Digital marketing is summarized as being the act of promoting a business, brand, individual or cause through various digital channels like the internet and mobile messaging platforms. It is important because more than 2 billion people now have internet access and consumers are increasingly expecting businesses to have an online presence. Creating an effective digital marketing strategy involves understanding one's business, competitors, customers and goals. A website is the most important piece of digital real estate and should be optimized for usability and search engines through on-page SEO techniques. Search engine optimization makes it easier for search engines to find and rank relevant website pages.

1. digital MARKETING
A strategic overview
With Calvin Jones

2. About me
http://bit.ly/CJGooglePlus
www.linkedin.com/in/CalvinJones
www.twitter.com/WriterCJ
Web content specialist, digital marketing consultant
and author based in West Cork.
Co Author of Understanding Digital Marketing and
The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World
www.digitalbusinesshub.com www.cjwriting.com

3. Some things we'll Cover
What is Digital Marketing and why is it important?
Digital marketing strategy
Your Website: the hub of your digital world
Search and the art of getting found
Web analytics and online measurement
E-mail marketing
Engaging customers through Social Media
Digital Marketing Trends
Case studies and Examples

4. digital MARKETING
What is it, and why should I care?

5. If you remember just one thing,
remember this:
THE PRIME DIRECTIVE
Digital marketing is about PEOPLE
not TECHNOLOGY!
Technology is just the bit in the middle that helps us
communicate more effectively

6. What is Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the act of promoting a business, brand,
individual or cause through a variety of digital media
channels, principally the internet, but also through digital
display or mobile messaging platforms

7. Why Digital Marketing?
More than 2 billion people with internet access
USA 78%, Europe 58%
Ireland: 65%, UK: 82%, Scandinavia 90+%
The internet is:
Changing how people look for, research and buy products
and services.
Changing the way people interact with businesses and
brands.
Changing customers' expectations
Make more efficient use of your marketing €
Useful link: www.internetworldstats.com

8. Do I need a digital marketing?
The key questions:
1. Are your customers / prospects
online, or are they going to be?
2. See question 1
Consumers are spending more time online,
and increasingly expect the businesses
they buy from to be there too!

9. Defining your
digital marketing strategy
Know your business
Is your business ready for digital marketing
Remove internal road-blocks
Know your competition
What are they doing well (emulate them)
What are they doing badly (learn from them)
What aren't they doing at all (seize the opportunity)

10. Defining your
digital marketing strategy
Know your customers
Who are they, and what do they want from you?
Are you servicing the same customer base online?
How do they use digital technology?
Know what you're trying to achieve
If you don't know where you want to go, there's a
good chance you'll never get there.
Set clear, measurable, achievable goals.

11. Meet Consumer 2.0
Same people – it's the medium that's changed,
and it's altering consumer behaviour
Impatient information junkies: they want it all, and
they want it now
They're in control: play on their terms or you'll
lose them before you start
They're fickle: if your value proposition doesn't
stack up, they'll go elsewhere

12. digital MARKETING
Creating Your Website

13. Your Window to the Digital World
Your website is your most valuable piece of digital
real estate
It is the only place online where you are in control
Think of it as a “conversion engine” for the traffic
you drive to it
Your website turns visitors into leads / customers

14. What's in a name?
Choosing the right domain
Domain names are cheap – but the right one
could prove priceless
Think memorable, descriptive... and relevant
If you target a local audience think of registering
a country specific TLD (Top Level Domain)
You can easily buy multiple domains and redirect
them to your primary domain.
Useful links: www.mydomain.com, www.letshost.ie, www.blacknight.com

15. Hosting: where your website lives
Hosting = space on a computer permanently
connected to the internet
Shared Hosting, VPS, Dedicated Server, or Co-
location? What about “Cloud” Hosting?
Choosing the right host
Location, reliability, reputation, support
What's the “buzz” online, what are people saying
about them?
Ask for recommendations
Useful links: www.letshost.ie, www.blacknight.com

16. Planning your website
Who is your website really for?
Usability: make your visitors' lives easier.
Accessibility and Web Standards W3C
Words matter the most – pretty pictures still come
second
Search engines are your market research friends:
look up your competition
Useful links: www.usability.gov, www.useit.com, www.w3c.org

17. Content: the workhorse of
your online business
Use keyword research to inform content decisions (base
decisions on data not speculation)
Arrange related content into clearly defined themes
Grab attention, use compelling, engaging language
Inverted pyramid – most important elements first, drill
down to supporting detail
Structure for “scan-ability”, use headings and bullets to
break up text

18. Website Design
Focus on usability – help visitors achieve their
goals
If you're not a designer, bring in a professional
Form follows function: don't let design impact
usability
Save some budget for your content: words matter
more than looks on the web

19. Choosing a Web Designer
Check the designer's website
Check reference sites from their portfolio
Contact reference clients and ask about their
experience
Do the sites they design perform well in search?
Do their sites comply with W3C web standards?

20. digital MARKETING
Search Engine Marketing

21. Search: The Holy Grail
of online marketing
Search Engines are the best source of targeted
traffic to your site
Get your details in front of people at the precise
moment they're looking for what you offer
More than 80% of web users rely on search
engines to navigate the web
In March 2011 search engines fielded 16.9 billion
requests for information

22. Search: dealing with HUGE
numbers
“The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million
pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one
billion mark. Over the last eight years, we've seen a lot
of big numbers about how much content is really out
there. Recently, even our search engineers stopped in
awe about just how big the web is these days -- when
our systems that process links on the web to find new
content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in
1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once!”
Official Google blog post, July 2008

23. How Search Works
Search engines earn money from advertising
To attract advertisers they need an audience
To attract / retain audience they rely on
RELEVANCE
Improved Relevance = Better User Experience
= More Users = More Advertisers = More Revenue
Putting users first
makes search engines richer!

24. Search nuts and bolts
Crawler / Spider scours the web and stored data
in a massive database called an index
User types a search query – search engine
retrieves matches from the index
Search engine ranks millions of results for
relevance based on complex search algorithm
Organic results presented to the user, along with
relevant paid advertising based on the same
keywords
Google Explains Search: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs

25. Avoid Search Road Blocks
Don't make life difficult for search engines
Flash / Ajax: avoid all-flash / all ajax sites – they are
difficult for spiders to crawl
Script based navigation: can cause problems for
spiders. Have a text based workaround
Frames: bad for search, and bad for users
Image based navigation: again, you need a text
based alternative if you use image based navigation
Example of a Flash heavy website: www.leoburnett.com

26. Keywords unlock the power
of search success
Brainstorm seed keywords
What would your customer type in the search box?
Come up with half-a-dozen terms.
Find out what they are actually searching for
Use keyword tools like Google's free adwords tool,
Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery
It's not all about volume: focus on keywords specific
enough to drive targeted traffic

27. Long tail versus short tail
Keywords
Short Tail
short generic phrases or single words
high volumes of traffic
lots of competition
Long Tail
longer descriptive phrases (3, 4 or more words)
much lower search volumes individually
less competition and more likely to convert

28. Help Search Engines to help you
Effective search engine optimisation (SEO)
makes it easier for search engines to find, index
and rank your pages
REMEMBER: search engines rank pages, not
sites – each page gives you a unique
opportunity to rank
Optimise each page for your target keywords: 1-3
per page

29. On Page SEO: Meta Tags
The <Title> HTML tag
Appears at the top of your browser window
Descriptive, keyword optimised phrase
Will be the clickable link in search results page
Your first chance to grab people's attention
The <Meta> Description HTML tag
Descriptive overview of the page – often used as the
snippet of text in search results

30. On Page SEO: Content
Your content body
Write naturally and incorporate target keywords
organically
Focus on great content for your readers
Use headings (<Hn> tags) and lists to structure
content logically
Use descriptive anchor text for internal links
Whenever possible have descriptive text alternatives
for images and rich media content.

31. Links: votes for your site
Incoming links from reputable sites boost search
rankings
When another website links to yours, they're saying
“this content is worth reading”
Not all links are created equal:
The weighting of links depends on the perceived
authority of the referring site.
Links that don't comply with search guidelines will not
count.

32. Links: how to get them
Ask for them
Online and offline networking, social networks,
customers, suppliers, etc.
Create compelling content and encourage people
to share
Link bait: content designed specifically to attract
links
contests, coupons, reports, infographics, widgets,
plugins... anything that adds value

33. Social signals and SEO
Social “buzz” feeding into search algorithms
Who's talking about, retweeting, +1ing and sharing
your content can affect ranking
What your online social circle is sharing can impact
personalised search results
Activity on social media platforms is now an
integral part of your SEO

34. Pay Per Click Search Advertising
Search ads appear beside and occasionally
above organic results
Short, keyword targeted text based ads
Typically a clickable headline and two short lines of
text
Ad placement based on combination of
relevance, bid value, “quality” score and other
factors.
You only pay when your ad is clicked

35. Effective PPC Ads
Concentrate on highly targeted, conversion
focused keywords (you pay for every click)
Benefit focused headline and ad copy: attract
attention and encourage click-through
Send people to a dedicated conversion optimised
landing page
Monitor campaigns closely, apply budget
constraints, measure and refine constantly

36. Search Marketing Sum-up
Search Engines are a core elements of online
marketing
Use keywords unlock the power of search
Organic SEO can drive free targeted traffic to
your site, but takes time and sustained effort
PPC Advertising can send instant traffic to your
site, but you pay for each click, so conversion is
crucial for ROI

37. digital MARKETING
Web Analytics

38. Website Intelligence: Analytics
Web analytics provides valuable insight on your
visitors
Make decisions based on actions by real people,
rather than blind speculation
Track and measure results – fine tune your
strategy, do more of what works, stop doing
what doesn't work
Test different options to improve ROI

39. Analytics Options
Start with Google Analytics – enterprise class
analytics for free
Easy set up
Comprehensive features
Intuitive web based interface
Commercial options include Coremetrics,
WebTrends, Omniture etc.
Google “Web Analytics” for more options

40. What can Analytics tell me?
How people find your site
How they navigate through it
How they become customers / convert
If they don't convert, where do you lose them?
How well your content is performing
Track conversion stats via AdWords and other
advertising channels
... and much, much more
Google Analytics support resources: http://www.google.com/analytics/support.html

41. digital MARKETING
Social Media

42. Social Media
People are talking...
... are you ready to join
the conversation?

43. What is Social Media
“Social media is the umbrella term for
web based software and services
that allow users to come together
online and exchange, discuss,
communicate and participate in any
form of social interaction.”
- Me, Understanding Digital Marketing

44. What is Social Media
Social media is nothing new
Online social interaction pre-dates the web by some
20 years
Always on broadband, mobile and web 2.0
technologies make it easy to share
Social media is naturally compelling
We're social creatures: we're hard-wired to interact
with other people
Social media is nothing to be afraid of

45. Why you need to get involved
Marketing has evolved
Broadcasting a message no longer works, this is a
conversation, not a lecture
People are talking anyway – better to be involved in
the conversation
Online equivalent of word of mouth
Instead of sharing with 5 friends down the pub,
people are sharing with 500, 5,000, 50,000. Are
they saying good things about you?

46. Why you need to get involved
Learn more about your customers
Find out what people like, don't like, want and need
Use that knowledge to inform your marketing and
deliver what they're looking for.
Build enduring, mutually beneficial relationships
Engaging with customers regularly helps build trust,
improves your reputation and builds online
advocacy around your brand.

47. Types of social media
Social bookmarking: www.delicious.com
Social submissions: www.digg.com
Forums and groups: www.boards.ie
Blogs: www.icecreamireland.com
Media sharing: www.youtube.com
Social Networks: www.facebook.com
Microblogging: www.twitter.com

48. The Social Media Rules of
Engagement
Listen before you leap
Draw on what you already know
Be open, honest and engaging
Be relevant, interesting, entertaining
Add value, don't just push your message
Respect rules – written or otherwise
Respect people

49. Adding A Social Element
to your own site
Feeds from your social media accounts
Blogs
Support Forums
Live Online Support
Reviews and ratings (www.amazon.co.uk)
Social applications (www.ideastorm.com)
... use your imagination, and engage!

50. digital MARKETING
Email Marketing

51. E-Mail Marketing
E-mail is perhaps the most universally accepted
digital medium
How many people you know actively use social media
every day? How about email?
Engage regularly with existing customers, build
relationships with new customers, reach out to
prospects
Customers will still open your email, if you
routinely add value

52. Email Marketing Tools
DON'T try to manage your email marketing in
Microsoft Outlook!
Dedicated email marketing software is
Affordable
Easy to use
Conforms with relevant anti-spam legislation
Will grow with your online business
Makes subscription and list management a breeze

53. Email Marketing Tools
Enterprise email marketing with CRM Integration
Desktop based email software
Web based “Software as a Service”
Benchmark Email, Aweber, Newsweaver ... and many
more
Ideal for small to medium businesses
Affordable, great feature set, scaleable

54. Benchmark Email: flexible, affordable, full-featured email marketing ideal for SMEs

55. Building your e-mail list
Opt in is crucial – you need people's permission
to contact them
Explicit opt in is best – people actively sign up to your
newsletter or mailing list
Soft opt-in – it's generally fine to add email addresses
collected when people completes a transaction on
your website to your list
ALWAYS make sure its easy for people to
unsubscribe if they decide it's not for them

56. Building your email list
Put a sign up form prominently on your website
Make it easy for your subscribers to share your
email offerings via email and social media
Encourage sign in on a dedicated landing page
on your site
Ask for an email address in exchange for value
added content (a downloadable whitepaper,
free webinar, etc.)

57. Creating compelling email
Design your HTML email template as you would
a web page
Make it visually compelling, and complimentary to
your site design
Continuity enhances the user experience and builds trust
Ensure your message degrades gracefully
Email client software often blocks images by default, and
some people choose not to view email in HTML format.

58. Writing email content
Your subject line is important
It is the only content subscribers see BEFORE
deciding if they'll open your message
Above the fold – present your most important
content up front
Write as you would for the web – keep your copy
clear, engaging and short
Include a compelling call to action: tell people
what you want them to do!

59. digital MARKETING
Where next?

60. Future trends
Mobile... the internet in our pockets
By 2014 mobile devices will overtake PCs globally for
internet access
Increasing market share for smartphones and tablets
Move away from proprietary “locked down” apps to
cross-platform, device independent standards
based applications (HTML5)

61. Future trends
Location based services / marketing
Using mobile location data to make advertising more
useful
Targeted “offers” based on where you are at any
given time
More innovative location based applications and
marketing as devices become more capable and
marketers get more creative

62. Future trends
Personalisation and behavioural targeting
Targeting ads to individuals based on past
preferences and other behavioural cues
Combine with location data to deliver extremely
targeted advertising tailored to the individual
Ads become useful because they give you relevant
information about things your interested in
Privacy is the main stumbling block

63. Future trends
Integrated marketing
Stop thinking in terms of “traditional” and “digital” --
it's just marketing
Choosing the most effective combination of
complimentary channels spanning multiple media
The demise of campaign-based marketing
We'll see less isolated campaign based marketing,
brands moving towards a model of iterative
engagement and conversation

64. Over to you....
@WriterCJ on Twitter
www.linkedin.com/in/CalvinJones
calvin@cjwriting.com