Real-World Digital Marketing Secrets

MarketMuse hosted another stimulating webinar covering digital marketing secrets for the real world. Host Jeff Coyle, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of MarketMuse, welcomed special guest Eric Schwartzman, digital marketing consultant and author of “The Digital Pivot: Secrets of Online Marketing.” The two discuss little known secrets of real-world digital marketing.    

The enlightening conversation between the two experts covers the following in-depth digital marketing secrets:

• Start with the right platform for funneling (and build from there)
• Analytics tools every digital marketer should know about
• How to approach multi-channels in social media networks
• What to expect in the content marketing world today

In short, when you launch your business on day one, don’t expect to begin purchasing Facebook ads on day two. Digital marketing funnels take time to build. The most hard-hitting concept for marketers and strategists to accept is that it can take up to four years to set up your marketing funnels, leading to a fully functioning business. However, you can create a smoother process for yourself with the proper tools.

Show Notes

Digital Marketing Strategies 

Much like how a ballerina prepares for a dance performance, you need to do behind-the-scene work and prepare appropriately for your business marking to succeed. Many business owners outside the tech sphere aren’t aware of the “order of events” because all they can see are the results and not the preparation for getting there.

A successful digital marketing campaign requires building a funnel to generate revenue and leads. But how do you prepare to go about this in the right way? 

Start with the Right Platform for Your Funnel

The best digital marketing strategy entails a few media platforms, with an order in which to address them: 

• Owned media
• Shared media
• Earned media
• Paid media

Owned media

As a new business owner, you may have the misconception of starting your funnel on a social media platform. But you can’t do this for two reasons: you don’t own the platform, and social media platforms are for lead acquisitions.

Therefore, your brand website is where you start your funnel. As Schwartzman said, “So owned media is… your own website at a top-level domain that you own. With a website, you can process transactions without paying out a sales commission.” You also control website page navigation. 

Consider building your website on WordPress for several reasons:

• It’s constantly updated
• You can extend its functionality with a vast array of plug-ins
• It includes forms and podcasts
• You can run an e-commerce business
• It’s open-source
• You can manage the size of your images

A CMS template will not lead to powerful results for your company —  you won’t be able to keep up with the army of engineers that support WordPress. 

Using WordPress as your web design software takes the headache out of design and function. 

Shared and earned media

Social media is your shared media, and it’s the next step to producing your funnel after launching your website. Social media engagement shows proof of concept within your pitches, and this engagement proves you can advance novel ideas.

From here, you move on to your earned media, which is the coverage or backlinks you receive in other more prominent publications. Earned media authorizes your brand. 

Paid media

You can move to paid media after building your brand website and reliable social media accounts with active engagement. Paid media consists of the advertising you purchase. Schwartzman advises the following:

Your best bet is to take on each digital marketing strategy one step at a time. Build up the step you are on before adding a new one. Coyle said, “… getting into something new has … the potential to stretch you out too far, too much.” 

Take Advantage of Analytic Tools 

Before making that leap to paid media, you must first review the quantitative and qualitative analytics. But the statistics and metrics of digital marketing can be intimidating if you don’t know how to read them. 

Fortunately, you aren’t required to know how to read them! You just have to understand basic reports on what and how your website users are looking for products and how you can further improve user engagement if necessary. 

There are many free tools you can use that breakdown analytics on easy to digest platforms:

• Hotjar: Offers you heat mapping, playbacks, surveys, and feedback
• Google analytics: Offers knowledge on how quickly your site loads and other visitor traffic
• Social media: Facebook, for instance, offers you traffic analytics

Utilize Social Media Multi-Channels

Trends in social media marketing have led to multiple channels on each platform. For example, Instagram has fractioned off to Instagram Live and Instagram Stories.

You will find multi-channels on Twitter and Facebook, too, and they make for extensive marketing campaign noise around the platforms. Look at these channels as an opportunity to fill in your funnel. 

However, don’t look at any channel as the end-all for your company funnel. As larger platforms dominate social media, how they work with your business will change. For instance, Facebook ad prices have risen, and leads go from $3 to $6. The more a platform grows, the more aggressive you need to be to keep users focused internally.

When choosing among channels for your funnel, Coyle states, “You have to know your efficiency with any marketing channel. You got to know [that] if I post here, my average visibility is going to be X.”

Your job should be to look at the various multi-channels of social media and use the most beneficial ones to funnel people to your business based on your content.

Have Reasonable Expectations with Content Marketing

There’s an illusion within digital marketing and content industries that content marketing is more straightforward than it seems. This idea is spurred on by frauds, as Schwartzman puts it: “Ever since there’s been … medicine, men were selling snake oil.” The snake oil is the rumor that content marketing happens overnight. So, don’t expect to see immediate results. 

In reality, it takes time. Schwartzman advises the following:

So, do expect up to 12 months to see each level of your funnel build up for a total of four years.

Don’t expect all social media channels to provide your intended results. Decide on the channel you’ll use based on telling the right story to your target audience. Your content should home in on what you’re good at, whether that be video, audio, writing, and/or images. 

But, do expect to find SaaS software to help you with the tasks you’d like to be better with, such as: 

• Substack for email campaigns 
• Quickbooks for accounting
• Fiverr, Upwork, or Guru to find freelance talent 
• WordPress for web design

Featured Guest 

Eric is a digital marketing consultant with 20 years of experience. He’s the digital marketing coach behind a library of top-rated digital marketing training courses, helping over 400,000 enrollees generate demand, leads, and revenue. He’s also the award-winning producer behind two podcasts, The Earned Media Podcast and the B2B Lead Gen Podcast.

You can find out more about Eric Schwartzman on LinkedIn, Twitter, and his website. 

Takeaways

Here are the main takeaways of the webinar on real-world marketing secrets:

• Understand the four types of media strategies and how to use them to develop marketing funnels. Start with your brand website and build your funnel from there.
• You have analytic tools at your fingertips, helping you understand your data so you can move on to paid media marketing.
• Be selective in your approaches to social media multi-channels for digital marketing. Not all channels will give you what you’re looking for.
• Be clear on the “dos and don’ts” on marketing funnel time frames, social media channel results, and content quality resources.

Resources

Engage with the resources mentioned in the webinar on digital marketing secrets of the real world:

• B2B Lead Gen Podcast
• Facebook Ads
• Hotjar
• Google Analytics
• WordPress
• Substack
• Facebook
• Fiverr
• Upwork
• Guru
• Quickbooks
• Instagram