5 things I wish I knew before I started my Digital Marketing journey
I can’t believe it’s been almost 3 months since I began my digital marketing learning journey, and now going strong with my 11th personal blog. It almost feels like the training wheels are coming off, and I am well on my way to becoming something I never thought I could be, a “blogger”. With that being said, I believe it is my responsibility to pass along some of the knowledge I have accrued over this time and hopefully save you some time as you begin your own path towards enlightenment.
In no particular order of importance, here are 5 things you would want anyone to know before creating a digital marketing strategy:
1 .- The end of third-party cookies: No I’m not talking about the good kind of cookies (chocolate chip & oatmeal raisin), but the really annoying “cookies” that allow companies to track you after you’ve left there website. One clear example is Google Ads which creates third-party cookies to monitor which websites were visited by each user, and later used to show you products that you previously searched on a completely different website (this example is better known as Retargeting).
The third-party cookie ban will begin in 2023 and it will forever change the digital marketing landscape, at least from a user privacy perspective. For advertisers and companies that are panicking right now don’t you worry, Google is coming out with a solution called “Privacy Sandbox” that in layman’s terms mean: companies will still be able to track you, but they won’t know who you are.
2 .- Consumers have moved to mobile: to be clear, mobile marketing refers to or encompasses all users that reached on a smartphone or tablet. Today according to Statista there are more mobile devices (15 billion) and smartphones (6.64 billion) than there are people (7.9 billion) in the world.
According to a recent survey by reviews.org up to 47% of the Americans believe they are “addicted” to their phones and the average American spends 2 hours and 54 minutes on their phone each day, which translates to over a month and a half of 2022. Having said all this, any digital marketing strategy has to have mobile at the center of it all.
3 .- Don’t underestimate the power of Email Marketing: According to Constant Contact, Email Marketing has an ROI of $36 usd for every $1 usd spent “That’s a higher return than you can expect from any other form of marketing — digital or otherwise. 60 percent of consumers say they’ve made a purchase as a result of a marketing email they received. While Social Media is important, the gold standard of marketing still involves getting people to sign up for your email list”.
4 .- If you only had a dollar to spend, use it on SEO and SEM: Better known as Search Engine Optimization And Search Engine Marketing these tools allow marketers to stand out or have a sort of “digital sign” that allows them to be seen by consumers searching primarily on Google. Think about it, if a consumer is already looking for you or someone like, wouldn’t it be wise to buy the brightest and flashiest sign you could get so people would look at what you have to offer? There is no denying the fact that search marketing works if not for Alphabet Inc.’s current Mkt Cap. of $1.68 Trillion.
5 .- Content is king: “If you create an interesting story, others will share it for you” — David Meerman Scott. It is of paramount importance to invest on creating the most relevant content for your consumers. In order for your dollar to go further, the better your content generation the greater chance you have of turning that lead into a purchase decision. And on top of that, the better your content the more people will share it with their friends for free.
With all that being said, I hope that this information becomes as useful as it has been for me. And please feel free to write any suggestions in the comments below.
“Through every generation of the human race there has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it, or death takes them.” — Alexander The Great.
RH
