Channels for digital marketing

1. Social Media
2. Email Marketing
3. Display Advertising
4. Video marketing
5. Content creation and curation
6. Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
7. Affiliate Marketing

Tools selection

1. Look for proven track records
2. Take advantage of free trials
3. Find tools that are scalable
4. Benefit from tools that can provide multiple solutions

Social Media marketing

Organic social media marketing is essentially when you post updates to Facebook, Twitter, or some social platform without paying to promote those posts, and without paying for display advertisements. Generally speaking, they are used to increase awareness or build rapport. Some of the top platforms for performing organic social media marketing are generally the ones that you would think of first. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat are all great platforms to do some organic social media marketing, but depending on your organization and your marketing budget some of these platforms are going to be more beneficial than others.

First of all, authenticity is really important. Organic social media marketing is generally not the best place to advertise a specific product or service unless you're providing a lot of context and have already established significant rapport. Generally speaking, it's best used to build a relationship with customers and potential customers. This is your opportunity to show the authenticity of your business. If you've watched some of my other courses, you probably know that I talk a lot about content marketing, which is exactly what you should be doing with your organic social posts, especially when first starting out.

Providing tips or solutions to problems for users is always a great way to perform content marketing and build a relationship with customers. Social media users are much more savvy than they used to be and will quickly scan past posts that appear spammy or to have too much of a sales pitch. It's very important to keep this in mind with organic social media marketing. It's also important to take into consideration the time investment that you're putting into your organic posts, and to make sure that you're getting more value out of them than you're putting in. This is a common problem with smaller organizations. They pour lots of time and money into social media, and are then baffled when they don't see the return on investment. This can be especially evident when marketing with platforms like Snapchat or Instagram Stories. Posts to Snapchat only last for 24 hours, so you really need to make sure it's worth your efforts before posting. These type of posts are more effective for large organizations that have already established a substantial following and can guarantee a certain amount of views before a post is deleted. Smaller and medium sized organizations are better off posting to their Instagram feed or to their Facebook page, where posts will remain visible until deleted.

When starting out, it may be a good idea to pick one or two primary social media platforms to use, and then start slow by only posting once or twice a week. Depending on the results that you get, you can then adjust your posting frequency accordingly. In order to help with this, it's a good idea to establish some goals for your organic social media posts. What is it that you're looking to get out of social media? Are you trying to drive traffic to a website? Are you looking for direct sales? Or are you simply trying to build a following for future sales and promotions? By establishing goals, you can better assess the effectiveness of your efforts and tailor them more specifically in the future. If you can calculate your ROI in relation to social media posts, then you are really on the right track to developing a successful social media presence. Doing this, however, is easier said than done, and is dependent on the type of product or service that you're selling.

One way to streamline your organic social media efforts is to use third party tools for posting to social media. As you'll see later on in this course, tools such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social can help you prepare posts for the future, and post similar content across multiple platforms, potentially saving you time and money. It's important to be present on social media, and to have those organic posts flowing. However, remember that the amount of time that you're putting in is very important in relation to what you're getting out, so it's always important to keep that in mind when you're posting organically to social media.

Social Media Aggregators

Hootsuite

Best aggregator in the market

AgoraPulse

ROI analytics

Buffer

Free plans

Sprout Social

CRM inbuilt

Digital Advertising

Google Ads Manager

1. High outreach
2. Responsive advertisements

Facebook Ads Manager

Bing Ads Maanger

Yahoo Ads Manager

Media.net

Aggregates Bing and Yahoo networks

Propellor Ads

Niche Marketing using Pop-Up Ads.

Nanigans

Niche but growing. Better deals.

Search engine marketing

1. Google Ads(Largest player in the market)
2. Baidu Ads
3. Spyfu(competitor marketing campaign analysis)
4. SEMrush(competitor marketing campaign analysis)

We make use of SEO with this. Some popular apps are :

1. Yoast SEO(plugin for Wordpress)
2. Ubersuggest(Google keywords competitive data)
3. Google Keyword planner, through Google Ads
4. Semrush and Spyfu for competition analysis
5. ahrefs. Largest dataset of backlinks
6. Mozpro. For all in one.

Video Advertising

1. Google Platforms. Youtube, Ads
2. Oath(owned by Verizon). Cross platform video advertising
3. OpenX. High quality websites, with high quality videos
4. AppNexus(AT&T). TV is possible through this.
5. Facebook Business. Easy to use.

Mobile advertising platofrms

1. Admobs
2. Media.net
3. Apple Search Ads
4. Unity Ads
5. InMobi
6. TextMagic

Content creation

1. Adobe Spark and other Adobe Creative Suite
2. Final Cut Pro
3. GIMP
4. Canva
5. Pixlr Editor

Content Curation

1. Scoop.It
2. Feedly
3. Pocket
4. Pinterest
5. Scribble
6. Pearltrees

EMail Marketing

1. Size of email list
2. Lead generation/integration
3. Automation
4. Ease of Use
5. Analytics
6. A/B testing

Tools :

1. Hubspot. Has all of it
2. Constant Contact
3. AWeber
4. ActiveCampaign. Integrates with Wordpress
5. MailChimp. For large base with limited budget.

Affiliate Marketing

1. Payment structure. Cost per click, cost per action(latter is better)
2. Robust tracking features
3. Commisions customization
4. High-quality affiliates.
5. Reputation

Top affiliate marketing networks :

1. CJ Affiliate(Over a decade, largest list of affiliates, might not be best, but good)
2. Rakuten marketing(higher quality, security)
3. ClickBank(like CJ for digital products)

Tools Summary(For starting with)

1. Social Media : HootSuite
2. Advertising : Google Ad Manager
3. Email Marketing : HubSpot
4. SEO : Ubersuggest, Moz Pro Yoast SEO(Wordpress)
5. Design : GIMP, Canva
6. Curation : Scoop.It
7. Affiliate : CJ Affiliate

Main points :

1. Focus on ROI
2. Select tried and true tools
3. A/B testing