Licensed Digital Marketing Specialist™ Track

Research Activity | Lecture 4 Description

In your welcome email, you were assigned to a specific IIDM™ client for which you are responsible during this training. We would now like you to do research on this country to give you insight and inspiration for the content you will create during the training.

Activity 4:

1. Research and Present Digital Marketing Trends for your assigned client and location.

○ Client analysis

○ Hashtags (Location of the client)

○ Digital Marketing News (Location of the client)

○ Digital Marketing Trends (Location of the client)

1. Put together a short presentation document highlighting what you have found, and upload it to your Google Drive folder, shared in your welcome email.

   
   

Note: No word count is required.

Resources Summary:

●Example of research activity.

Setting Goals and Choosing Channels | Lecture Description 5

Not all marketing channels will be right for your business. You want to avoid wasting your time and money by hopping on the latest trendy channel, which doesn’t actually reach your target audience.

So then, how do you develop a high-impact and cost-effective marketing strategy that utilizes the most successful channels for your business?

It all starts with a strategy.

For any kind of marketing to be effective, you need a solid plan to guide you. Feeling around in the dark isn’t the greatest way to approach anything in business and marketing is definitely no exception.

To help devise your strategy and determine which channels are most appropriate for your business, consider the following five factors.

1. Consider your goals

2. Know where your customers hang out

3. Talk to your consumers throughout their journey

4. Scope out the competition

5. Work your strategy + analyse the results

Goal setting is one of the most critical challenges for any business.

Even perfect goals without the right plan in place will leave your team feeling confused and frustrated.

When it comes to marketing goals, follow this same approach. Start with where you want to go, then plan the steps that will get you there.

By setting SMART goals — that is, goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, you and your team will know exactly what you are working toward — with no questions.

Here’s how to begin.

How to set well-defined goals

It is often said that a goal without a plan is just a wish — but a plan without a goal is equally incomplete.

To move your business forward, you need both: goals that are well-defined and articulated plans to get you there.

Examples of poorly-defined marketing goals

Here are some marketing goal examples that need more work:

• I want more website visitors, leads, and sales.

• We need to generate a larger email list.

• Our goal is to rank No. 1 in Google.

  
  

You can see that these are vague.

It's easy to say that you want to generate more leads, but how many more leads do you need to achieve your goal? 10 more? 100 more? Thousands more? How many contacts do you want on your mailing list? What do you want to rank in Google for?

Examples of well-defined marketing goals

Here are the same goals turned into well-defined marketing goals. What’s more, these marketing goals are based on the overall goals of the business.

• We need 20,000 visitors, 500 leads, and 12 customers within the next 12 months from our inbound marketing efforts to achieve our revenue goal of $600,000 from inbound marketing.

• We would like to generate two customers from our current client list using email marketing. We would also like to add all qualified leads to our mailing list, allowing us to keep these leads warm for future sales.

• We want to rank No. 1 for the keyword term "Reliable snow removal in Denver,” since we estimate that it will generate 300 visitors to our website per month.

When it comes to marketing goals, specifics are your friend. It’s better to start out with numbers in mind, even if you have to adjust them over time.

How to set marketing goals based on business goals

Here are seven steps for setting well-defined marketing goals that are in sync with the goals of the business:

1. Identify how much revenue you need to generate from your inbound marketing efforts

2. Determine how many sales you need to hit those revenue goals

3. Identify your closing rate and how many opportunities you need

4. Identify how many sales quality leads you to need

5. Identify how many marketing qualified leads you to need

6. Identify how many leads you need

7. Identify how much traffic you need to achieve your goals

Next, Set quarterly benchmarks

Remember to implement your other key business goals

These goals are not supposed to be an exhaustive list. For example:

• Sales for a particular product line

• Revenue from existing customers

• Retention rates from current customers

• Number of job applicants (which may be important if your business is growing)

• Downloads of a high lead-to-customer converting offer

As with the example mentioned, make sure you clearly define these goals and make them SMART. Then, work backward to determine the steps to take to get yourself there.

Remember, your goals will not be perfect.

Don't waste hours upon hours tweaking numbers and then never getting started.

Gather accurate data about previous time periods, define the capabilities of your team, and make smart decisions on where you want to go with your marketing.

Then, get started and begin tracking your progress. You can always course-correct along the way.

Build your marketing strategy around these goals, and after one-quarter ends, take a step back with your new data.

Adjusting goals shouldn't be perceived as negative — it's something that's completely necessary to keep moving forward.

Activity 5:

1. Watch video 5: Setting Goals and Choosing Channels

Resources:

• Blog about Social Media Marketing Blueprint

Social Media Channels | Lecture Description 6

Social media can be an incredibly effective tool for businesses of all types and sizes. But the actual social networks that you choose can make a big impact on your chances of being successful.

Each business must choose the social media marketing mix that works best for its specific needs and target customers. However, businesses must start with an understanding of the options available amongst the social media platforms in the market. If it’s time to upgrade your social media marketing strategy, here are different social media channels that you can consider using to market your business.

1. Facebook

With more than 2.7 billion users worldwide, Facebook is pretty much a must when it comes to social media marketing channels. The site is popular with everyone from teens to grandparents.

Businesses can sign up for business pages, create groups, and even host events. The site also offers extra features ranging from targeted advertising to live broadcasting to increase your social media marketing.

2. Instagram

A visually-oriented social media platform, Instagram is mainly used as a mobile app. It lets users post photos, short videos, live streams, and stories that disappear at the end of each day.

The app has more than a billion active users. Its user base is a bit younger than that of Facebook. However, as social media platforms go, the value of influencer marketing is much higher on this channel. With influencers on Instagram, you can target your audience with the right type of content.

3. YouTube

If you create video content for your business, then you probably already use YouTube. You can upload your own videos, share them on other sites, create playlists, and even interact with other users on the video social media platform.

YouTube has more than 2 billion monthly logged-in users. Even more view videos without an account. With a wide and varied user base, businesses posting useful video content like how-to’s or demonstrations can utilize YouTube as part of their social media marketing strategy.

4. LinkedIn

The most popular business-oriented social networking site, LinkedIn is great for entrepreneurs looking to boost their professional networks or reach out to B2B clients.

The site offers general posts, long-form content, and even job listings. With 706+ million users, LinkedIn can be useful for growing your network, hiring, or sharing expertise with other professionals.

LinkedIn is especially helpful for startups looking for brand recognition as part of their marketing efforts. Whether it is to attract investment or talent, a startup can do both with the right content on this social media platform.

5. Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging social media site that allows users to post short messages, photos, links and other types of media. There are more than 330 million active users. Males and those between 35 and 65 are most active.

Since it’s not as visual as many other social sites, Twitter is often best for those who share information, like news outlets or B2B businesses. Twitter is a great social media platform for starting conversations, but you have to be in the right demographic to capitalize on it.

6. TikTok

TikTok is a relatively new social network that specializes in short, viral videos. Some of the videos get shared on other sites as well. The app gets about 1 billion active users a month. As a result, it can be a useful part of a social media marketing strategy for creative brands that want the content to reach their audience.

Activity 6:

1. Watch video 5: Social Media Channels

Social Media Posting Strategies and Automation | Lecture 7 Description

Once you understand what content you need to post and you know the goals, it is time for you to create a social media content calendar. A calendar will allow you to understand a big-picture approach to social media content planning, it will help to visualize your ideas and organize them in a way that makes seeing the strategy easier, which helps you to execute it easier.

When planning content, don’t be afraid or ashamed of repurposing the content you’ve already made and schedule it again.

● As social media algorithms increasingly move away from the reverse-chronological timelines of the past and towards relevance-based curation, social media marketers must continually refine their tactics in creating high-quality content and maximizing opportunities to earn engagement.

● Okay, now let’s talk about the best times to post on social media. And the answer here is that it varies. You can post once a week, or 5 times a day, it really depends on the type of business you are managing. Pretty common for you would be to create and schedule a big amount of content at the beginning of your project because you are trying to get as much visibility as possible. On another hand, if the business you manage is already set, big, and pretty popular you can focus on the quality of your content rather than quantity. Create massive blog posts or very professional infographics.

When we are talking about the exact timing for posting your content on social media, it’s important to understand that almost all major social media today are using algorithms for people to see your content. So most of the time you need to focus very much on the quality of your content and making sure that it will be able to get as much attention as possible. This way you will assure that you will get a lot of engagement and with engagement, you will get followers and clients.

● Another thing that helps digital marketers is the tools that we are using. You can do all posting manually of course, and it actually might work for you well when you have one client. But it’s a lot better to utilize automation tools for that. The idea behind them is simple - you are scheduling your post (graphics, videos, text) for future dates and you don’t have to worry about posting, the tool will do it for you. IIDM has used a great number of tools for our business, and all of them are different. Functionality, meaning what they are allowed to do with a social media website, amount of websites, groups, users, all of that is different in every tool. Here is the list of some of the tools for automation, we are not encouraging you to get any of them listed below, because it’s always about your preference, and you need to try them to understand which one works best for you:

○ HeyOrca

○ Hootsuite

○ Heropost

○ SproutSocial

○ Sendible

○ Buffer

Activity 7:

1. Watch video 7: Social Media Posting Strategies and Automation.

Resources:

• Blog about The Evolution of Social Media Marketing: What's Next for Brands?

AI-Powered Content Creation Tools for Social Media Managers

Here’s the thing. Whether you’re a one-person shop or you have a full marketing team, keeping up with your brand’s content creation needs is always a challenge. From social content to emails to blog posts to sales pages, digital marketing just requires So. Many. Words.

AI-powered content creation tools can't replace great writers — but the truth is, they help writers and marketers save time and use their skills for more strategic aspects of content creation. AI-powered content writing is a way to improve the writing process and make it more efficient, not replace human writers outright.

When artificial intelligence takes care of mundane writing tasks, writers (and non-writer marketers) can use their skills for more valuable aspects of content creation, like content mix and conversion strategies.

Resources:

• YouTube video on The Beginner's Guide to Using AI for Easy Marketing (AI Marketing 101)

Jasper: AI Tool to create Social media posts

Now let’s look at a practical example of an AI tool for social media, more specifically for copywriting.

The AI copywriting tools that are now available are fantastic for writing product descriptions, ad copy, social media posts, and even doing SEO copywriting for blog posts.

There are many AI copywriting tools out there now. Not all of them are great, and they all have their pros and cons.

But first, what is AI Copywriting?

AI Copywriting refers to a myriad of different products that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to augment or generate text.

Most recently, GPT-3 by OpenAI has unleashed a flurry of new copywriting software.

GPT-3, quickly, is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. It uses natural language processing to learn context and generate copy from that understanding.

In layman's terms, this means it writes text using pre-trained algorithms that have been fed text data by crawling the internet (using a publicly available dataset called Common Crawl) and all of Wikipedia.

Resources:

• YouTube video on 13 Free AI Tools That Can Ultimately Solve your Marketing Problems

Jasper

Jasper is really the only AI copywriter that can actually generate long-form blog content.

Their AI-based writing assistant is trained by conversion and copywriting experts, which helped it acquire incredible writing skills and write copies that convert.

They even claim that every line of their website copy was written by their own copywriting tool. For some reason, they do search-engine-optimized content quite well.

Introduction to ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI language model developed by OpenAI that uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to natural language input. It is one of the most advanced chatbots available today, with the ability to converse on a wide range of topics and provide accurate answers to complex questions. ChatGPT has been trained on a massive corpus of text data, allowing it to understand and respond to natural language queries with high accuracy. It is used in a variety of applications, from customer service chatbots to virtual assistants and more.

Automation Tools for Social Media Marketing: Heropost | Lecture 9 Description

Software providers have come up with solutions to make social media posting manageable. You can design and bulk schedule multiple posts at once. You can do this at a time that suits you, and then use your tool of choice to deliver your posts at the best times.

With a social media automation tool, you can operate your social account efficiently. They also give you time to create and push more content. Your audience will come to expect posts at a specific time, and your post scheduler makes it more likely that you can make that happen.

Activity 8:

1. Watch video 8: Automation Tools for Social Media Marketing

2. Create your first post on Heropost

○ Login to Heropost (Google Drive folder)

○ Use images provided by the IIDM™ creatives folder

○ Schedule at least one post on Heropost. (AS DEMONSTRATED IN LECTURE 9)

Resources Summary:

● Link to Heropost

Create Social Media Graphics on CANVA | Lecture 9 Description

Canva is a graphic design platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. The app includes templates for users to use. It is one of the most popular, and easy-to-use platforms out there.

In your welcome email, you received the logins to our Canva Pro version. Here you will have access to all the paid features Canva has to offer, which will enable you to create great graphics.

Activity 9:

1. Watch Video 9: Create Social Media Graphics on Canva

2. Log in to our Canva Pro

3. Get familiar with Canva

4. Follow the guidelines set out in our branding book, shared with you in your welcome email.

NOTE: You will be using Canva Pro for Social Media Marketing for the whole training.

Resources Summary:

● Link to Canva

● Logins to Tools [Google Drive folder]

● Our Logos and Certificates [Google Drive folder]

● IIDM™ Branding Book  [Google Drive folder]

Brand Loyalty | Lecture 10 Description

BRANDING

Branding is a critical aspect of any business for establishing its identity and reputation in the minds of customers. With the advent of digital marketing, branding has become even more crucial. It encompasses the use of various digital platforms to create a unique and consistent image of a brand across multiple channels. The concept of branding in digital marketing is all about creating a compelling story around a brand with visuals, messaging, and customer engagement.

In digital marketing, branding entails crafting a consistent tone of voice and visual elements that can communicate the essence of a brand to the target audience effectively. It involves understanding the customer's needs, wants, and desires to create a brand that resonates with them. By creating a strong brand identity, businesses can differentiate themselves from the competition and stand out in a crowded market.

BRAND LOYALTY

Brand loyalty is a consumer's strong preference for a particular brand over others. This preference is based on their positive experiences of using the products or services of this brand. Brand loyalty is important for businesses because it leads to repeat purchases, positive word-of-mouth advertising, and higher profits.

To build brand loyalty, companies need to create a positive image of their brand, offer high-quality products or services, provide excellent customer service, and engage with their customers through various marketing channels. When consumers feel satisfied with a brand and trust it, they are more likely to stay loyal to it and continue to choose it over its competitors.

Activity 10:

1. Watch video 10: Brand Loyalty.

Resources:

• Blog about Boost Your Brand Authority: The Content Marketing Game Changer

• Blog about Building a Loyal Community: Strategies to Keep Your Customers Coming Back

• Blog about Combating Online Misinformation and Building Brand Credibility

• Blog about Brand Positioning in a Crowded Digital Landscape

How To Create A Blog | Lecture 11 Description

In this lecture, we will review Blogs, why it's so important you create one, how you can create one, and basic rules of blogging.

Blogging enables you to reach the billions of people that use the Internet. Blogging can help you promote yourself or your business. By creating a blog that is of value, you can attract an audience and eventually convert them to customers, partners, friends.

Activity 11:

1. Watch video 11:  How to Create a Blog

2. Write your own blog about anything related to Digital Marketing.

○ Choose your topic.

○ Write your blog on the Google doc provided in your Content folder

Resources Summary:

• IIDM™ Blog website (use this to see examples of blogs written by our team)

• Blog about 30 Content Ideas to Fill Your Blog Calendar (And Captivate Your Audience)

• YouTube video about 4 Effective Blogpost Types To Get You Quicker Results

SEO For Blogs | Lecture 12 Description

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that was commonly used as a blogging platform. But it has developed into much more than that. It is now used by millions to create all sorts of websites from e-commerce websites to business websites and more.

In this video, you’ll learn the basics of WordPress SEO and how to use its built-in features in combination with an SEO plugin.

WordPress SEO is no different than just regular search engine optimization. WordPress is a tool that makes traditional SEO techniques and strategies easier to implement and technically sound.

Activity 12:

1. Watch video 12; How is SEO done

2. Insert the link to your Blog document in the next step.

Resources:

• YouTube video about Blog SEO : The Complete Guide

Why are backlinks important?

Backlinks are especially valuable for SEO because they represent a "vote of confidence" from one site to another.

In essence, backlinks to your website are a signal to search engines that others vouch for your content. If many sites link to the same webpage or website, search engines can infer that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP. So, earning these backlinks can have a positive effect on a site's ranking position or search visibility.

Creative Content For Social Media: Podcasts | Lecture 13 Description

When you spend time creating a valuable piece of content (like a blog, for example), you want to make sure you get as much out of that asset as you can. Creating podcasts out of relatable blogs is a great way to repurpose content and make sure you gain as much value without spending too much time.

In this lecture, we show you how to easily create a podcast/audio from a previously written blog.

Activity 13:

1. Watch video 13: Podcast

2. Go to your personal folder and open "3. Audio/Podcast". (Provided in your Google Drive folder)

3. Create a short script out of your Blog on the Google Doc provided.

4. Record audio of your Blog summary (1:30 - 2:00 minutes long).

5. Create a Youtube Thumbnail with an image of yourself on Canva.

6. Create a free account on Headliner and add the wave animations to your Thumbnail. (As demonstrated in Lecture 13)

7. Go back to Canva and add some background music. (As demonstrated in Lecture 13)

8. Upload your finished Audio/Podcast to your personal folder "3. Audio/Podcast". (As demonstrated in Lecture 13)

Resources Summary:

• Link to Headliner App

• Blog about The Rise of Audio Content Marketing: Engaging Audiences in a Sonic Revolution

• YouTube video about How To Start A Podcast

LinkedIn Advertisement | Lecture 14 Description

Expand your audience and acquire more followers for your LinkedIn or Showcase Page, and grow your influence when they see and engage with the organic content you share on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn offers dozens of benefits for advertisers, from an expansive audience to multiple ad formats to accurate audience data. While smaller than other social media networks, it provides a degree of targeting and accuracy that other platforms can't match.

Activity 14

1. Watch Video 14: LinkedIn Advertisement

2. Visit LinkedIn with your personal LinkedIn account and create your first ad.

Facebook Advertisement | Lecture 15 Description

Paid Facebook ads are important to companies because they allow you to attract a targeted audience. Facebook advertisements are tailored to users based on location, demographic, and profile information. Many of these solutions can only be found on Facebook. After making an ad, you set a budget and bid for each click or thousands of impressions that your ad would get.

Facebook ads can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. With simple measurements and an unparalleled ability to target based on interests and custom audiences, Facebook ads can be the difference-maker.

Activity 15

1. Watch video 15: Facebook Advertisements

2. Open your Business Manager with your personal Facebook account and create your first ad

   
   

Resources Summary

• Link to Facebook Blueprint

A/B Testing | Lecture 16 Description

A/B testing (also known as split testing or bucket testing) is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage or app against each other to determine which one performs better.

A/B testing is essentially an experiment where two or more variants of a page are shown to users at random, and statistical analysis is used to determine which variation performs better for a given conversion goal.

Activity 16

1. Watch video 16:  A/B Testing

Instagram Ads | Lecture 17 Description

Similar to Facebook, Instagram ads appear throughout the app, including in users’ feeds, Stories, Explore, and more. They look similar to normal posts but always contain a “sponsored” label to indicate that they are an ad. They also often have more features than a normal post, such as links, CTA buttons, and product catalogs.

How much do Instagram ads cost?

The cost of Instagram ads is highly dependent on a variety of factors – there is no average or benchmark price. Some cost factors include:

• Your targeting

• Competitiveness of your industry

• Time of year (costs often go up during holiday shopping periods in Q4 such as Black Friday)

• Placement (costs can differ between ads shown on Facebook vs Instagram)

The best way to evaluate your budget is to set up a draft campaign in Ads Manager and look for the Audience Definition and Estimated Daily Results modules, which will tell you if your budget settings will be sufficient to reach your desired audience within your desired duration.

Note that there is no “best practice” for how much to spend. You can get started by spending just a few dollars a day, and scale up from there based on success.

In order to control the costs of your Instagram ads, you can set either daily budgets or lifetime spending limits. We’ll explain this in more detail in our 5-step guide below.

Types of Instagram ads

There are many different types of advertising formats on Instagram, including:

• Image ads

• Stories ads

• Video ads

• Carousel ads

• Collection ads

• Explore ads

• IGTV ads

• Shopping ads

• Reels ads

The wide range means that you can choose the best ad type that matches your specific business goal. Each ad format has its own selection of call-to-action options, which are listed below.

Activity 17

1. Watch video 17: Instagram Ads

Google Ads: Interface and Display campaign | Lecture 18 Description

Google Ads is an affordable form of advertising that allows for targeting qualified, in-market prospects, and if managed correctly, it can deliver strong ROI, helping you grow your business's leads and sales.

A Display Ad, also known as a banner ad, is a type of online paid advertisement that is usually a picture or a photo and a copy. Display Advertisement is a way of drawing viewers to blogs, social media channels, or other interactive media to take concrete action. We show you how to build Google Display Network Advertisement Campaigns and how to grow your Google Display Ads strategy to drive more leads, sales, and conversions for your company.

There are a number of different tactics and targeting methods that you can use. Some of the choices include Remarketing, In-Market Audiences, Custom Intent Audiences, Affinity Audiences, Placement Targeting, Content Targeting, Demographic Targeting, and more.

Activity 18:

1. Watch Video 18: Google Ads: Interface and Display Campaign

Google Ads: Search and Video Ads | Lecture 19 Description

With Google Ads, you can reach potential customers who are looking for businesses or products on Google Search or YouTube.

Get in front of customers when searching for companies like yours on Google Search. Google Advertising helps you to concentrate on customers who are looking for what your company has to offer. This ensures that you can constantly optimize your searches so that only people who want to purchase your goods or services are sent to your websites via this platform.

Activity 19

1. Watch Video 19; Google Ads: Search and Video Ads

2. Log in to your account with Google Advertising.

3. On the left-hand page, click Campaigns.

4. Please press the plus button.

5. Choose "New campaign."

6. Choose your campaign target, or set up a campaign with no targets.

7. Choose the sort of campaign.

8. Click the Continue button.

9. Decide on the settings of your campaign.

10. Click the Save button and continue.

What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? | Lecture 20 Description

Plain and simple, search engine optimization is the process of making improvements on and off your website in order to gain more exposure in search engine results. And more exposure in search engine results will ultimately lead to more visitors finding you for the right reasons.

In order to understand what improvements will affect search engine results, let's take a step back and understand the goal of the search engines themselves.

Activity 20:

1. Watch video 20: What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

What Is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? | Lecture 21 Description

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). While the industry term once referred to both organic search activities such as search engine optimization (SEO) and paid advertising, it now refers almost exclusively to paid search advertising.

To fully answer the question, “What is SEM?” It helps to know how SEM is different from other terms related to search marketing.

Activity 21:

1. Watch Video 21: What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

How SEO Affects Your Business | Lecture 22 Description

If you're a businessman, there are some very real and specific benefits to having a consistent, ongoing search engine optimization strategy.

For the first time in the history of marketing, users are offering up their actual intent through the words that they type and speak into search engines. And more than ever before, you can measure the results of your SEO efforts as a marketing channel.

Activity 22:

1. Watch Video 22: How SEO Affects Your Business

Setting SEO Expectations | Lecture 23 Description

Search engine optimization is a process that requires a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of patience. Throughout this course, we'll dive into more about how to do SEO, but before that, it's important to set some expectations.

Activity 23:

1. Watch Video 23: Setting SEO Expectations

Reading Search Engine Result Pages | Lecture 24 Description

Before we dive into working on getting your website to show up in the search results, it's important to understand what those search results actually look like.

Although there are a lot of search engines around the world, and they all have some distinct differences, there are some common characteristics that their search engine results pages, or SERPs, may have. One thing that we're probably going to find is some paid listings.

Activity 24:

1. Watch Video 24: Reading Search Engine Result Pages

What Is A Digital Marketing Strategy? | Lecture 25 Description

Having a well-defined Digital Marketing Strategy provides you with some immediate perks. It provides you with a certain degree of protection. Proper planning ensures that brands are spending resources wisely. When you develop a digital marketing strategy, you’re able to test and confirm specific marketing data points.

Establishing a clear digital marketing strategy lets you test your marketing assumptions, which becomes especially useful when you’re targeting certain audiences. At the same time, you’re building a foundation for continued marketing growth with your digital marketing strategy.

Activity 25

1. Watch Video 25: What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

2. Choose a topic for your Digital Marketing Strategy

3. Write your Digital Marketing Strategy

   
   

Resources Summary

• Example of Digital Marketing Strategies - Marketing for Real Estate Professionals

• Example of Digital Marketing Strategies - Digital Marketing For Health Professionals

• Example of Digital Marketing Strategies - Digital Marketing Plan for Entrepreneurs

• Blog about Digital Marketing Strategies to Dominate in 2024

• Blog about It’s Time to Ditch Outdated Digital Marketing Strategies in 2024

Refine Your Strategy | Lecture 26 Description

Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

Having a clear and focused strategy is critically important to the success of your business, and without a well-defined strategy, yours may stall or even fail. If you can take the emotion out of your decision-making process, you'll have a business and a team that is more focused, more productive, and more profitable. Strategic planning can benefit your organization’s vision, execution, and progress toward goals. If strategic planning is a skill you’d like to improve, online courses can provide the knowledge and techniques needed to lead your team and organization.

Activity 26:

1. Watch video 26: Refine Your Strategy

Resources:

• Blog about It’s Time to Ditch Outdated Digital Marketing Strategies in 2024

• Blog about Digital Marketing Strategies to Dominate in 2024

Present Your Strategy | Lecture 27 Description

Many of you taking this course may be working within an organization or an agency and you will most likely have to present all of your research and findings. You'll have to do one of the toughest parts of the job. That is presenting and articulating your strategy to a stakeholder, owner, or team.

A recent study showed that SEO professionals spend about 14% of their time communicating practice and strategy. This is a fundamental skill, but it is also one that can be learned, developed, and improved. I found that confidence is the main component of a good presentation. And when you are confident in your data, it gives you confidence in your presentation.

After all, you've done all the research. You found the connections. You've seen the patterns and applied the work to find the insights. You should have more knowledge about search or interest in demand than anyone else in the organization. And now, it's simply time to tell the story of these searchers.

Activity 27:

1. Watch video 27: Present your strategy

Affiliate Marketing | Lecture 28 Description

What if you could make money at any time, from anywhere — even while you sleep?

This is the concept behind affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make. The sales are tracked via affiliate links from one website to another.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to drive sales and generate significant online revenue. Extremely beneficial to both brands and affiliate marketers, the new push toward less traditional marketing tactics has certainly paid off. In fact, affiliate marketing spending in the United States increased from $5.4 billion in 2017 to $8.2 billion in 2022 — which means there’s plenty of room for those looking to get a piece of the pie.

We will walk you through how to launch your affiliating marketing business and what benefits you can expect.

Activity 28:

1. Watch Video 28: Affiliate Marketing

Resources:

• Blog about Affiliate Marketing 101: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started

• YouTube video about Affiliate Marketing With AI: 7 FREE Artificial Intelligence Tools To Boost Your Affiliate Promotions

Google Analytics | Lecture 29 Description

Google Analytics is a free analytics program and is used to track website activity such as session duration, pages per session, bounce rate, etc. of individuals using the site, along with the information on the source of the traffic.

It uses JavaScript code to collect information from websites. In this way, Analytics records a visit each time a user views a page with the Google Analytics code.

Activity 29

1. Watch video 29: Google Analytics

Google My Business | Lecture 30 Description

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use platform for companies and organizations to control their online presence through Google, including Search and Maps. You can review your company and edit your business details to help customers find your business and tell them your story.

Is it worth all the effort? If you are a local, regional, national, or international business, the simple answer is YES. Local search is an important part of a robust digital marketing strategy, and Google My Business is a massive and ever-growing factor.

Activity 30:

1. Watch video 30: Google My Business

2. Create a Google My Business account (AS DEMONSTRATED IN LECTURE 30)

Understanding Eligibility To Claim A Google My Business Profile | Lecture 31 Description

Claiming a Google My Business profile is one of the best ways for you to potentially rank high on Google. A free GMB profile gives searchers valuable information about your business, things like your address, phone number, hours, and much more. By claiming your Google My Business listing, you increase your chances of getting into this desired spot known as the Google Local 3-Pack, which appears on the first page of local search results.

Activity 31:

1. Watch video 31; Understanding Eligibility To Claim A Google My Business Profile

Claiming Your Google My Business Profile | Lecture 32 Description

A Google My Business profile helps your business show up when it matters most, the moment customers are searching on Google Search and Google Maps for your business products or services that you offer. To claim your business, be sure to check your eligibility by reading Google's guidelines. Google updates these guidelines frequently, so make sure you check them often to ensure your listing is compliant.

Activity 32:

1. Watch Video 32: Claiming your Google My Business Profile

Setting Up A Business Listing On Top Citation Sites | Lecture 33 Description

Clients ask all the time, why do I need to be listed on these directories? People search on Google, and they're right. But Google trusts these directory sites and shows them high-end search results. Just do a search yourself for a local business and look at the results. The top search results are almost always online directories. Here's a list of some of the top, most highly authoritative online directory sites you should start getting your business listed on, like Google My Business, Apple Maps, and Facebook.

Activity 33:

1. Watch video 33; Setting Up A Business Listing On Top Citation Sites

Overview Of Long-Term Content Strategies | Lecture 34 Description

With many businesses turning to online as a medium to market their products and services, it's more important than ever that business owners understand why having a content strategy will help propel them forward and achieve success with their search objectives. A content strategy is the planning, creation, and management of usable content. Let's take a look at each of these components individually.

Activity 34:

1. Watch video 34; Overview Of Long-Term Content Strategies

Plan A Successful Content Strategy And Avoid Common Mistakes | Lecture 35

Every organization is different. We all operate in different environments, and we all have different goals. So, everyone's ideal content strategy will be unique. But, in order for us to understand what content strategies work and which don't, we can look at some of the core components of content strategies that successful organizations share.

Activity 35:

1. Watch video 35: Plan A Successful Content Strategy And Avoid Common Mistakes

Getting Ideas For Content | Lecture 36 Description

Getting ideas for writing content can be tough and many people struggle at this stage of the game. While only you can figure out what content will accomplish your search engine optimization goals, there are a few things you can do to get the creative juices flowing.

Activity 36:

1. Watch video 36: Getting ideas for content

Resources

• YouTube video about 5 Underused Ways To Get Better Content Ideas

Working With An Editorial Calendar | Lecture 37 Description

An editorial calendar is perhaps one of the most important parts of your content strategy and without proper planning, you'll find it difficult to establish consistency or structure in the content that you're posting to your site. An editorial calendar simply maps out your content development process, assigning writers and dates to the topics of pages, posts, or any other content that will be going up on your site. Here's an example of an editorial calendar. And while you can certainly use this format to get started, keep in mind that there's no single editorial calendar that will fit every business, so you'll want to update this to a format and structure that you are comfortable working with and that fits the unique needs of your content strategy.

Activity 37:

1. Watch Video 37; Working With An Editorial Calendar

Promote Your Content With Social Media | Lecture 38 Description

Social media can be a great way to let the world know your content is out there, and can even be a source of referral traffic in its own right, helping potential customers find you. But social media is an always evolving landscape and some businesses jump into a new platform much too quickly, without really knowing how to use it effectively. Others are too slow to adopt. And when they do, they face going up against more established social competitors. It's good to be an early adopter, but it's critical to have a strategy in place before you get involved in any social platform.

Activity 38:

1. Watch video 38: Promote Your Content With Social Media

Understanding How Search Engines Index Content | Lecture 39 Description

It's important to understand how search engines discover new content on the web and how they interpret the locations of these pages. One way that search engines identify new content is by following links. Much like you and I will click through links to go from one page to the next page.

Activity 39:

1. Watch Video 39: Understanding How Search Engines Index Content

Competitor Analysis | Lecture 40 Description

Simply being aware of your competition isn’t enough to get ahead of them. You need to analyze what they’re doing, and how they’re doing it, and then figure out how you can make your brand stand out next to them.

When you and your competitors are lined up in front of customers, you want them to pick your brand, but how can you get that result if you’ve nothing to benchmark against?

We will go through how you can perform a competitor analysis to ensure you’re ahead of the game. Consumers have so many choices now, so let’s make sure you’re the obvious one.

Activity 40:

1. Watch video 40: Competitor Analysis

Concentrated Efforts | Lecture 41 Description

Brand goals are essential components in any company's strategy to increase its market share and grow revenue. It is essential to create a brand strategy that aligns with business goals and objectives. Here are some strategies to consider to boost your business growth:

1. Identify Your Target Audience: Knowing your potential customers and understanding their needs and behaviors is crucial in building an effective brand strategy. Develop a buyer persona for your target audience, including their age, gender, interests, and pain points.

2. Focus on Branding: Your branding should project the values that your business represents; it should distinguish you from your competitors. Create a memorable logo, standardize your online and offline communication, and develop a consistent brand message.

3. Leverage Social Media: Establish a significant presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Share relevant content and engage with your followers.

4. Improve Your Customer Experience: The customer experience is the new battleground for market dominance, and your brand must deliver it to remain competitive. Identify ways to improve your customer support and service to keep your customers happy.

5. Increase Visibility with SEO: Employ search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to improve your website's ranking on Google and other search engines. Ensure your site meets Google's algorithms by including keywords in your site's metadata, writing high-quality content, and optimizing for mobile devices.

The advantages of implementing these strategies include increased brand recognition, improved customer engagement, greater customer satisfaction, higher online visibility, and increased revenue.

Activity 41:

1. Watch video 41: Concentrated Efforts

Creating A Holistic Page Experience For Visitors | Lecture 42 Description

Google can tell if a website has poor user experience elements on it and that can negatively impact your rankings. Your website should create an easy-to-use and positive experience for anyone who visits the site. Smaller websites with fewer pages often use horizontal navigation at the top of the site while large corporate websites often use both horizontal and vertical navigation.

Activity 42:

1. Watch video 42: Creating A Holistic Page Experience For Visitors

Email: Educate and Engage The Needs of The Audience | Lecture 43 Description

It's important to educate and engage the needs of the audience. By understanding the needs of the audience, businesses can create content that is not only informative but also interesting. This way, businesses can build a rapport with the audience, which can lead to conversions and sales.

Activity 43:

1. Watch video 43: Email: Educate and Engage The Needs of The Audience

Resources:

• Blog about Building a Killer Email Marketing Campaign (Even if You're a Beginner)

• Blog about The Email Marketing Makeover: How to Craft Emails Your Audience Actually Wants to Open

• YouTube video about How To Use AI for Email Marketing and Automation

Social: Engage By Knowing The Need, The Time, And The Language | Lecture 44 Description

I'm amazed at the number of businesses that will post to social media just to get five posts a week. Seems like the number of posts is more important than the substance of what's being posted. Somewhere along the line, someone thinks that frequency is more important than quality. This kind of tactic results in people stressing out at the last minute, trying to find an idea for a post, and the result is simply information posted without a larger purpose, strategic importance, or a customer-centric need. Your keyword research should influence your social conversations. When you create a content calendar based on popular keywords, keyword ideas, and trends, you then have great ideas as to what people want to know and see about your business.

Activity 44:

1. Watch video 44: Social: Engage By Knowing The Need, The Time, And The Language

Market Research | Lecture 45 Description

Market research tells you about your market and the business landscape. It can provide information on how your firm is viewed by the customer base you wish to reach. It may assist you in comprehending how to engage with them, highlight how you compare to the competition, and guide your future moves.

Market research may also be effective in innovating, bringing them to market, and promoting them to customers.

Activity 45:

1. Watch Lecture 45: What is Market Research

Types Of Market Research | Lecture 46 Description

Market research can be conducted using a variety of techniques, including surveys, focus groups, interviews, and data analysis. The data collected can then be used to inform a range of business decisions, from product development and pricing strategies to marketing and advertising campaigns.

Some common uses of market research include:

1. Identifying market opportunities: By analyzing the data collected, businesses can identify new markets, emerging trends, or unmet customer needs.

2. Understanding customer behavior and preferences: Market research can help businesses gain insights into what customers want, why they buy, and how they make purchasing decisions.

3. Measuring customer satisfaction: Surveys and other research methods can be used to measure customer satisfaction and identify areas for improvement.

4. Developing and testing products: Market research can help businesses to develop new products that meet customer needs and preferences, and test them to ensure they are effective.

5. Assessing competitor activity: By monitoring competitor activity in the market, businesses can identify new threats and opportunities and develop strategies to remain competitive.

   
   

Market research is a valuable tool for businesses looking to better understand their customers and the market. By analyzing data and gaining insights, businesses can make more informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition.

Activity 46:

1. Watch video 46: Types of Market Research

Resources:

• YouTube video about 3 Examples of Market Research

Reposting Strategy | Lecture 47 Description

Do you remember how important Content is?

It is essential for your Social Media and Online presence to be consistent. Let's introduce you to the REPOSTING STRATEGY.

You will be using your previously created content and rescheduling it on Heropost.

Activity 47:

1. Watch Video 47: Reposting Strategy

2. Go to your folder and find the Reposting Strategy sheet.

3. Verify the dates you are assigned and follow what kind of content you need to schedule.

4. Choose 20 of your own created images and videos, and use blogs, Youtube videos, and Headliners of IIDM™

5. Schedule the correct content according to the reposting strategy.

Getting Local Backlinks | Lecture 48 Description

As you try and get your site to rank higher, one strategy you should implement is link building. Backlinks are links on another site that links back to your site. The search engines follow those links. And if they're quality sites, search engines see these backlinks as a vote of confidence that your site has worthwhile information on it.

When it comes to backlinks, quality over quantity is what matters. Google says it's better to have a few high-quality backlinks to your site than hundreds of spam, irrelevant backlinks.

Activity 48:

1. Watch video 48: Getting Local Backlinks

A Word of Warning About SEO | Lecture 49 Description

Early in 2011, Google made a major update to its algorithm, and millions of websites changed position. The aftereffects have lasted for years, even today, and it has changed the way that many marketers optimize their websites. To this point, many websites would simply optimize by utilizing a repetitive keyword approach. That is, just repeating a primary key phrase numerous times on a single page in an attempt to increase relevance.

Activity 49:

1. Watch video 49: A Word of Warning About SEO