strategic digital marketing with nottingham trent university and impression

http://impression.tips/ntustrategy @impressiontalk #digstrategy

Strategic Digital MarketingHow to use digital marketing to achieve your business

goals

http://impression.tips/ntustrategy@impressiontalk #digstrategy

Prepared for: Prepared by:

http://impression.tips/ntustrategic

http://impression.tips/ntustrategy

http://impression.tips/ntustrategy


lauralhampton impressiontalk

uk.linkedin.com/in/[email protected]



Credentials



Clients



Our team



We help businesses grow online

SOCIAL

PPC

DIGITAL PR EMAIL

CONTENT

DEVELOPMENTSEO

REPORTING



Today’s Agenda– Introduction to digital marketing

– What is ‘strategy’?

– How to be more strategic in your marketing

– SEO (search engine optimisation)

– Content marketing

– PPC and paid opportunities

– Social media



An introduction to digital marketing

The medium through which we engage our target audience and show the

personality behind our brand.

A place to showcase all that is great about our business on a level playing

field.



Where it starts



Does your website show off everything you offer?

Can your target audience easily find the information they need/want?

Can Google understand what you’re all about too?



All about setting out your stall

When your website clearly shows off what you have to offer…

… and it is easy for people to use…

… it has a much better chance of ranking highly in the Google search results. This is on page SEO.



Validation and credibilityGoogle, like your target audience, won’t just take your word for it.

This is why we need to promote your website and build your brand’s credibility around the web.

This is off page SEO.



Promotion Techniques: Social MediaSocial media is the term used to describe the plethora of user-generated-content platforms that rely on the shared content and updates of their users.

Most commonly used by businesses are:

● Facebook● Twitter● Instagram● YouTube● Pinterest● LinkedIn



Promotion Techniques: Paid advertising

Paid advertising comes in many forms, both online and offline. In online marketing, we most commonly use:

● Google AdWords, including search network ads, display advertising and remarketing

● Facebook boost and sponsored updates

● Twitter sponsored tweets

● LinkedIn promoted content



Promotion Techniques: Content Marketing

Content marketing has become a bit of a buzzword in recent years, but generally speaking refers to:

● Creative content in the form of graphics, infographics, imagery, video or audio

● Created to communicate a message, display data or generally appeal to the target audience

● Typically underpinned by a strong promotional plan, which can include SEO, paid ads and social media



The role of digital PRDigital PR is a real growth area in digital marketing and refers to the promotion of business stories through traditional PR and online techniques.

The goal is to secure editorial feature of the brand in places relevant to the target audience, in order to increase brand exposure.

This also has a highly beneficial impact on SEO, which also relies on the placement of a brand across the web to signify credibility to Google.



Investment in digital marketing- In 2015 report, highest reported

value channels were SEO and email marketing

- 28% of roles held in ‘marketing’ are now ‘digital’ specific

- The more technical areas tend to be outsourced, including SEO and PPC

- Whilst more content driven campaigns stay in house, such as social media and email

- Digital marketing spend increased by 17% in 2015



What does “strategy” mean to you?



- Insert answers here



Being ‘strategic’ as a marketer...● Having a clear set of goals

● Making those goals measurable and SMART

● Having a way to measure those goals

● Assessing the contribution of every campaign and marketing channel



Tip 1: Start gathering data



● Google Analytics

● Google AdWords

● Google Search Console

● Bing Webmaster Tools

● CRM reports

● Salesperson reports



Interpreting the data...● How well are we currently

achieving our goals?

● Where are we doing particularly well? Look at best performing channels, products, pages, devices, countries, etc

● Where are we not doing well?

● What is the conversion rate for each of our goals?



Tip 2: Set SMART goals



What are your goals?



Now… make them SMART.



Tip 3: Align your goals to financial forecasts● When we know the conversion

rates of our channels…

● … and we know the revenue figures we need to hit…

● … we can set realistic marketing targets…

● … and better refine our work.



Why invest in SEO?– More website traffic

– Increased rankings in the Google search results

– More customers

– More sales

– Better brand representation online



Back to basics: how Google works

Google bots crawl the web, following links to find new pages

Uses sitemaps, internal links and external links in this process.




Google indexes all pages on the web, like a huge library

Some sites/pages will be crawled and indexed faster, some can’t be found - buried too deep




Google’s index includes categories, topics and relevancy ratings

Based on Google’s algorithms.




When someone conducts a search, Google retrieves the result from its index

Based on Google’s algorithms.



Google’s mission statementGoogle is a business too and it’s service is its search results.

It needs to deliver the best search results possible in order to deliver a good experience to its users.

If it fails to do this, it will lose its market share.



What is an algorithm?

The set of rules used by Google to govern the search

results so they deliver the best quality, most relevant results for its searchers.



How to keep up with Google updates– Follow @impressiontalk on Twitter!

– Sign up for the Search Engine Land daily newsletter

– Read Google’s Webmaster Central blog


https://twitter.com/impressiontalk

http://searchengineland.com/

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/


How Google understands websitesOn page factorsThe things we do on our own websites, including the content, the structure, the hosting, the loading speed, whether or not it’s mobile friendly…

Off page factorsThe things that are said about our website outside of our direct control (though we can influence them) including external links, editorial mentions and, to an extent, social engagement.



On Page SEO: FocusEach page on your site should have a

specific focus.

This means it can be a relevant search result for a specific search query.

If you have multiple pages on the same specific topic, they compete with one

another as Google doesn’t know which is the best/most relevant search result.



Further keyword ideas

● Google Keyword Planner

● Answer the Public

● Customer feedback

● Competitor analysis

● Service/product review



Content Hierarchy

● The closer to the homepage, the more important the page is considered to be

● Think about the hierarchy of your website and make a plan for the pages you need



Tip 4: Optimise your pages for search



On-Page SEO

Title tagsThe title of the page as shown in the Google search results.

Google will refer to this early on in its analysis to understand that the page is about.

Should clearly state the topic of the page. Maximum 60 characters.



On-Page SEO

Page Titles (H1)The title of the page as seen on the page itself. This should be

the main title of the page and reflect the title tag, though it may be formatted differently.

Ensure it is ‘H1’ style in the HTML code.



On-Page SEO

Body CopyThe text on your page is an important element of how Google understands it. Your aim should be to write pages which have their own specific focus, so you can ensure everything on it is

relevant to the page’s topic.

Google recognises words in bold or italic as being more important than others, so use these to highlight important

words that are relevant to the page topic.



On-Page SEO

Image Alt TagsGoogle can’t (entirely) ‘see’ images like we can, so it struggles

to use your images in its understanding of the page.

Image alt tags are descriptions of the image in text format, usually applied within the code or, if you have one, content

management system. The image alt tag should be relevant to the page topic.



On-Page SEO

Meta DescriptionsThough no longer directly used by Google to understand your page, the meta description is an important marketing message which can entice

people to click on your search result over others.

Maximum 140 characters, ensure you include a message and call to action.



On-Page SEO

Internal LinkingRemember that Google follows links to find new pages. The links to and from your page say a lot about what the page

itself is about.

Look at where your page is linked to from within your site, including the pages that link to it and the text they use to link. Should be relevant to the page’s topic. Also look at what other pages are linked to from that page and how well this shows its

relevancy for its focus topic.



Tip 5: Optimise your pages for users



Page Load SpeedHow quickly do your pages load?

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/


https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/


Mobile FriendlyHow well does your website work on mobile devices?

https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly


https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly


Interactive ContentTo what extent does your content go above and beyond that of

your competitors?

https://moz.com/blog/how-to-create-10x-content-whiteboard-friday





Broken ElementsDon’t put off fixing what should be fixed today!



User JourneyHow easy is it for users to move through your website and

how well do you guide/inspire them to make their journey as streamlined as possible?



Engagement MetricsTime on page, time on site, bounce rate, new vs returning

visitors



Tip 6: Don’t Neglect Off Page SEOGoogle doesn’t just ‘take your word for it’.

In order to identify the most relevant, high quality search results, it needs to consider what other people think of your site.

This is off-page SEO, and account for roughly 70% of Google’s effort in understanding your site.

So… get the on-page stuff done, then focus is on building your brand’s credibility around the web.



What is link building?

Link building is the practice of creating valuable

stories/content and sharing valuable expertise to encourage

others to mention and link to our website.



What is NOT link building?

– Buying links with money or giveaways

– Adding your website to poor quality directories

– Attempting to ‘play the system’ in any way



Domain Authority

A metric constructed by Moz which gives an estimation of the perceived authority of your website.

Domain authority is scored out of 100 and is based on a logarithmic scale, meaning it increases more quickly at the bottom end and

then gets more difficult to grow. Generally, DA of over 40 is considered good.

Donington’s website has a domain authority of 58/100, which means it is considered to be quite authoritative and should therefore be

able to compete with other websites on most search queries.



Links and “link equity”

All links are votes, but not all votes are equal...



What makes a good link?

Of high domain authority itself

Relevant to your brand

Not paid for or otherwise solicited



Why would someone link to someone else’s website?



How do you get people to link to your site?Create great

content

People are much more likely to link to, and therefore share, something which is of high

quality and relevant to their target audience

Add something new

If you create a resource or piece of content which adds to theirs,

people will link to it

Interesting, entertaining,

unique

Create content which can’t be

found elsewhere, and people will

link to it



Outreach

Promote your content by outreaching to people who

might want to link to it.

Create a list of potential ‘linkers’.

Approach them with your content, explaining what it is, and why they might want to

link to it.



Which websites might link to yours?



The role of digital PR in SEO– By generating news stories of interest, you

can encourage others to link to your website.

– Consider what is newsworthy, and how best to represent it.

– For example, you might have some interesting stats from a race which you write a press release about, then link to a page on your site where you’ve presented those stats in a graph.

– Use of traditional PR and online outreach techniques combined.

– Always include links in your press releases.



Who can you approach to link to you now?



Measure, analyse, refine...

● Links to your website - use Google Alerts, Google your own brand name -site:www.mysite.co.uk or tools like AHREFs and Open Site Explorer

● Look for improved ranking positions

● And more organic search traffic

● Could also be more referral traffic


http://www.mysite.co.uk/


How to measure SEO impact

Key performance indicators

– Organic traffic to your website– Organic traffic to the pages you’ve optimised– Domain authority improvement - check on

https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/ – Improved rankings for the terms you want to search

queries you want to target


https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/



● Work out where you currently rank for your target terms (STAT)

● Look at who ranks above you

● Monitor for improvements, which you should see within weeks, depending on your industry

● Use Google Analytics to monitor search traffic

● And Google Search Console for rankings too



Conducting an SEO audit– Use Screaming Frog to run a crawl of your website

– This will show you all of the URLs– And all of the title tags– And all of the meta descriptions– And all of the H1s– And image tags

– Highlight all of the pages that need to be updated

– Review the on-page copy of each page; does it have a specific purpose and does it meet that purpose well?

– Use Open Site Explorer to review all of the sites linking to yours and identify types of sites that have linked in the past, and therefore where new opportunities might be

– Look out for any bad links, e.g. from poor quality directories


http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/


Google’s Mission Statement

Google's mission is to organise the world's

information and make it universally accessible and

useful.



Your Mission

To let Google know that your website is the most

accessible and useful result for a given search query.



“Link building” has evolved...– Requesting links

– Contributing content

– Creating unique content

– Digital PR

– Relationship building

– Offline



What is content marketing?– Refers to the creative generation of

content which communicates a message, visualises data or generally appeals to your target audience.

– Typically involves an investment in the creation of that content beyond simply writing a blog post.


http://impression.tips/ntustrategy @impressiontalk #digstrategyhttps://www.harveywatersofteners.co.uk/history-interior-design/


https://www.harveywatersofteners.co.uk/history-interior-design/

http://impression.tips/ntustrategy @impressiontalk #digstrategyhttp://hub.companycheck.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Business-Census-2016.pdf?pdf=BizCensus2016


http://hub.companycheck.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Business-Census-2016.pdf?pdf=BizCensus2016

http://impression.tips/ntustrategy @impressiontalk #digstrategyhttps://www.impression.co.uk/black-friday/


https://www.impression.co.uk/black-friday/


Promotion of content

Good content marketing has the power to generate LINKS and

SOCIAL SHARES.

A good content marketing campaign is underpinned by a strong outreach strategy; so

who do you plan to promote it to and how?



Tip 7: Invest in Strategic Content Marketing

– Think PROMOTION FIRST

– Consider who you want to promote to…

– … and how you’ll do it…

– … then work backwards for best results

– Always think about your target audience

– And your brand



(Content) Marketing Foundations

● Something to say

● Someone to say it to

● A reason for saying it



Something to say (brand stories)



- What differentiates you from your competitors?

- What is unique about Donington as an experience?

- What do you offer, in a nutshell?

- Why do your customers come to you?

- What need/desire do you fulfil?

- What is your backstory?

Brand stories



What are your brand stories?



Not just what, but how...



Blogging



Guides



Creative Content



Videos



Audio



Great content...



Someone to say it to (audience)



Knowing your audience

– Who are you trying to speak to

– What are their interests

– What challenges face them/their industry

– How does your service/product help them



Knowing your audience

– Audience segments

– Individuals

– Personas



Key Attributes

Time Poor Time Rich

Answering to Others

Sole decision maker

Low propensity to buy

High propensity to buy

Technophobe Technophile

Office based On the road

Technology and Web Use Challenges

Time: Matt is investing a lot of time in getting his business off the ground and knows every minute is valuable

Admin: Matt feels overwhelmed by the paperwork involved in starting a business and wants to make sure he gets it right.

Focus: Matt started his business because he loves what he does. He wants to retain his focus and not get bogged down in tasks related to running the business wherever possible.

Name: Matt ThomsonAge: 31Position: OwnerCompany: Thomson Creative

Matt says: “I’m really excited to be running my own business and want to ensure I have the best chance of success.

NEW BUSINESS OWNERMatt is our new business owner, currently operating from his home. He has extensive experience in his field but has never run a business.

He is hungry for information and does his best to read as much as he can to equip him to run his business successfully, but he is limited in time. He appreciates bite-size content and quick responses. He is best suited to graphical content, guides, listicles and social interactions.



Who are you trying to reach?



http://www.smartinsights.com/content-management/content-marketing-planning/tools-for-content-marketing/






What content could you produce that communicates your brand stories and appeals to your audience?



A reason for saying it (goals)



SMART goals



(Content) Marketing Foundations

● Something to say (stories and content)

● Someone to say it to (audience)

● A reason for saying it (goals)




● New links to your website (Moz Open Site Explorer or AHREFs or Google Alerts)

● Traffic to your content

● New leads via your content

● Organic search rankings

● Paid ad engagement

● Engagement metrics



Tip 8: Invest in PPCPay per click marketing refers to the paid

advertising techniques, usually through Google AdWords.

You pay for each click your advert receives and ads are placed according to a bidding system

like eBay, in conjunction with quality assessments of your ads and landing pages.

Paid advertising can also be done through social media such as Facebook, and through Bing.



Adverts in the Google search results



Google AdWords: BasicsCampaignsA campaign is a collection of ad groups and ads. A campaign should be focused on

a specific theme; for example, you might create a campaign for ‘Driving Experiences’

Ad GroupsAn ad group is a subsection of a campaign which hones in on a more specific

theme. You can have multiple ad groups in a campaign. For example, within the campaign ‘Driving Experiences’ you might have an ad group for ‘Christmas Gift’

AdsAn ad is the advert(s) you want to present to people. Ads sit within an ad group

which is in a campaign, and much be relevant to the ad group and campaign. For example, within the Christmas Gift ad group of your Driving Experiences campaign, you would have an ad which talks about booking a driving experience as a Christmas gift.



Google AdWords: BasicsKeywordsKeywords in AdWords are the terms for which you want your advert to appear when

people search for them. You’ll have lots of keywords for every ad, which sits in an ad group, which sits in a campaign. The keywords should be relevant to all of the above.

For example, for your Driving Experiences campaign, Christmas Gift ad group you might want to appear for keywords like:

‘driving experience christmas gift’, ‘driving day gift christmas’, ‘christmas driving experience’, ‘christmas driving day’, ‘driving day gift’

Note the specificity of these keywords to the ad group. If you wanted to target driving experiences for birthdays, you’d create a different ad group. You can use the Keyword Planner to look for more ideas.



Budgets and biddingYou set the budget for your campaign at a campaign level. So you might

decide you want to spend £30 per day on your Driving Experiences campaign.

You can then set a bid at a keyword level. So you might say you are willing to pay 70p for every click on your Christmas advert.

It then works like eBay, to an extent. If you’re the highest bidder, you’ll probably appear in position 1.

However, it also looks at quality score; so your keywords must be relevant to your ads which must be relevant to your ad groups which must be relevant to your campaign and the landing page you’re sending people to must be relevant to all of that.



Landing Pages

A key element of PPC, landing pages are the pages you send people to from your ads.

In order to get as many conversions as possible, they should be built to focus on that conversion and nothing else.



Remarketing through AdWords



Tip 9: Try Social Media Advertising



59% of the UK population have ACTIVE social media accounts



Social media is NOT a

broadcasting tool



Social media IS a conversatio

n



What could social media do for your business?



What could social media do for you?

– Reach more prospective customers

– Convert more prospects into customers

– Keep existing customers loyal

– Gain market intelligence



How Twitter works

– Followers

– Following

– Tweeting, replying, retweeting



Who could you follow?



Who could you follow?

– Local press: www.twitter.com/nottscc/lists

– Trade press

– Existing customers

– Suppliers

– Business press



What to say?



Something to say (brand stories)



Setting up Hootsuite

– Claim free account

– Set up mentions stream

– Set up custom search streams



Facebook Business Basics– Built on ‘likes’; when someone ‘likes’ your page, they can see its content

appearing in their news feed

– Not all content posted on a page appears in everyone’s news feed - algorithm

– Range of native apps available, so you can post events and even take booking through FB

– Photos work really well on FB

– As do links to longer content pieces

– Like all social media, it’s about starting and contributing to conversations



Facebook Analytics– Use to learn what works and

what doesn’t

– Identify seasonal/daily trends

– What types of content get most engagement? Usually photos

– Demographic information; how can you better appeal?

– Location information; again, what messages work best?



Facebook Advertising



Who owns YouTube?



Tip 10: Structure your social media campaign

1. Have a clear set of goalsa. who?b. what?c. why?

2. Select the appropriate channel

3. Create a content plan



Structuring your social media campaign4. Start posting, give it a couple of weeks

5. Review

6. Refine



Configuring your Analytics: GoalsDestination goalsA destination goal tracks visits to a specific page URL. You might use a destination goal to track visits to a ‘thank you’ page that results from a new subscription or a booking to track how many people complete that action.

Event goalsWhere a new URL is not generated by an interaction, such as watching a video within the page or clicking a button, you can add code to the site to track that interaction as an event goal.

Ecommerce goalsGoogle Analytics allows for ecommerce tracking integration for sites which take online purchases.



What goals will you set up?



Google Analytics Custom Dashboards


https://econsultancy.com/blog/62828-10-useful-google-analytics-custom-dashboards/


Google Analytics



Sales

Enquiries

Sales team

CRM



Today’s Top Tips1. Start gathering and analysing data2. Create SMART goals3. Align goals to financial forecasts4. Optimise your pages for search5. Optimise your website for users6. Don’t neglect off page promotion7. Invest in strategic content marketing8. Invest in PPC9. Try social media ads10.Structure your social campaigns

Bonus: Measure everything!



Today’s Agenda– Introduction to digital marketing

– What is ‘strategy’?

– How to be more strategic in your marketing

– SEO (search engine optimisation)

– Content marketing

– PPC and paid opportunities

– Social media


[email protected]

[email protected]

THANK YOU

[email protected]

uk.linkedin.com/in/lauralhampton/

@lauralhampton

www.impression.co.uk

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/robtomkinson/