Free Digital Marketing Checklist for Great Results in 2017
When you are just starting out, you probably do not have stacks of the promotional budget for your startup. But this does not mean that you cannot push your products and services out there efficiently. You plan to rely on free digital marketing checklist methods. Bear in mind, whatever you do, nothing is entirely free of charge. After all, time is money. Spend it wisely and do not waste it. The internet gives you an endless amount of opportunities. You just need to figure out what works best and have a strategic plan.
Kick it off with these 7 + 1 methods for the best return on your invested time.
In the modern age we are living, if a business does not have a website, potential clients might lose trust in its products and services. Not only that, it is also important that the website follows all the modern trends. Make sure it is not outdated or, again, you will fail to keep their confidence. Without giving it a second thought, no single company or firm wants to be client deprived due to the lack of online presence.
Instead, with just a little work and a website builder template or a premium WordPress theme, you can have a professional looking website up and running in little to no time. Make sure your page is fully responsive (read mobile friendly), retina ready, cross browser compatible and search engine and speed optimized. These are only the basics of a contemporary website. There are many other things you should take into consideration in your digital marketing checklist to start generating more leads. Many involve simple A/B tests to find out what converts and what does not. How a marketer would say, “Always be testing,” or short, “ABT.”
Social media activity
Almost as important as having a business website is being present on social media. Of course, it is advisable to pick only a few or maybe even only one to start with. Otherwise, you will spread yourself too thin and will not see the desired results. Master one first, let it be Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, and then move on to the second, third, etc. However, you can secure your name on the notable social platforms first, but it is not necessary.
You only need to have the right approach to it, and social media digital marketing checklist can have a powerful impact on your business. It gives you an opportunity to interact with your audience and show them that real humans are standing behind the brand. Speaking of brand, across all your marketing funnels, make sure you do not distance yourself from your branding. It is important to stay original what will help you become a recognized authority in your field.
Engage with followers, respond to their comments (sometimes a “like” is more than enough) and answer all of their messages. People tend to share screen shots of brands responding to their comments/questions what calls for free promotion.
We could add this one to the Top-notch website section, but it deserves its own slice of the digital marketing checklist.
When executed right, search engine optimization can grow your traffic and boost your conversion rates through the roof. With an SEO optimized website, you are on the right path to start ranking high in search engines. But this is only the beginning of the whole story. Along with that, you should be releasing compelling articles on a regular basis. Let search engines know your site is updated frequently and full of useful information which benefits guests. Moreover, building high-quality links to your site from high DA (domain authority) websites will give your business website or personal blog even more value.
While there are numerous practices to follow regarding SEO, one of the most important ones is to brainstorm how to be of the best use to the end user. Just like your products and services should be of pure excellence, so should be the content you publish to your website. And the later you can also use to reach out to other bloggers in regards to links.
Research your most relevant keywords you would like to rank for and build your whole website around them. Use tools like Yoast SEO which assists you to achieve search engine friendliness across your entire page. It might take a while to see the first results so be patient.
Collect visitors’ emails/email digital marketing checklist
Email marketing does you no good if you don’t have any emails to send newsletters to. First, you need some sort of a lead generation plugin which appears as a popup, exit popup or you have it placed in sidebar or footer. With a killer opt-in, visitors won’t mind subscribing to your news and keep up to date with your company. One great tool for capturing emails is SumoMe. It is a free product which will help you grow your site and with your site growing, your business will also scale up.
After the emails, you need a convenient platform which will manage your data base and your email marketing campaigns. A solid software which will help you out tremendously and automate it all for you is MailChimp. Craft branded email templates and start sending out welcome emails once users complete subscription (confirm their subscription). Start segmenting customers and send out different newsletters according to the level each group of users is at. For better conversion rates, test emails and keep on improving them.
Content digital marketing checklist
To cut a long story short, content marketing is all about storytelling. Yep, I said story twice only to really anchor it into your brain for your later marketing brainstorming events. While it is important to incorporate search engine optimization in each of your compelling articles, it is not 100% necessary anymore. In the age we are living, search engines are getting smarter and smarter. Sure, you do need to define what your site is all about. However, the value guests get from flipping through your content is getting more and more important.
You, being the expert in your field, know precisely how to craft beneficial and helpful articles, infographics and whatever else your clients will be advantageous of. But have in mind, content marketing is a long-term process which is based on developing a solid relationship with your targeted audience. Additionally, they should be fed new stuff relevant to them on a regular basis.
Use content marketing to grow your business by driving new traffic to your page and keep your already customers to come back for more. Using it in combination with the mentioned email marketing is great. Sending out a newsletter with an excerpt of your blog post with a link to it will have a positive effect on your subscribers.
Either you are a startup getting closer and closer to the launch day or an established company, press releases can help you gain traction. Therefore, you will definitely have to add them to your digital marketing checklist. In case you have connections with bloggers and news sites, hit them up and get the publicity going. On the other hand, find who the contributors are, follow them on social media and interact with them first.
Don’t just sell them stuff or you will probably never hear back from them. Instead, become “online” friends with them and when the timing is right, pitch them your startup or the new release. Chances are, they will be interested in featuring you on their platform and share your name with their hungry audience.
Just like it should be in your intention to form a relationship with your users, so you should bond with contributors and site owners. A long and sometimes monotonous process which you can make fun once you establish some connections. But first, ask your friends. Who knows, maybe a friend knows a pal who knows a dude who has connections with this online magazine behemoth. What can I say, it is worth a try.
Contribute to a community/guest blogging
There are two extra clever ways how you can use your expertness to drive more traffic to your site. To be frank, there are a ton more methods, but we will leave that for another article.
Frist, forums and other online communities (Facebook groups can work really well) related to your niche. But do not just join them and start posting about your business. That will annoy members and admins might even ban you especially if posting links right off the bat. Start slow, introduce yourself, answer questions, help others, you be the one asking questions and so on. Only after a while, you can start incorporating your business into your posts wherever it is relevant. May take a while but when you are in a community of thousands and thousands of like-minded members, forums and groups can do extremely good for your business.
Second, guest blogging. Find appropriate blogs, get in touch with the owners and create intriguing content. Depending on the site, there are many which already have the “Write for us” section on their page. Meanwhile, others might not have it stated but are still welcoming guest posts. Prepare articles for their audience and spread the word out. Not only will you drive traffic to your business website, you will also gain new backlinks.
Since already speaking of blogs, those comments you see under articles are just another cool way to promote yourself and your project.
First and foremost, the above is not the only free promotional techniques. You can find more around the web or come up with your unique ways. However, whichever method you choose or a couple, make sure you stick with them. Perform them on a constant basis and over time, you will be rewarded with an increase in traffic and conversions.
While the digital marketing checklist processes can be implemented even with $0 marketing budget, they will cost you your precious time. Implement a simple digital marketing checklist into your day to day work schedule and see the successful consequences strike heavy.