If you're anything like me, you've probably searched the internet far and wide for a simple breakdown of what you should do to have the best digital marketing presence in the game. Still, all the advice out there is stuck behind annoying paywalls or is otherwise way too abstract that you can't actually use any of it.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a free, step-by-step guide that made digital marketing both actionable and understandable? Well, look no further! This document that I made FREE for you is all you need to understand all of the basics of digital marketing that you can refer back to over and over again.
Let's jump right in!
PHASE 1: BRAND PRESENCE
Congratulations! By now, you have your product or idea, and you're ready to bring it to the market! However, before we can start spreading your business everywhere, we need to make sure a few online entities are in place.
These online entities are:
Website + automation
Google my business page
Yelp
Facebook business page
Facebook ad manager
Google analytics
Google ads account
You can think of the internet like real estate, and these are the items you need to build your house. With it, you can now monitor and grow your business anytime you want.
Some additional t online entities are:
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest
Quora
Reddit
They're not as important as the other entities you need, but it will help nonetheless. Now that you have all your accounts set up, you need to link them. For example, your Facebook page connects to your Facebook business page, and your website connects to Google analytics.
PHASE 2: BRAND AWARENESS
By now, you should have your online presence ready to rock! Meaning any of your ads that clients interact with won't only do a stable job of captivating your audience but should also allow your customers to take a tour of your online presence.
For example, your Facebook ad should take your customer to your website, and your website should bring your customers to your business reviews.
Now we need to focus on brand awareness, and there are a LOT of ways to accomplish this goal so let's take a look!
MAJOR KEYS TO CONSIDER:
KEY 1: On average, a client must see your business at least SEVEN times to recognize it.
KEY 2: Choose brand awareness or reach as your campaign goal when instructed to pick a goal
KEY 3: Focus on 1 or 2 platforms to start with and then work your way up
NOW LET'S GET BRANDING!!
Every marketer has their approach, but in this guide, I will give you the sure-fire process that has worked for me and my countless past and future clients!
Let's start with Google. First, I would bid 1.65 (the minimum amount allowed) daily on one keyword. For example, let's say your company's name is "American Horse Autobody." The name itself can be many different searches. Someone can search "American" "Horse" "autobody" and get a world of other results. On Google, it's no different unless they search for the exact phrase in a specific way. Therefore I would urge that company to bid on the name "American Horse Autobody" so they can come up first or at least on page 1 a couple of searches in the period, and at the same time, we are growing SEO.
There's a lot more you can do with Google, but this is the bare minimum. You can also bid on other keywords and target by location if you are a brick and mortar business (I would also create a specific ad to come up on google maps).
Next, let's get on Facebook. I will simplify this process for you as Facebook can get pretty confusing.
First, your page and Facebook ad account should be connected already, so head over to your Facebook ad account, and once you are in your Facebook ad account - head over to ad management, and let's create your first campaign!!
(P.S your Facebook page should be completely set up already with buttons and auto chat questions in place).
HERE IS SOME GOLD FOR YOU!!
A Facebook ad campaign that allows you to get calls is named "Reach." Make sure you choose the right campaign for the right objective.
Here's a quick overview:
Brand Awareness - Get as many people who may be interested to see your ad
Reach - Choose by location + Show to as many people as possible and stay within the allotted budget
App Installs - Pretty self-explanatory - Link directly to the app store
Traffic - Get people to click on your website
Lead Generation - Have people fill out a form, and you call them back
Messages - Urge clients to message you on Facebook
Engagement - Get people to like, comment, or share your posts more
Video View - Get people more likely to complete the video in its entirety
Here is what I would do when creating the ad campaign and some tips to keep in mind:
Most people don't have millions of dollars to throw at marketing to see what sticks, and there's no exception here.
When creating a Facebook ad, it's easy to burn through the budget, and that's what a lot of people do. To avoid this, the first thing you want to do is target your audience.
Ensure you target by age, location, language, or any other factor that will increase the likelihood of a sale. This way, you use your budget specifically on this target audience and likely increase your ROI.
Next, we would want to focus on the copy. For each industry, there are specific rules for your text. I urge you to look them up or search competitor ads and marketing material to get an idea.
For example, in the health sector, you want the ad's description to be informative, so it doesn't matter how long it will be. On the other hand, if you advertise a fashion company, the text in the description won't matter as much, but instead, the media you decide to run with, which leads me to my next point, Media!
Many people overthink this step, but it's actually a lot simpler than you think; after all, these first few campaigns are just testing the waters, and later we will focus on the message and make all the videos and content you desire!
I usually advise my clients to make something eye-catching and straight to the point. Try not to fade into the noise by being weird and creative! You can also create an ad with simple text that's straight to the point.
OKAY Whew! That was a lot; let's refresh on what you should have by now for Facebook ads:
Campaign Objective
Target Audience
Text for headline and description
Content (Media)
Lead form (if you are running a lead-generating ad)
Now that we have all of these in place, let's take a step back and have some basic settings in place as well:
Enable A/B split test when prompted to test which ad messing makes more sense
Choose your budget
Set how long you want to use your budget
Select your placement ( I usually choose "feed" and "story" placement)
Okay, let's wrap all that we have now and launch the Facebook ad campaign! I hope this simple breakdown of one of the most complicated ad platforms makes sense for you. There are a lot of things you can do here. For example, if you already have a customer list, you can focus on them and show ads only to them. You can also show ads to people who follow your account or friends of friends who follow your account!
PHASE 3) ZEROING IN & RETARGETING
Finally, we've come to the stage where you can focus on your clients and perfect your message.
With the A/b split test for your ads, you should see which ad messaging is working better than the other. After a month or so of testing, we can declare a winner.
Zero in on this messaging and put your ad budget towards it. Also, I'm not saying ONLY release this ad. I'm saying this is a successful ad and one you should use. However, keep running other ads testing other angles!
Now let's talk about retargeting; although I'm not going to cover these in-depth, they are 100% worth mentioning.
Add a Facebook pixel
Retarget your followers or friends of followers
Target audience by who views specific webpages
Target audience by who engages with your posts
Instead, I will cover the easiest way to get the ball rolling on retargeting ads by targeting all of your website viewers on both google ads and Facebook ads.
For Google, go to your audience manager and select "website visitors." Once you have that list, you can set up another google ad campaign and select that audience to keep appearing in front of your past website users.
For Facebook, Go to the ads manager, then create a new campaign. Select an objective like "reach" and create a custom audience. Go through the walkthrough and select "Website Traffic." Once you have this custom audience list, you can run an ad and target this audience.
SO WHAT DOES THIS ALL LOOK LIKE?
To make sense of all of this, let's take a real-life example and go through the steps.
Congrats! You've started your real estate career, and now you're ready to start getting clients!
First, let's get you a google business page so everyone can google you and see your business, business hours, & reviews. Next, we build you a website and set up google analytics to that website so we can track users!
Next, we will go to google and bid the lowest $1.65 on a keyword you choose like "Realtor near me," or if you have a very common name, it may be wise to bid on your name.
Then we will go to Facebook and create two ads that are A/b split test
1 Ad with one message
1 Ad with a different message
I would recommend using $150 (or more) for these test ads and let it run for 7-14 days before choosing a winner. Once you have the winning message, focus your marketing towards that.
I would also recommend running a retargeting campaign alongside the A/b split ads (& basically, I would never turn off this ad campaign although I would adjust it every month).
And there you have it! The most simplified and practical marketing plan for any business!