Yes, you read it right. I am going to share with you some amazing hacks of "Do it Yourself" (DIY) Digital Marketing.
The global pandemic brought a lot of challenges in the world. Businesses around the globe saw some drastic changes.
The methods of communication saw a revolution. Everyone in business realized that you cannot miss Online Marketing from your marketing and business communication.
We are a professional digital marketing agency. "We love everything digital."
But at times, we are not able to serve all the inquiries due to various reasons. For them, I am going to share some easy steps to ensure a basic setup of your own Digital Dukaan.
Let us first understand OM in Digital Marketing and then after this, we will understand the Digital Marketing Flowchart which you can read here.
OM
The concept of OM in Digital Marketing: To build a brand and generate business from digital marketing, one needs to have the right mix of O for Optimisation and M for Marketing.
When you regularly publish content in order to build engagement & authority with your audience without paying to the platforms it falls under O for Optimisation.
When you pay the platforms to show your advertisements to the target group by segmenting your audience falls under M for Marketing.
O & M thus put together to make OM.
KEYWORDS
Words are the most important part of any communication be it verbal or written. In the world of online marketing, it is very important to know the most keyed words about your business known as keywords.
Do not worry, Google has made it very easy for finding out the keywords. Signup on Google Ads and use the Keyword Planner.
You may be tempted to use the Google Ads platform for promotion but please wait before jumping in too soon.
WEBSITE
The second step after stepping into the world of internet marketing is to have a Website. One may argue that how can we have our own website by ourselves without hiring a professional agency? Yes, developing a website by yourself can be time-consuming and may not turn out to be as aesthetic as you would expect it to be.
But still, you can use the following tools to have your own website in the DIY way:
Google My Business (The simplest method / No longer available)
Simply sign up on Google My Business
Fill out the form which will ask for your business details like logo, some photos, videos, contact details like mobile number, email id, address and so on. Refer our blog on Corporate Identity Creation for more details on the same.
Google My Business will create a website for you but not with your own domain.
If you want to sync it with your own domain name then it will need some technical expertise. But you can surely do it later on once you move further in building up your Digital Dukaan. Google Sites
Simply sign up on Google Sites
Google Sites will have more features than the above option but it is also a relatively easier method to develop your own website.
Website Builder platforms like GoDaddy
Simply sign up on GoDaddy
GoDaddy is quite renowned for its domain services. GoDaddy has also launched its website builder. It is also a simple tool like Google Sites.Before you start making your website, ensure that you are ready with keywords, logos, some photos/videos, to begin with, textual content, and so on.
If you are planning to outsource the development of your website, then do give a read at this blog ours.
Corporate Identity Creation & Optimisation
We have a detailed blog on this topic. Please refer to it before reading further.
As you might have read the process of having standardized contact details and information on each of the social media platforms is known as Corporate Identity Creation.
Photos & Videos
Do not worry, you do not need all these expensive setups if you want to have a basic level of photography for your products or amenities. You can use your mobile phone camera in order to capture some good pictures which can be used, to begin with.
But if you do an analogy of Digital Marketing being a car, then Photos and Videos are its fuel. So if you want to drive long & drive fast then you need high-quality fuel for the same.
Hire a professional photographer/videographer for photography/videos.
Alternatively, you can buy some photographs as per your business category which can be directly used or with some minor editing.
Also, you can use Mock-ups available for various categories of products.
A mock-up is a photoshop or illustrator file designed by professional graphic designers. It is a template design that you can adopt for your business by adding your design language (color, logo, fonts, and so on).
Freepik is one of the best platforms for Photos, Mock-ups as well as templates for Graphic Design. Envato Elements is also one other platform for similar purposes. These work on paid subscriptions.
For free stock photos and videos, you can use platforms like Pexels.
Graphic Design
Graphic Design is one of the toughest tasks when it comes to social media marketing. It requires artistic skills to design aesthetically beautiful communication. But you can use Freepik or a similar platform to get ready designs, photos, and mock-ups. You can even get photos with models in them. But you must have a premium license in order to use copyrighted images.
"Strictly, do not ever use images directly available on Google Search Engine Result Pages or any other online platform without appropriate licensing & copyrights."
There are a lot of options in this line. You can hire freelancers for graphic design and content writing purposes. You can hire from Instagram, LinkedIn, Internshala, Indeed, and similar.
If you want to do some graphic designing yourselves, then you can use some super-advanced tools of Adobe or Corel Draw. Even some cloud tools like Canva have gained a lot of popularity recently because of their ease of usage. Some features are available for free but the most advanced features are chargeable.
Social Media Optimization
Calendar
Consistency is very important when it comes to social media management. Plan a calendar using Trello or Microsoft Excel. You can find various templates for the same on Trello templates.
Content
You can use Grammarly for ensuring the right grammar in your textual content.
If you want to type in Hindi/Gujarati or any other vernacular language then you can use India Typing or similar other platforms.
Use relevant #tags in the captions of your posts. You can use tools like Inflact (Previously known as Ingramer) for generating relevant hashtags.
You can post about your products, services, amenities, and offers. USPs, testimonials, education & awareness, the problem which you or your business is solving, and so on. You can engage with your audience by engaging quizzes and contests with giveaways in order to generate some good followers.
Scheduling
You can use the Creator Studio of Meta (the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) for simultaneous scheduling of posts on Facebook and Instagram. Hootsuite is one of the most famous tools for scheduling on multiple platforms in one go. Buffer, OneUp are other similar tools.
Creating a schedule of posts in advance is a great savior of time. You do not have to post on a day-to-day basis. It will never be disciplined. So first prepare a calendar and then use Scheduler to post.
Limitation: As of now, Instagram is not having the provision of scheduling Reels.
Story/Status/Short Videos/Reels
Social Media is ever-evolving and some of the most recent updates in it are the features of Stories & Short Videos.
Story/Status is a very unique and engaging feature. It stays only for 24 hours. You can upload images, gifs, or short videos. It is a way of showing your social network and followers about your daily updates. Most social media have introduced Story now. You can upload the same on Facebook, and Instagram, and as a Status on WhatsApp. Read how you can effectively use Business WhatsApp in your Digital Dukaan in this blog of ours, click on Business WhatsApp.
TikTok got a lot of daily active users from across the world because of its unique feature of only short videos coming continuously on the feed. But with the banning of the same from various countries, Facebook and Instagram introduced Short Videos known as Reels respectively. Even YouTube introduced YouTube Short Videos - Shorts. You can shoot short videos of your product being packed or delivery being done and add some nice music available and post this with relevant captions and #tags.
Blog on LinkedIn
A blog is a vital element when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation and a detailed explanation of your products or services. It can also serve as an engagement tool. A lot of content publishing websites use blogs to attract the audience to whom they can show ads. This part of getting advertisements on your websites is a relatively advanced form of digital marketing and requires professional skills.
LinkedIn has an excellent interface for writing blogs. You can use Wix / WordPress as well for having blogs on your own website.
Before you start writing blogs, keep the keywords ready. Do not be too technical and try to be engaging with some good pictures, graphs, and data in your blog.
A sample of a blog on LinkedIn is here. The blog which you are reading now is written using the Wix platform.
Guest blog on Quora
Quora is famous for finding answers to curious questions. Often you wonder how can we do something and you write the question on Google. You will see a lot of results having answers on Quora. There are so many people in the world who have already asked the same question on the world wide web which you want to ask now. Quora is the place for the answers to such questions.
It is very useful to write and comment on Quora to generate a positive impact on your efforts along the lines of Search Engine Optimisation.
Social Media Marketing - Search Engine Marketing - Lead Generation
All our businesses run on the nutrition of leads. If we can get good quality hot leads then we can generate a lot of business.
The world of internet marketing has an amazing ability to generate leads using social media and search engines. A detailed explanation of lead generation will be shared in a separate blog about the same.
For the DIY approach, you can do the basic level of lead generation using business.facebook.com and ads.google.com
You can even use LinkedIn to generate leads.
Both of them are self-explanatory. This part requires professional expertise for the best results.
Check out this blog of ours to see the 13 different formats of placements in Facebook ads.
Lead Qualification & Sales Automation - CRM
A CRM tool is very important when it comes to Lead Qualification and Sales Automation. When a lead is generated from social media or search engines or any other source, it is automatically punched into the CRM. The Sales Automation feature of the CRM will ensure that the prospect is sent an SMS and email introducing them to the company. The company's sales representative will also receive an intimation to immediately attend to the lead.
Turn-around-time is very crucial in order to convert sales. In a general scenario, if a lead is not attended to within the same day there is a strong chance of it being lost or converted to cold status.
We are using MeraCRM for our requirements. You can also use the same or similar tools available online like Zoho etc.
We will discuss at length about CRM and Sales Automation in our upcoming blogs. Follow our website for more updates.
Vlog on YouTube
Often people like to understand a subject by seeing a video. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth a thousand pictures. So it is a great idea to make video blogs often known as Vlogs. This will require some good time in making the content, video editing, and then uploading. While uploading the video on YouTube, please ensure to use the right keywords in the title and description.
There are a lot of examples available on YouTube for this. One of the most successful and inspiring ones is Dr. Vivek Bindra.
Please prepare a calendar before you jump to Blogging or Vlogging because consistency is the key in the world of digital marketing.
Google Display Ads
A complete explanation of this topic can be found in this blog of ours on Google Display Network.
This is a relatively complex part of digital marketing and will require a lot of time, effort, and professional skills in order to get the best results.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is a long-term process where you establish the impression of your Digital Dukaan on the World Wide Web such that the Search Engine recommends your website in the topmost parts of the results (called Search Engine Page Results - SERPs).
A detailed explanation of SEO is available on this blog of ours. Click on SEO.
Personal Branding
Click this link to know: How to build a Personal Brand?
We will have to discuss Facebook Insights and Google Analytics for further progress in the "Do It Yourself" Digital Marketing. Come back for more details and information. I will be sharing blogs on different topics as mentioned above. Meanwhile, read our other blogs at this link.
Image courtesy:
Wix Library