5 Digital Marketing Tactics That Could Drive Immediate Results For Your Brand Online
Even though change happens fast in the digital space, results from digital marketing campaigns are not always quick to materialize. Certain marketing tactics are simply not designed to deliver overnight results. Search engine optimization is a process that takes months of dedicated effort before your brand will begin achieving page 1 visibility for desired terms. Similarly, content marketing requires heavy investment upfront before you start seeing results much later down the line. It’s not that these aren’t valuable marketing channels, but not all businesses can afford to be so patient. For new businesses just starting out, or any business that’s trying to generate a quick influx of sales, waiting months to see the effects of your marketing strategy isn’t always an option.
Fortunately, if short-term gains are what you’re seeking, there are tactics you can employ to generate results quickly. Certain marketing channels are designed for precisely that purpose. Here we explore five ways to use digital marketing to drive immediate results for your business.
Paid search
For driving immediate website traffic, no other tactic is as effective as paid search, also known as pay-per-click (PPC). Compared to other digital marketing initiatives, paid search campaigns are relatively easy to set up. Assuming you already have appropriate landing pages in place, paid search doesn’t require any design work -- just keyword research and ad copywriting.
Once your campaigns are launched you will begin to see traffic immediately, as long as there’s search volume for the keywords you’re targeting. For example, Wayfair furniture bids on the keyword “furniture” and is likely to drive clicks from there when relevant users are looking for items for their home.
Key benefits of paid search:
- You can begin appearing on search results pages for desirable keywords immediately. It can take months, and even years, to achieve organic rankings for competitive keywords. With paid search, you can show up for those competitive terms from the moment your campaigns go live.
- Paid search generates traffic quickly, so while you’re working on building up non-paid traffic via other marketing channels like organic social media and content marketing, you can still attract traffic and sales.
- Paid search allows you to target users who are further down the purchase funnel because your brand is being shown to them based on a need they have expressed via a search time.
Social Advertising
Advertising on social media is another effective way to achieve immediate visibility. As with paid search, social advertising will begin generating traffic as soon as your campaigns go live. The benefit with paid social as opposed to paid search, is that users don’t need to be looking for your product or service in order to be shown ads. For example, your Facebook campaigns could be structured to target people who have interests that align with what your business does, or you can create and target “lookalike” audiences modeled after your existing customers. These targeting options give you the ability to be specific about which audiences you’re paying to reach.
Whether it’s Instagram advertising (pictured above), or boosting a post on Facebook, social advertising is also an effective way to speed up the content discovery process. Paying to promote your content on your social channels ensures that it will get seen by your audience, which will naturally help drive engagement and website visits.
Key benefits of social advertising:
- Targeting can be as broad or as granular as you want, so you have the flexibility of speaking to different types of audiences.
- Different social networks have different demographics and offer a variety of different ad formats, which makes it more likely you can find one that aligns well with your brand needs.
- Ad formats on most networks are highly visual, making them a good match for brands with distinct aesthetics and strong product photography.
- Social media is more mobile than ever, which means your ads can reach users where they spend much of their time -- connected to their mobile devices.
Digital PR
Digital Public Relations helps improve the visibility of your brand online through brand mentions, interviews, product features or mentions, and thought leadership. While it’s true that the benefits of digital PR will accrue over time as your brand gains more mentions and broader traction, even a single placement with a quality publication can drive immediate interest and traffic.
Key benefits of digital PR:
- Press mentions and guest contributions help establish your brand as a trusted expert within your community. Being perceived as trustworthy will make users more comfortable working or shopping with you.
- Digital PR gives your brand exposure to audiences you would not otherwise have access to, thus increasing your brand’s reach and delivering traffic to your web properties.
Email Marketing
Assuming you have already have a list in place, email marketing can certainly be used to drive quick traffic and conversions. Despite having been around since the earliest days of digital marketing, email continues to deliver impressive results.
In terms of immediacy, email marketing is one of the most effective channels at your disposal. If designed and executed correctly, email will start generating traffic and sales as soon as it hits users’ inboxes.
In the example above, Bloomingdales uses exclusivity to drive clicks and sales through an email campaign targeted at users. This encourages customers to engage with the email and actually follow through and complete a sale.
Key benefits of email marketing:
- Compared to other digital marketing tactics, email marketing is relatively low cost, yet still allows you to reach a large audience.
- List segmentation allows your to design and deliver messages that are more personalized to the needs and desires of specific user groups. More personalized content is shown to be more effective at generating engagement and sales.
- Email audiences are naturally more likely to be willing to engage with your content because they’ve already opted in to receive it.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Until now we’ve mostly talked about digital marketing tactics designed to drive traffic to your website. But if you’re doing all you can to send qualified traffic to your site, there’s still one more thing you can do to drive immediate results: conversion rate optimization.
Conversion rate optimization is the process of testing and implementing changes to your website as a means of increasing the rate at which site visitors take a desired action, such as making a purchase. Testing and improving your website’s performance is an essential task -- one that’s included in any smart marketing plan. What’s more, the gains you make in website performance -- even small improvements in conversion rates -- will have major impacts on your business.
Key benefits of conversion rate optimization:
- When approached strategically, conversion rate optimization can unearth learnings that are broadly applicable to your business. For example, testing value propositions on your website can result in takeaways that can improve messaging across all other assets and collateral.
- Conversion rate optimization, when done successfully, increases the rate at which users become customers or leads, thus making the most of the traffic you’re working so hard to deliver.
Key Takeaways:
Certain marketing channels are designed to deliver immediate results, while others are focused on making long-term improvements. If you’re looking for a short-term boost in sales in, look to tactics that turn on traffic when the campaign goes live. Methods like paid search and social advertising will deliver immediate traffic and have the power to introduce new, captive audiences to your brand. Digital PR can also deliver quick wins if you’re able to achieve one or two valuable placements. Email marketing and conversion rate optimization are both tactics that require an existing audience but they’re powerful ways to generate results from the customers and website visitors you already have.