Factors Framing Your Digital Success

Welcome to Digital Evolution! Having seen the birth of the Internet and the dawn of Internet Marketing, I’ve watch the cost of digital marketing steadily decrease and the ability to reach the right customers at the right time become ever more available.With all the new tools and services at their fingertips, it’s never been easier for marketers to reach an audience - so why isn't every small business wildly successful in the digital age? I believe there are 8 factors that are the framework for every successful digital campaign. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Availability
Your information needs to be at their fingertips when and where they are looking. You need to come up in the results for highly detailed searches on whatever device or network they are on at the time. You can’t just have a website or YP.com listing anymore. You need to be where your customers are on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, Yelp and more. Your website needs to be optimized for search and browsable from any type of device.

Empathy
The empathy to understand the customers and help them understand how the product or service you are selling fills their need/solves their problem - or makes them covet what you offer with every fiber of their being - is a critical component in being able to craft messaging that is going to get through all the noise. Empathetic marketers know their customers, know their pain and can speak directly to the solution. 

Know Thyself, Specifically
Don’t paint with a broad brush, know exactly who you are trying to reach and exactly how to reach them. In other words, you aren’t looking to own widgets in search, but you do want to own pink and purple, double-sided, engineering student widgets. Since you used empathy to understand the students that you market to, you will put minimal effort into your Facebook page and place the bulk of your campaign on Instagram and Snapchat. The more detailed you get, the more you reach your target audience. Self Improvement is a Constant    
Good is never good enough. There are always micro-improvements to make the best campaign better. A top performing ad can be tweaked to get a few more clicks per day, a winning campaign can be expanded. Never settle; instead, constantly strive for ways to keep reaching more of your target customers.

Great Service
Start with providing the most amazing customer service on the planet. Seriously. Great customer service is so rare that it gets people talking just as much as the service horror stories. It stands out. Your product stands out. You stand out.There is everything to gain and so much to lose. It amazes me how many companies will run multi-million dollar campaigns only to have an undermotivated, underpaid, downright rude individual answer the phone. 


Everyone Can Market Your Product    
Do everything you can to get everyone raving about you everywhere. Provide endless opportunities for customers to provide feedback and then listen to it, respond to it, reward them for bringing a problem to your attention. You will be amazed about how much people will rave about you. Monitor all the channels where customers are talking about your product/service and don’t be afraid to respond.

Measure Everything
Size does matter. Clearly define what success looks like before you start a campaign. Set goals. Measure, refine, measure and refine some more. Numbers do matter. Some campaigns are going to be more successful than others. Track growth over time to make sure that you are staying where your audience is.

Fail Frequently
Make every failed campaign a learning opportunity. If you aren’t failing sometimes, then you aren’t experimenting enough. My biggest learning opportunities have been failures, which have led to some of my biggest successes.

The best part about the digital revolution is that everything is fast, free or reasonably cheap, and it costs relatively little to experiment with your marketing mix. Now is the time to evolutionize your digital marketing plan. Be flexible, embrace change, experiment and find new ways to really connect with your customers.

Welcome to the Digital Evolution!

Welcome to the Digital Evolution! Once upon a time in Internet land, it took a lot of time and resources to build a website. Upon release, the site was already outdated, as the content was created long before the site was launched. WIth sporadic updates, changing technologies and a rapidly changing digital landscape, the whole process would be repeated on a regular basis, with a new site being built, completely replacing the old site on launch day.

Over time, new tools came out, making digital more accessible, easier to use, and faster than ever before. The time for revolutionary site changes were over. With today’s technology and social media it is time for more evolutionary change. The site is not the end goal, but rather the beginning. The first small step into the digital pool, where small evolutionary changes are pushed out weekly, or even daily, keeping the site an evolving resource, tightly tied into social networks, with multiple customer touchpoints and feedback loops.

While there are more businesses than ever before in the digital landscape; this also means more opportunities to engage your customer and keep them connected to your business.

At Digital Evolution, we thrive on looking at the entire digital landscape and building out a comprehensive strategy customized for your business. First, we really get a strong understanding of your business. We get to know your customers and walk in their shoes, trying to find the product or service you offer. We help bring together the right marketing mix, including your website, social pages, review sites, newsletter marketing and online advertising, all crafted to meet that customer need. We make sure that there are multiple channels and touchpoints and that we are at the center of all the conversation about you. We work with you on addressing any problems and communicate the resolution of issues back to your customer base. We measure, constantly. We consider ourselves a member of your marketing team. Sometimes we are the team.

Who are we? We are women, moms, aunties, customers. We are marketers, strategists, cosmetologists, economists, makeup directors, cheese eaters and serious Disney addicts. We are writers, photographers, and Christmas freaks. We love our furry pals, cats, dogs and even a hamster. We will all pull over to move the Tortoise out of the road. (It’s a Michigan thing!) We are passionate about all things digital. We like our clients, and get really excited about marketing. We also make time for our families and believe in balance. I moved from Silicon Valley to Michigan to start a different type of agency and to be able to have my daughter grow up in a small town. We look forward to the ride. I hope you’ll join us!

Jessica Hardwick