It’s not too late to join us today (that’s right, today, Dec. 13) when New Plains Media will be the guest presenter at the Greater Omaha Chamber’s Real Results in Digital Marketing – Foundations event, which will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at UNO’s Community Engagement Center.
We’d love to see you there and can promise that you’ll end your Tuesday with a better understanding of critical digital services strategies based on best practices that will help grow your business in 2017.
Plus, you will be able to receive an individualized consultation with us or one of our partners in the Chamber’s digital services team, including the experts at Webtivity and B2 Interactive – two of the top digital marketing companies in Omaha.
(Speaking of the new year, and especially if you can’t make it to today’s event, be sure to put us on your calendar for our next Lunch & Learn, which is scheduled for January 17, 2017 at Pizza West LaVista, lunch included!)
Link here to register for today’s event. It’s open to both members and nonmembers alike. For nonmembers, it’ll also be a great opportunity to network and learn more about the Chamber’s vital mission in building a stronger Omaha … and the many benefits of joining.
Last week we touched on the highlights of today’s presentation from myself and publisher John Heaston. Let’s take a quick minute to review some of things we WON’T be covering.
While these are important strategies, they will be completely undermined if you don’t have your Foundations set. So regardless of where you’re at in your own digital marketing journey, today’s session will be very valuable (based on early feedback from our partners).
What we won’t be covering today, but will be covering in our January Lunch & Learn, is the top of the digital marketing pyramid.
Content & Optimization
This is our real wheelhouse and the area of digital marketing we’re most excited about growing and developing.
Content is King
Content drives your growth in organic search AND is the key to engaging and converting customers. There are lots of content types – blog or social media posts, pictures and inforgraphics, podcasts and videos, case studies and ebooks, just to name a few.
Content can range from something as simple as a picture of your restaurant’s daily special to an interactive online hearing test. Whatever your resources, a steady stream of content is critical to success online. Knowing how to strategically curate, plan and repurpose that content creates high value and efficiencies.
Optimization
Measure twice, cut once. Optimization is based on measuring your digital marketing activities, testing different solutions and building on results that work. It can be very technical, down to small on-page coding optimizations, to strategic – maximizing content planning. There are two areas of conversion that matter most – search engine and conversion. Search engine optimization helps prospects find you. Conversion optimization turns prospects into customers.
Advertising
Once your foundation is set, your active generating content and you’re measuring to optimize all of your activities, you’re ready to do some push marketing with 3rd party platforms, i.e. advertising, both traditional and digital.
Fundamentally, you want to integrate your advertising around your most successful content. Find what works and then push it out. Traditional advertising should be reflected in your online activity, for instance a broadcast branding campaign should boost “brand” searches for your particular business name.
Digital marketing is more directly tracked, almost always driving prospects and customers to your online presence. There are a number of digital advertising opportunities you want on your radar.
Search Engine Marketing
The lion’s share of activity here is with Google’s Adwords, Google of course being the world’s #1 search engine. Ads here most likely target consumers near the end of the purchase funnel, with a more immediate need for your product or service.
Direct Digital
Working directly with digital properties to buy space and target their users. This includes buying online ads on local media websites or national platforms (like Pandora or Facebook).
Programmatic
Online display ads that can target anyone and appear anywhere on any device. Long story short, a good chunk of online display advertising is sold through exchanges that target consumers by behavior, context, demographics or geography. Your ads can appear everywhere from major media sites like MSN.com or ESPN.com, to within apps, like the New York Times or Amazon.
Ever seen a local ad while you’re in an app on your mobile device or surfing the web? That’s likely programmatic. When ads follow you around the web, that’s definitely programmatic.
Things get pretty advanced at this stage, so don’t go there until your foundation is rock solid!
Hopefully this session today helps set a baseline for all the pieces as you move forward in 2017 and helps you identify any of the critical, but frequently overlooked, core strategies.
We would look forward to seeing you … if not today then at our January Lunch & Learn.
