Five Stages of Digital Marketing

I get it, you spend hours and hours, of time you really don\’t have, creating a Facebook page, launching a website or dealing with a marketing consultant but no one buys from you or even visit your online pages.

From promoting your website, creating an images, boosting your post, recording a video or social media management and for what? 10 views? 10 likes? zero purchases? or maybe lesser if you don\’t count your friends and family.

Or maybe what you need is gear upgrades? Better camera or a new mic? Or maybe talk to a marketing consultant and promise to increase your engagements, sales and conversions.

If you\’re new to my content, I am Dennis Hilario and over the past 20 years I\’ve been running a software company and a home interior products business and promote them 100% online.

And just like you, I\’ve experienced those pains and learn from mistakes.

And now I am creating business courses such as the Accounting Starter Digital Course for Small Business and Simplified Digital Marketing Course to share my knowledge and give back to the small business community. I also apply my digital marketing knowledge in promoting these courses and it has been running successfully since last year.

So these 5 stages of digital marketing is the framework I have structured so you can fast track your digital marketing, make your first sale and grow your revenue.

So i\’ll jump right to it.

Stage 1 – Develop and launch a website.
Creating a website for your business is very important if you want to employ an effective digital marketing strategy. A company website does the work of putting all the information you want people to know about your business in one place. A website also gives your potential customers the relief and confidence that your business is legit. People often make the mistake of setting up social media pages and leave it at that. Anyone can set up a Facebook for any purpose, but a website gives your business a more professional look.

There are a few things needed to set up a website; you will need a domain name and a hosting plan. Companies like WordPress, Wix, GoDaddy, Squarespace, etc. have good plans that can allow you to set up your website with no technical knowledge of web design. You can also activate your eCommerce to allow customers to add your products to cart and checkout.

However, if you want a more personalized touch, you can hire an expert to design your website for you.

Stage 2 – Apply Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the buzzword when it comes to promoting your website. SEO is organically promoting your website to rank on the first page of search engines, without paying Google.

With Google ads, you’re paying Google to promote your website; with SEO, your website is promoted organically because it is believed to be useful for people. SEO involves optimizing your website to perform well on search engines.

There are millions of websites struggling to be seen online, the only way search engines can produce relevant results whenever a keyword is entered is by ranking the results based on how optimized they are for that particular keyword.

As a start, you don\’t need to be apply advance SEO techniques right away. Just a basic SEO friendly keywords in your web page title, a sitemap and meta-data description will do. I recommend looking up Neil Patel and UberSuggest if you wish to learn more about SEO.

Stage 3 – Pay-Per-Click or Paid Ads

So after launching your website and applying basic SEO techniques, the fastest way to get your first sale is thru paid ads.

One of the core methods of traditional marketing is paying for ads on TV and radio stations; it was an effective thing. Now, with the internet being the place where everyone is, online ads have taken over paying for ads in the traditional media. Online ads involve registering your business with a platform like Google, YouTube, or Facebook, then setting your keywords and paying for those platforms to promote business. You can set different goals, and you can work with a different budget range.

There are different types of online ads, in Google, for example, there is the pay-per-click (PPC) pay-per-impression (PPI) or pay-per-view (PPV); the commonest one is PPC.

PPC is a form of Internet advertising where a company pays the platform only when the ad is click. Almost all social media channels have this, but I will focus on Google/YouTube and Facebook.

Google and YouTube have both search and display ads. A search ad is where you bid on a certain keyword, for example, “laptop for sale”, and then your ad will be rendered in the user’s page depending on your bid. If you’re the highest bidder, then you’ll be at the top of the page. A display ad is a type of advertising where you choose which locations, demographics, webpages, or URLs (placements), targeting you would like the ad to appear.

Google and Facebook both have these, and this is where I focus my efforts on. There are several types of ads that you can buy from these platforms, such as a link to your website, a link to your sales page, a link to your digital product, a signup form, or a lead form. It depends on your objective.

Typically, you set a daily budget/threshold to limit the ad display once it reached the budget that you set. A good strategy is to make it a narrow target as possible. You may start with your existing email list or audience, or a certain type of behavior or demographic. PPC is the quickest way to gain traction because these are leads that you buy.

You may use Google and Facebook ad managers to analyze the performance of your ads. You can also put trackers on your website, such as FB Pixel to monitor the visitor’s behaviors and communicate it to Facebook. You can perform several A/B testings to make your ad effective and cost-efficient.

Stage 4 – Content Marketing and Social Media

While the pay-per-click is the fastest way to generate your first sale. Content marketing and social media management is a longer term approach to establish your brand and your edge over your competitors.

This is one type of marketing or campaign that you can use to be the leader of your niche. You have to provide your audience with powerful information that they can use as their benefit in availing of your products or services.

On top of a website and SEO efforts, a blog or a vlog is the best way to do your content marketing. Post original content about your subject, provide tips, and how-tos. Post stories, announcements, promos, sales offer, challenges, ebooks, webinars, or news about your company and most importantly, valuable blog posts.

Make killer headlines or great hooks to attract them to read your post.
Blog posts must be executed consistently either daily, weekly, or monthly.
Be sure to communicate it to them, say, posting every week and avoid failing to keep the momentum and keep them engaged and excited on your next posts.

If you’re using WordPress for your website, it has its blog module that you can use. Some free blogging platforms are medium.com, tumblr.com, or blogger.com. YouTube is the common platform if you choose to provide video content or vlogs.

In any case, almost all social media platforms have a native video like Instagram video/IGTV, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the now trending TikTok.

Social media is a goldmine for digital marketing; it is the primary focus of many customers. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc., are all platforms that can be used to build your brand. While a professional website is very important for your business branding, social media is the primary medium that can be used to engage your customers. Alongside having your website up and running, social media is the second place to grow your brand. For many businesses, it is the primary medium they use in growing their brand. Social media marketing is a broad topic, but primarily it involves creating great visual content for the satisfaction and education of your customers.

We can make the most from social media by understanding each platform and its purpose.

Email marketing on the other hand is a way to communicate with your clients via email. The first step in doing this is to build a database of customers or lead email addresses or email list. You may get your first email list from your existing contacts or email threads then gradually build them from your different channels.

The best practice in building your email list is through a pop-up form from your website, inviting them to subscribe. Another way is through collecting email from your online ads, or offline events if you do one. One technique is asking for their email in exchange for a product freebie or gift cheque.

The email list is considered an asset or a funnel that you own because once you have them, then you don’t need to spend online ads to communicate to them because email is free.

Just take note of an important etiquette in email marketing, do not send them an email if they choose not to subscribe. And do not spam. The commonly used tool for email marketing is MailChimp, ConvertKit, GetResponse, and SendInBlue. They have features to automatically sync emails from your other channels such as website, or online ads.

Stage 5 – Digital Marketing Analytics

Analytics are the tools that you can use to analyze the performance of your digital marketing efforts for better decision making. This is the maintenance, optimization and scaling up part of digital marketing. Those are the facts to pinpoint what to improve on.

Marketing platforms such as Google Analytics, Google Ads or FB Ads have free analytics you can use to measure your marketing performance based on conversions, leads, impressions or engagement.

Now that you know the 5 stages of digital marketing to promote your small business online. It is time for you to take action and work on it ideally per stage sequence as described above.

There are a lot of tutorials online that you can search to learn each stage. You don\’t have to be a technical-guy or a programmer to learn and apply these concepts. All you need is time and dedication and I guarantee your success.

If you wish to have detailed instructions on how to apply the above. Kindly check out my Simplified Digital Course HERE.