience to

market those things to online. Without that audience, whether it's through

search engines like Google or social media channels like Facebook, you'll find

a difficult time with affiliate marketing.

However, if you are seasoned online marketer, and you've

built a substantial following, then marketing as an affiliate might be the

right fit. Jason Stone from Millionaire Mentor has built a seven-figure

business with affiliate marketing, while David Sharpe from Legendary Marketer

has built up an eight-figure business by creating an army of affiliates that

market products in collaboration with his team.

There are numerous repositories to source affiliate products

and services from. However, some of the biggest are sites like Clickbank,

Commission Junction, LinkShare and JVZoo. You'll need to go through an

application process, for the most part, to get approved to sell certain

products, services or digital information products. Once approved, be prepared

to hustle.

#6 -- Email Marketing

For those that are not in the know, email marketing is a

substantial money generator. In fact, email marketing can far outstrip standard

website sales because, at least for unknown brands or websites that are not

household names, clinching a sale on the first interaction often doesn't

happen.

That's why seasoned online marketers build squeeze pages

with lead magnets, webinars and sales funnels to drip-deliver value and build a

close personal relationship with their email subscribers, effectively moving

them up a value chain to sell them high-ticket products and services.

If you have a website or a blog, be sure that you create a

lead magnet or give something else of value away for free such as a trial

software to a SaaS system or anything else for that matter that people could

get value out of. Exchange your free offer for the email address and drop them

into your sales funnel.

Use an email marketing system like InfusionSoft, ConvertKit

or MailChimp, amongst others, to drip-feed value to those subscribers while

also working to move them up your value chain. Russell Bruson does a great job

of explaining sales funnels and marketing virtually anything on the internet is

his best-selling book, Dot Com Secrets.

#7 -- Influencer Marketing

Using influencers to market your products or services is a

great way to quickly saturate yourself into the marketplace, no matter what

you're peddling. However, finding the right influencer at the right price is

the hard part. You don't necessarily have to go to the top-tier influencers;

you can also opt for micro-influencers (those that have 10,000 to 100,000

followers or fans).

Some influencers charge a hefty sum for a simple post on

platforms like Twitter and Instagram. You can expect to pay upwards of a

million dollars and more for some of the top-tier influencers. If you're

looking for mid-level influencers, you'll likely get away with paying roughly a

couple hundred-thousand dollars and up.

The really important part of influencer marketing is to find

influencers that are in your niche. Be sure that they represent your target

demographic audience before deciding to part ways with your hard-earned cash.

It can get incredibly costly, but it can also bring you instant attention and

business.

#8 -- Blogging

Blogging is one of the best forms of marketing online. It's

free and it gives you a platform to build a massive audience as long as you

don't give up. While starting a blog is relatively easy, actually following

through and growing the blog is nothing short of downright frustrating and

seemingly impossible.

However, some of the world's top-earning blogs gross

millions of dollars per month on autopilot. It's a great source of passive

income and if you know what you're doing, you could earn a substantial living

from it. You don't need millions of visitors per month to rake in the cash, but

you do need to connect with your audience and have clarity in your voice.

#9 -- Video Marketing

Video marketing is a great avenue for exposure on the

internet, and utilizing a platform like YouTube to deliver value in the form of

tutorials and other useful information such as courses or entertainment is a

great way to grow your brand and build a presence.

While there are several platforms for doing this, clearly

YouTube is the most popular for doing this. However, video marketing is also a

great form of both content marketing and SEO on its own. It can help to provide

visibility for several different ventures, and if the video is valuable enough

in its message and content, it will be shared and liked by droves, pushing up

the authority of that video through the roof.

#10 -- Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of my favorite go-to strategies

when it comes to marketing on the web. It's my favorite because it's one of the

most powerful, free and organic methods that are available for online marketers

no matter where they're from. However, marketing content is difficult. So be

prepared to put in the sweat equity.

My favorite style in this is article marketing. You create

anchor content on your website or blog, then you build authority-content links

to that content, effectively driving up the visibility. I've used this single

strategy to rank hundreds of keywords in the #1 spot on Google, and I would

highly recommend that if you're going to learn any marketing strategy, that you

get really good at this one.

The type of content you can market is wide open. Aside from

articles, you can use infographics, tutorials, ebooks and many other forms of

content marketing. As long as it's done the right way, and it isn't

intentionally setup to trick or fool search engines, but rather to add value to

human beings, you'll see immense results from this.

With how accessible the internet is today, would you believe

me if I told you the number of people who go online every day is still

increasing?

It is. In fact, "constant" internet usage among

adults increased by 5% in just the last three years, according to Pew Research.

And although we say it a lot, the way people shop and buy really has changed

along with it -- meaning offline marketing isn't as effective as it used to be.

Marketing has always been about connecting with your

audience in the right place and at the right time. Today, that means you need

to meet them where they are already spending time: on the internet.

Enter digital marketing -- in other words, any form of

marketing that exists online.→ Click here to download our free guide to digital marketing

fundamentals [Download Now].At HubSpot, we talk a lot about inbound marketing as a

really effective way to attract, engage, and delight customers online. But we

still get a lot of questions from people all around the world about digital

marketing. So, we decided to answer them. Click the links below to jump to each

question, or keep reading to see how digital marketing is carries out today.

What is digital marketing?Why digital marketing?Digital Marketing ExamplesWhat does a digital marketer do?Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Which is it?Does digital marketing work for all businesses?What is the role of digital marketing to a company?What types of digital content should I create?How long will it take to see results from my content?Do I need a big budget for digital marketing?How does mobile marketing fit into my digital marketing

strategy?I'm ready to try digital marketing. Now what?So, how do you define digital marketing today?

What is digital marketing?Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use

an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such

as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with

current and prospective customers.

A seasoned inbound marketer might say inbound marketing and

digital marketing are virtually the same thing, but there are some minor

differences. And conversations with marketers and business owners in the U.S.,

U.K., Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, I've learned a lot about how those

small differences are being observed across the world.

What is the role of digital marketing to a company?While traditional marketing might exist in print ads, phone

communication, or phsycial marketing, digital marketing can occur

electronically and online. This means that there are a number of endless

possibilities for brands including email, video, social media, or website-based

marketing opportunities.

At this stage, digital marketing is vital for your business

and brand awareness. It seems like every other brand has a website. And if they

don't, they at least have a social media presence or digital ad strategy.

Digital content and marketing is so common that consumers now expect and rely

on it as a way to learn about brands.

Long story short, to be competitive as a business owner,

you'll need to embrace some aspects of digital marketing.

Because digital marketing has so many options and strategies

associated with it, you can get creative and experiment with a variety of

marketing tactics on a budget. With digital marketing, you can also use tools

like analytics dashboards to monitor the success and ROI of your campaigns more

than you could with a traditional promotional content -- such as a billboard or

print ad.

FEATURED RESOURCEFree Marketing Plan TemplateFill out this form to access the template.

Hi 👋 What's your name?First NameJohnLast NameSmithHi null, what's your email address?Email Addressjohn@smith.comAnd your phone number?Phone Number111 222 3333What is your company's name and website?CompanyHubSpotWebsitewww.hubspot.comHow many employees work there?Does your company provide any of the following services?Web DesignOnline MarketingSEO/SEMAdvertising Agency Services

How does a business define digital marketing?Digital marketing is defined by the use of numerous digital

tactics and channels to connect with customers where they spend much of their

time: online. From the website itself to a business's online branding assets --

digital advertising, email marketing, online brochures, and beyond -- there's a

spectrum of tactics that fall under the umbrella of "digital

marketing."

The best digital marketers have a clear picture of how each

digital marketing campaign supports their overarching goals. And depending on

the goals of their marketing strategy, marketers can support a larger campaign

through the free and paid channels at their disposal.

A content marketer, for example, can create a series of blog

posts that serve to generate leads from a new ebook the business recently

created. The company's social media marketer might then help promote these blog

posts through paid and organic posts on the business's social media accounts.

Perhaps the email marketer creates an email campaign to send those who download

the ebook more information on the company. We'll talk more about these specific

digital marketers in a minute.

Types of Digital MarketingSearch Engine Optimization (SEO)Content MarketingSocial Media MarketingPay Per Click (PPC)Affiliate MarketingNative AdvertisingMarketing AutomationEmail MarketingOnline PRInbound MarketingSponsored ContentHere's a quick rundown of some of the most common digital

marketing tactics and the channels involved in each one.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)This is the process of optimizing your website to

"rank" higher in search engine results pages, thereby increasing the

amount of organic (or free) traffic your website receives. The channels that benefit

from SEO include websites, blogs, and infographics.

There are a number of ways to approach SEO in order to

generate qualified traffic to your website. These include:

On page SEO: This type of SEO focuses on all of the content

that exists "on the page" when looking at a website. By researching

keywords for their search volume and intent (or meaning), you can answer

questions for readers and rank higher on the search engine results pages

(SERPs) those questions produce.Off page SEO: This type of SEO focuses on all of the

activity that takes place "off the page" when looking to optimize

your website. "What activity not on my own website could affect my

ranking?" You might ask. The answer is inbound links, also known as

backlinks. The number of publishers that link to you, and the relative

"authority" of those publishers, affect how highly you rank for the

keywords you care about. By networking with other publishers, writing guest

posts on these websites (and linking back to your website), and generating

external attention, you can earn the backlinks you need to move your website up

on all the right SERPs.Technical SEO: This type of SEO focuses on the backend of

your website, and how your pages are coded. Image compression, structured data,

and CSS file optimization are all forms of technical SEO that can increase your

website's loading speed -- an important ranking factor in the eyes of search

engines like Google.Content MarketingThis term denotes the creation and promotion of content

assets for the purpose of generating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead

generation, and customers. The channels that can play a part in your content

marketing strategy include:

Blog posts: Writing and publishing articles on a company

blog helps you demonstrate your industry expertise and generates organic search

traffic for your business. This ultimately gives you more opportunities to

convert website visitors into leads for your sales team.Ebooks and whitepapers: Ebooks, whitepapers, and similar

long-form content helps further educate website visitors. It also allows you to

exchange content for a reader's contact information, generating leads for your

company and moving people through the buyer's journey.Infographics: Sometimes, readers want you to show, not tell.

Infographics are a form of visual content that helps website visitors visualize

a concept you want to help them learn.Want to learn and apply content marketing to your business?

Check out HubSpot Academy's free content marketing training resource page.

Social Media MarketingThis practice promotes your brand and your content on social

media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads

for your business. The channels you can use in social media marketing include:

Facebook.Twitter.LinkedIn.Instagram.Snapchat.Pinterest.If you're new to social platforms, you can use tools like

HubSpot to connect channels like LinkedIn and Facebook in one place. This way,

you can easily schedule content for multiple channels at once, and monitor

analytics from the platform as well.

On top of connecting social accounts for posting purposes,

you can also integrate your social media inboxes into HubSpot, so you can get

your direct messages in one place.

Pay Per Click (PPC)PPC is a method of driving traffic to your website by paying

a publisher every time your ad is clicked. One of the most common types of PPC

is Google Ads, which allows you to pay for top slots on Google's search engine

results pages at a price "per click" of the links you place. Other

channels where you can use PPC include:

Paid ads on Facebook: Here, users can pay to customize a

video, image post, or slideshow, which Facebook will publish to the newsfeeds

of people who match your business's audience.Twitter Ads campaigns: Here, users can pay to place a series

of posts or profile badges to the news feeds of a specific audience, all

dedicated to accomplish a specific goal for your business. This goal can be

website traffic, more Twitter followers, tweet engagement, or even app downloads.Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn: Here, users can pay to send

messages directly to specific LinkedIn users based on their industry and

background.Affiliate MarketingThis is a type of performance-based advertising where you

receive commission for promoting someone else's products or services on your

website. Affiliate marketing channels include:

Hosting video ads through the YouTube Partner Program.Posting affiliate links from your social media accounts.Native AdvertisingNative advertising refers to advertisements that are

primarily content-led and featured on a platform alongside other, non-paid

content. BuzzFeed-sponsored posts are a good example, but many people also

consider social media advertising to be "native" -- Facebook advertising

and Instagram advertising, for example.

Marketing AutomationMarketing automation refers to the software that serves to

automate your basic marketing operations. Many marketing departments can

automate repetitive tasks they would otherwise do manually, such as:

Email newsletters: Email automation doesn't just allow you

to automatically send emails to your subscribers. It can also help you shrink

and expand your contact list as needed so your newsletters are only going to

the people who want to see them in their inboxes.Social media post scheduling: If you want to grow your

organization's presence on a social network, you need to post frequently. This

makes manual posting a bit of an unruly process. Social media scheduling tools

push your content to your social media channels for you, so you can spend more

time focusing on content strategy.Lead-nurturing workflows: Generating leads, and converting

those leads into customers, can be a long process. You can automate that

process by sending leads specific emails and content once they fit certain

criteria, such as when they download and open an ebook.Campaign tracking and reporting: Marketing campaigns can

include a ton of different people, emails, content, webpages, phone calls, and

more. Marketing automation can help you sort everything you work on by the

campaign it's serving, and then track the performance of that campaign based on

the progress all of these components make over time.Email MarketingCompanies use email marketing as a way of communicating with

their audiences. Email is often used to promote content, discounts and events,

as well as to direct people toward the business's website. The types of emails

you might send in an email marketing campaign include:

Blog subscription newsletters.Follow-up emails to website visitors who downloaded

something.Customer welcome emails.Holiday promotions to loyalty program members.Tips or similar series emails for customer nurturing.Online PROnline PR is the practice of securing earned online coverage

with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. It's much

like traditional PR, but in the online space. The channels you can use to

maximize your PR efforts include:

Reporter outreach via social media: Talking to journalists

on Twitter, for example, is a great way to develop a relationship with the press

that produces earned media opportunities for your company.Engaging online reviews of your company: When someone

reviews your company online, whether that review is good or bad, your instinct

might be not to touch it. On the contrary, engaging company reviews helps you

humanize your brand and deliver powerful messaging that protects your

reputation.Engaging comments on your personal website or blog: Similar

to the way you'd respond to reviews of your company, responding to the people

who are reading your content is the best way to generate productive

conversation around your industry.Inbound MarketingInbound marketing refers to a marketing methodology wherein

you attract, engage, and delight customers at every stage of the buyer's

journey. You can use every digital marketing tactic listed above, throughout an

inbound marketing strategy, to create a customer experience that works with the

customer, not against them. Here are some classic examples of inbound marketing

versus traditional marketing:

Blogging vs. pop-up adsVideo marketing vs. commercial advertisingEmail contact lists vs. email spamSponsored ContentWith sponsored content, you as a brand pay another company

or entity to create and promote content that discusses your brand or service in

some way.

One popular type of sponsored content is influencer

marketing. With this type of sponsored content, a brand sponsors an influencer

in its industry to publish posts or videos related to the company on social

media.

Another type of sponsored content could be a blog post or

article that is written to highlight a topic, service, or brand.

To learn more about sponsored content, check out this blog

post.

What does a digital marketer do?Digital marketers are in charge of driving brand awareness

and lead generation through all the digital channels -- both free and paid --

that are at a company's disposal. These channels include social media, the

company's own website, search engine rankings, email, display advertising, and

the company's blog.

The digital marketer usually focuses on a different key

performance indicator (KPI) for each channel so they can properly measure the

company's performance across each one. A digital marketer who's in charge of

SEO, for example, measures their website's "organic traffic" -- of

that traffic coming from website visitors who found a page of the business's

website via a Google search.

Digital marketing is carried out across many marketing roles

today. In small companies, one generalist might own many of the digital

marketing tactics described above at the same time. In larger companies, these

tactics have multiple specialists that each focus on just one or two of the

brand's digital channels.

Here are some examples of these specialists:

SEO ManagerMain KPIs: Organic trafficIn short, SEO managers get the business to rank on Google.

Using a variety of approaches to search engine optimization, this person might

work directly with content creators to ensure the content they produce performs

well on Google -- even if the company also posts this content on social media.

Content Marketing SpecialistMain KPIs: Time on page, overall blog traffic, YouTube

channel subscribersContent marketing specialists are the digital content

creators. They frequently keep track of the company's blogging calendar, and

come up with a content strategy that includes video as well. These

professionals often work with people in other departments to ensure the

products and campaigns the business launches are supported with promotional

content on each digital channel.

Social Media ManagerMain KPIs: Follows, Impressions, SharesThe role of a social media manager is easy to infer from the

title, but which social networks they manage for the company depends on the

industry. Above all, social media managers establish a posting schedule for the

company's written and visual content. This employee might also work with the

content marketing specialist to develop a strategy for which content to post on

which social network.

(Note: Per the KPIs above, "impressions" refers to

the number of times a business's posts appear on the newsfeed of a user.)

Marketing Automation CoordinatorMain KPIs: Email open rate, campaign click-through rate,

lead-generation (conversion) rateThe marketing automation coordinator helps choose and manage

the software that allows the whole marketing team to understand their

customers' behavior and measure the growth of their business. Because many of

the marketing operations described above might be executed separately from one

another, it's important for there to be someone who can group these digital

activities into individual campaigns and track each campaign's performance.

Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Which Is It?On the surface, the two seem similar: Both occur primarily

online, and both focus on creating digital content for people to consume. So

what's the difference?

The term "digital marketing" doesn't differentiate

between push and pull marketing tactics (or what we might now refer to as

‘inbound' and ‘outbound' methods). Both can still fall under the umbrella of

digital marketing.

Digital outbound tactics aim to put a marketing message

directly in front of as many people as possible in the online space --

regardless of whether it's relevant or welcomed. For example, the garish banner

ads you see at the top of many websites try to push a product or promotion onto

people who aren't necessarily ready to receive it.

On the other hand, marketers who employ digital inbound

tactics use online content to attract their target customers onto their

websites by providing assets that are helpful to them. One of the simplest yet

most powerful inbound digital marketing assets is a blog, which allows your

website to capitalize on the terms which your ideal customers are searching

for.

Ultimately, inbound marketing is a methodology that uses

digital marketing assets to attract, engage, and delight customers online.

Digital marketing, on the other hand, is simply an umbrella term to describe online

marketing tactics of any kind, regardless of whether they're considered inbound

or outbound.

Does digital marketing work for all businesses?Digital marketing can work for any business in any industry.

Regardless of what your company sells, digital marketing still involves

building out buyer personas to identify your audience's needs, and creating

valuable online content. However, that's not to say all businesses should

implement a digital marketing strategy in the same way.

B2B Digital MarketingIf your company is business-to-business (B2B), your digital

marketing efforts are likely to be centered around online lead generation, with

the end goal being for someone to speak to a salesperson. For that reason, the

role of your marketing strategy is to attract and convert the highest quality

leads for your salespeople via your website and supporting digital channels.

Beyond your website, you'll probably choose to focus your

efforts on business-focused channels like LinkedIn where your demographic is

spending their time online.

B2C Digital MarketingIf your company is business-to-consumer (B2C), depending on

the price point of your products, it's likely that the goal of your digital

marketing efforts is to attract people to your website and have them become

customers without ever needing to speak to a salesperson.

For that reason, you're probably less likely to focus on

‘leads' in their traditional sense, and more likely to focus on building an

accelerated buyer's journey, from the moment someone lands on your website, to

the moment that they make a purchase. This will often mean your product

features in your content higher up in the marketing funnel than it might for a

B2B business, and you might need to use stronger calls-to-action (CTAs).

For B2C companies, channels like Instagram and Pinterest can

often be more valuable than business-focused platforms LinkedIn.

What is the role of digital marketing to a company?Unlike most offline marketing efforts, digital marketing

allows marketers to see accurate results in real time. If you've ever put an

advert in a newspaper, you'll know how difficult it is to estimate how many

people actually flipped to that page and paid attention to your ad. There's no

surefire way to know if that ad was responsible for any sales at all.

On the other hand, with digital marketing, you can measure

the ROI of pretty much any aspect of your marketing efforts.

Here are some examples:

Website TrafficWith digital marketing, you can see the exact number of

people who have viewed your website's homepage in real time by using digital

analytics software, available in marketing platforms like HubSpot.

You can also see how many pages they visited, what device

they were using, and where they came from, amongst other digital analytics

data.

This intelligence helps you to prioritize which marketing

channels to spend more or less time on, based on the number of people those

channels are driving to your website. For example, if only 10% of your traffic

is coming from organic search, you know that you probably need to spend some

time on SEO to increase that percentage.

With offline marketing, it's very difficult to tell how

people are interacting with your brand before they have an interaction with a

salesperson or make a purchase. With digital marketing, you can identify trends

and patterns in people's behavior before they've reached the final stage in

their buyer's journey, meaning you can make more informed decisions about how

to attract them to your website right at the top of the marketing funnel.

Content Performance and Lead GenerationImagine you've created a product brochure and posted it

through people's letterboxes -- that brochure is a form of content, albeit

offline. The problem is that you have no idea how many people opened your

brochure or how many people threw it straight into the trash.

Now imagine you had that brochure on your website instead.

You can measure exactly how many people viewed the page where it's hosted, and

you can collect the contact details of those who download it by using forms.

Not only can you measure how many people are engaging with your content, but

you're also generating qualified leads when people download it.

Attribution ModelingAn effective digital marketing strategy combined with the

right tools and technologies allows you to trace all of your sales back to a

customer's first digital touchpoint with your business.

We call this attribution modeling, and it allows you to

identify trends in the way people research and buy your product, helping you to

make more informed decisions about what parts of your marketing strategy

deserve more attention, and what parts of your sales cycle need refining.

Connecting the dots between marketing and sales is hugely

important -- according to Aberdeen Group, companies with strong sales and

marketing alignment achieve a 20% annual growth rate, compared to a 4% decline

in revenue for companies with poor alignment. If you can improve your

customer's' journey through the buying cycle by using digital technologies,

then it's likely to reflect positively on your business's bottom line.

What types of digital content should I create?The kind of content you create depends on your audience's

needs at different stages in the buyer's journey. You should start by creating

buyer personas (use these free templates, or try makemypersona.com) to identify

what your audience's goals and challenges are in relation to your business. On

a basic level, your online content should aim to help them meet these goals,

and overcome their challenges.

Then, you'll need to think about when they're most likely to

be ready to consume this content in relation to what stage they're at in their

buyer's journey. We call this content mapping.

With content mapping, the goal is to target content

according to:

The characteristics of the person who will be consuming it

(that's where buyer personas come in).How close that person is to making a purchase (i.e., their

lifecycle stage).In terms of the format of your content, there are a lot of

different things to try. Here are some options we'd recommend using at each

stage of the buyer's journey:

Awareness StageBlog posts. Great for increasing your organic traffic when

paired with a strong SEO and keyword strategy.Infographics. Very shareable, meaning they increase your

chances of being found via social media when others share your content. (Check

out these free infographic templates to get you started.)Short videos. Again, these are very shareable and can help

your brand get found by new audiences by hosting them on platforms like

YouTube.Consideration StageEbooks. Great for lead generation as they're generally more

comprehensive than a blog post or infographic, meaning someone is more likely

to exchange their contact information to receive it.Research reports. Again, this is a high value content piece

which is great for lead generation. Research reports and new data for your

industry can also work for the awareness stage though, as they're often

picked-up by the media or industry press.Webinars. As they're a more detailed, interactive form of

video content, webinars are an effective consideration stage content format as

they offer more comprehensive content than a blog post or short video.Decision StageCase studies. Having detailed case studies on your website

can be an effective form of content for those who are ready to make a

purchasing decision, as it helps you positively influence their decision.Testimonials. If case studies aren't a good fit for your

business, having short testimonials around your website is a good alternative.

For B2C brands, think of testimonials a little more loosely. If you're a

clothing brand, these might take the form of photos of how other people styled

a shirt or dress, pulled from a branded hashtag where people can contribute.How long will it take to see results from my content?With digital marketing, it can often feel like you're able

to see results much faster than you might with offline marketing due to the

fact it's easier to measure ROI. However, it ultimately depends on the scale

and effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy.

If you spend time building comprehensive buyer personas to

identify the needs of your audience, and you focus on creating quality online

content to attract and convert them, then you're likely to see strong results

within the first six months.

If paid advertising is part of your digital strategy, then

the results come even quicker -- but it's recommended to focus on building your

organic (or ‘free') reach using content, SEO, and social media for long-term,

sustainable success.

Do I need a big budget for digital marketing?As with anything, it really depends on what elements of

digital marketing you're looking to add to your strategy.

If you're focusing on inbound techniques like SEO, social

media, and content creation for a preexisting website, the good news is you

don't need very much budget at all. With inbound marketing, the main focus is

on creating high quality content that your audience will want to consume, which

unless you're planning to outsource the work, the only investment you'll need

is your time.

You can get started by hosting a website and creating

content using HubSpot's CMS. For those on a tight budget, you can get started

using WordPress hosted on WP Engine, using a simple them from StudioPress, and

building your site without code using the Elementor Website Builder for

WordPress.

With outbound techniques like online advertising and

purchasing email lists, there is undoubtedly some expense. What it costs comes

down to what kind of visibility you want to receive as a result of the

advertising.

For example, to implement PPC using Google AdWords, you'll

bid against other companies in your industry to appear at the top of Google's

search results for keywords associated with your business. Depending on the

competitiveness of the keyword, this can be reasonably affordable, or extremely

expensive, which is why it's a good idea to focus building your organic reach,

too.

How does mobile marketing fit into my digital marketing

strategy?Another key component of digital marketing is mobile

marketing. In fact, smartphone usage as a whole accounts for 69% of time spent

consuming digital media in the U.S., while desktop-based digital media

consumption makes up less than half -- and the U.S. still isn't mobile's

biggest fan compared to other countries.

This means it's essential to optimize your digital ads, web

pages, social media images, and other digital assets for mobile devices. If

your company has a mobile app that enables users to engage with your brand or

shop your products, your app falls under the digital marketing umbrella, too.

Those engaging with your company online via mobile devices

need to have the same positive experience as they would on desktop. This means

implementing a mobile-friendly or responsive website design to make browsing

user-friendly for those on mobile devices. It might also mean reducing the

length of your lead generation forms to create a hassle-free experience for

people downloading your content on-the-go. As for your social media images,

it's important to always have a mobile user in mind when creating them as image

dimensions are smaller on mobile devices, meaning text can be cut-off.

There are lots of ways you can optimize your digital

marketing assets for mobile users, and when implementing any digital marketing

strategy, it's hugely important to consider how the experience will translate

on mobile devices. By ensuring this is always front-of-mind, you'll be creating

digital experiences that work for your audience, and consequently achieve the

results you're hoping for.