What is Digital Marketing?

Nowadays, the Internet is so embedded in our lives that it is almost impossible to do anything without it. It is no coincidence that it is increasingly difficult to see people disconnected from their cell phones, having the Internet at their fingertips.

And if our lives are no longer the same with the Internet, the same can be said of the purchasing process . Nowadays, it is very common to search for products or services that we want on the Internet, either to find the best prices (when we already know what we want), to look for information about a certain product or service (when we are still considering the possibility of buying) or even to find out more about a problem that we have (when we still don’t know which solution can help us).

We call all of this Digital Marketing: a set of information and actions that can be done in various digital media with the aim of promoting companies and products .

Emerging in the 1990s, Digital Marketing changed the way companies use technology to promote their businesses. The term has become more popular as people have moved to using more digital devices in the purchasing process, whether to search for products or to make purchases.

To get an idea of ​​how Digital Marketing has changed the purchasing process, it is enough to mention that, in the past, almost all the information we could obtain about products and services was in the hands of companies that offered those solutions.

That is, to find out about a product or service, you had to go to the salesperson, who would probably “sell you the fish” for the company side instead of offering free information about the solutions.

How to do Digital Marketing

As we said, Digital Marketing, being a very extensive/macro subject, has an enormous diversity of disciplines, strategies and specific techniques. Therefore, there are countless ways to apply Digital Marketing.

But, despite the large number of possible applications of Digital Marketing, there are those strategies/techniques that stand out for being used by the vast majority and that normally bring positive results. These are:

• Content Marketing;
• Email Marketing;
• Social networks;
• Conversion Optimization – CRO;
• Search Marketing – SEM.

Next, let’s talk a little about each of these strategies:

Content Marketing

Content Marketing is all content created to educate, inform or entertain a future customer. The idea is to inform people in order to make them not only respect your brand and have it as a reference, but also become customers of your company.

But that content isn’t just any content: it must talk about issues related to your market and the possible problems and doubts of your personas (i.e., the fictional representations of your target audience).

But, in the end, why is Content Marketing important for Digital Marketing?

As we said, today the purchasing process is increasingly in the hands of the consumer. Information about products and services is no longer a privilege of companies and sellers and is now accessible mainly because of the Internet.

Think about it: when did you buy something without searching for it on the Internet at least once? It was probably a while ago. That’s why it’s so important for your company to invest in Content Marketing, so that consumers find it when they search for the market solutions you offer.

It turns out that people are not looking for information about products or services. They want, above all, to solve problems. The product/service is only the final stage of this process.

That’s why it’s not enough to produce content about your company and your solution: you need to create value for your audience and answer the questions and problems they have before they even know that your product or service is the solution they need.

For example, if you have inventory control software, instead of just writing about your platform and its advantages, think about how the consumer would access your solution.

What do you need to know before you understand that stock control software is going to help you? Then you can create content that gives advice on how to organize your company’s stock, how to calculate stock, or what are the solutions that can help someone organize their company’s stock.

This way, when your target audience searches for these topics on the Internet, they are much more likely to find your content (and if the material generates value for them, the chances of them becoming your client are much higher).

Beyond that, if he already knows the solution but has doubts about your product or that of the competition, having good content can be the differential factor for the public to choose you.

Email Marketing

Email Marketing means the direct sending of a commercial message, typically to a group of people, via email. By definition, any email sent to a potential or current customer can be considered Email Marketing.

It is generally used to send promotions, acquire business, request sales or donations, and its purpose is to build loyalty, trust or branding .

Email Marketing can be used for sold lists (although this practice is not the most appropriate) or for built lists, both of clients and potential clients (Leads).

In short, the term is used to categorize email message sendings with the purpose of increasing a company’s relationship with its current, former or future customers, to encourage loyalty and repeat business, to acquire new customers or to convince current customers to buy a certain product.

Email Marketing, compared to other forms of Digital Marketing, is considered inexpensive. In addition, it is a way to quickly establish and communicate the company’s purpose with existing or potential customers.

Commonly, this channel is perceived by recipients as invasive and irritating, especially for new or potential clients, but, even so, the success of Email Marketing is directly related to the language and visual appeal applied .

In terms of applied visuals, there are indications that the use of graphics/visuals are relevant to the message that is trying to be sent but, however, it is not indicated to establish close relationships in initial emails since it does not establish empathy.

Hence the importance of obtaining personality in these cases. In terms of language, style is the biggest determining factor in defining how captivating that message will be.

Using a casual tone yields better results than more casual language. For combinations, the use of graphics/visuals throughout casual language is not suggested.

Beyond these factors, the possibility of measuring email metrics is what brings relevance to the channel. It is possible to start communication quickly and understand whether it is being applied correctly by analyzing openings and clicks.

Email Marketing can be applied in the following ways:

Transactional and/or automated

Transactional emails are commonly triggered based on a customer or lead’s action with the company.

To qualify as transactional or automated email, the purpose of such communications must be to facilitate, complete, educate, or offer a transaction that the Lead or Customer has agreed to receive.

In short, it is the most assertive and appropriate way to communicate via email.

Direct emails

Direct emails or interruption-based emails include sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, a special offer announcement or product catalog).

Mobile Email Marketing

Due to the growth of tablets and smartphones, Email Marketing currently generates a lot of traffic through these devices.

Email marketing professionals have researched ways to capture attention through these devices, and with that a new way of doing Email Marketing emerged, optimizing messages for reading and interaction with new technologies.

How to choose a good tool for Email Marketing

An Email Marketing (ESP) trigger tool should contain several functionalities, including:

• Measurement: ability to analyze the numbers of your campaigns.
• Anti-spam measures: if the tool has authentication systems (DKIM, for example). With proper authentication, the chances of your email ending up in spam boxes are reduced.
• Usability: your campaigns must be easily created in the tool, intuitively, to optimize your time and increase the quality of your emails.
• Automation: The tool should have ways to automate your emails so you can scale your relationship process.
• Segmentation: it must be possible to process your leads/customers’ information (which emails do they click on?). This way, it is possible to create segmented campaigns with assertive communication.

With these features, it is possible to actively manage your contact base and your emails, being able to optimize the Email Marketing process over time, making your work easier.

On average, the return on investment (ROI) in Email Marketing is one of the highest of all digital media, exceeding $12 USD for every 0.30 USD invested.

That is why it is extremely important to hire a capable Email Marketing tool. Through it, you will be able to implement, optimize, analyze and operate this channel, which is a direct relationship with your contacts and clients.

Through personalization and segmentation, it is possible to communicate differently with each person and automate that process.

For example, we use our own tool to manage this channel, RD Station . Through features such as automation, segmentation, lead management and email marketing, we manage to generate value for the company at a low operating cost.

Social networks

Since the 2000s, especially with the arrival of Orkut, social networks have become quite popular around the world as a new form of online socialization.

Over time, social media has become a very interesting space for those looking for new channels to apply Digital Marketing.

There are currently several advantages that encourage companies to be present on social networks. The first and most important of these is the high number of users present on them.

On Facebook alone, for example, there are approximately 1.6 billion users , and the chances of finding your customers and potential customers among these users are very high.

This significant presence of users has turned social networks into an important communication channel between companies and their consumers, becoming a powerful Relationship Marketing tool.

In addition, it is a channel that allows for great promotion and can be used to promote the brand, products, content, and promote the purpose and mission of the company.

To develop a good social media presence strategy, the first step is to define the persona, that is, who is the audience that you want to follow your brand and follow your posts.

The definition of the person is very important, since it is useless to have millions of followers on your social networks if they are not influencers or potential consumers of your product/service.

Beyond that, it is important to identify which social networks your persona is present on. For example, if your persona is a Project Manager in the IT segment, the possibility of finding him or her on LinkedIn is very high.

To illustrate this, doing a brief search on that social network, we found groups with almost 20 thousand “IT Project Manager”.

Having defined which social networks your company will be present on and who your target audience is, there are some ways to use social networks in your Digital Marketing strategy.

Promoting quality content, for example, is a good way to attract visitors to your website, since social media allows sharing this information more easily and effectively than other channels.

With posts on your page, you can redirect your traffic to content pages (blog), landing pages, and specific offers.

An important tip is to pay attention to the posting schedule and how many posts are made per day. Maintaining a certain and fixed schedule is important so that you can measure the results later. In addition to, of course, always maintaining a posting cadence.

Another way is to interact with users through forums and the generation of ideas. This allows for a less rigid approach to the public and there is the opportunity to promote materials to reinforce the information.

On Facebook, for example, a very effective way to reach your target audience is through groups. Generating content for Facebook groups has many advantages, such as the fact that it is a free source that can be extremely targeted, even demographically.

After all that work of creating ideal personas, checking which social networks work for your business, planning, creating and reviewing content, it is essential to get your visitors to convert. There are a few ways to make conversion easier on social media.

One of them is the possibility of converting the Lead into a Landing Page through their social media profile. This strategy is widely used and tends to increase the conversion rate, since the visitor will not need to fill in information that they have previously provided on the social network.

Just as important as posting is monitoring it and performing analyses to understand the times and methods that are working or not. Facebook and Twitter have native tools for analyzing statistics.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

This is what we call all the efforts to increase conversion rates for a given objective. In other words, reducing friction and increasing the proportion of people who take the action necessary to go from context A to context B.

An everyday example is, in the case of a physical product store, the existence of a relationship between the number of people who enter the store and the number of people who buy something. This relationship can be seen as a conversion rate , in this case, of visitors who make a purchase.

In Digital Marketing our goal is to have an online presence that plays a part in the visitor’s purchasing process, educating them about the problems and opportunities they face and generating value for your product or service.

In practice, what we need is for the Lead to perform a series of actions that, together, will be indicators that a certain person is close to purchasing your product. In this context, we will call the conversion rate the relationship between the Leads who performed the desired action on your page and the total number of visitors.

In practice, what we need is for the Lead to perform a series of actions that, together, will be indicators that a certain person is close to purchasing your product.

The CRO will therefore act in a way that tends to maximize each of these conversion rates so that a greater proportion of your visitors perform the actions you expect them to do.

To make it easier for us to optimize a conversion rate, we tend to break down the final action as much as possible. For example, there is a general conversion rate given by the relationship between the number of people who visit my website and the number of people who buy a product.

However, there are many actions that the visitor will have to take between the first and the last action, and to better understand which part to improve, we will think of a conversion rate for each relevant action that the visitor takes. In that case, we can exemplify with the following rates:

• Overall conversion rate = buyers/visitors
• Broken conversion rate 1 = visitors who clicked on a product/visitors
• Broken conversion rate 2 = visitors who clicked to buy a product / visitors who clicked on a product
• Broken conversion rate 3 = visitors who clicked to buy a product / visitors who made the payment

Breaking down your overall conversion rate into more specific rates will allow you to better understand what the main factor is that is hindering your overall conversion rate.

If it is rate 1, it would be the level of interest that your products are generating in current website visitors; if it is rate 2, it would be the cost-benefit ratio for acquiring the product; and if it is rate 2, it could be some objection in relation to the payment methods available in your business.

In other words, each rate will actually be a clue as to where you need to improve your process.

Main ways of working CRO in practice

Despite being a fairly exploratory job, working with CRO almost always involves some methodologies and techniques used and tested by companies with more experience in the matter.

In the sequence, we talk about some of the main techniques used by marketers to optimize website conversion rates and generate more results from the same input:

A/B Testing

These tests are the simplest and most effective way to check between two page versions which one is more efficient for your objective.

The method basically consists of selecting the traffic of a certain page and randomly dividing it in half, so that 50% of the visitors see one version (original) and the other 50% see the other version (challenging).

A/B tests are very effective in drawing well-informed conclusions for two main reasons:

1. By making both versions of the page available simultaneously, we reduce the influence of external factors such as seasonality, unlike a test that compares with historical results.
2. By having a certain volume on both pages, we can use statistical methods to determine who is the winner with a statistical relevance that allows you to trust the result of the test. To help you, we created a tool to calculate test results.

There are various tools to carry out this test, but the easiest of them is certainly Google Analytics.

Heatmaps and session recording

Perhaps more important than the test result itself is understanding the whys and wherefores of that result. To help you make that interpretation, we use tools that generate qualitative data to understand what happened.

Heatmaps are heatmaps that indicate where the lead most frequently hovered and clicked on your page, while session recording is exactly what the name suggests: it generates recordings of everything that was done on that page by the user.

Use this information to understand why certain elements of your page are making or breaking your conversion results.

Search Marketing – SEM

In the 2000s, online search engines emerged with the mission of assisting users in searching for websites in virtually all niches.

As time went by, the convenience that search engines were providing for Internet users began to spread and quickly a large part of the web audience began to use the network to search for services and entertainment tailored to each one.

Of the search tools that have become popular since then, Google is undoubtedly the greatest reference for everyone.

With the rapid growth of the online search world, many companies began to worry about how they were viewed on those search engines: when they were viewed, how many times they were viewed, etc. That is why search engine marketing (SEM) was born.

Search Marketing, or SEM, aims to make a certain website privileged and appear with priority (and quality) for those who search for something related to it on the Internet.

As the habit of searching for a solution on the Internet has become more and more common among everyone, Search Marketing is also constantly growing and has been of great importance to the marketing strategy of millions of companies in the world.

It can be applied in two ways: through the application of SEO techniques and strategies and also through investments (PPC).

SEO

Want to know everything about the topic? Access our complete content on SEO

At the beginning of this era we are talking about, the difficulty of appearing among the first places in online searches was not very great, so practically everyone who decided to apply “techniques” that aimed at increasing that exposure was successful.

With the evolution of algorithms that determined who would or would not appear at the top of search results, this type of objective became more complicated and, with that, a new discipline emerged within Digital Marketing: SEO .

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all the strategies and tactics that aim to increase a website’s exposure in search engines .

The main search engine on the market (Google) has, according to its own account, more than 200 factors that help determine whether or not a website should be at the top of its results pages. The job of an SEO professional is to adapt websites as much as possible to these criteria.

Every day, nearly 100 billion searches are performed on Google and ranking for a particular highly searched keyword can be the difference between a busy website, full of people browsing, wanting to do business, and an unpopular site.

That is why SEO strategies are still widely used today by most companies that care about the good performance of their Digital Marketing.

SEO is divided into on-page and off-page, with on-page being any and all strategies that you apply within your website (the famous “on-page optimizations”) and off-page being any and all strategies that you apply outside of it (normally “link building” strategies).

What are sponsored links?

These are ways of advertising on the Internet through advertising spaces in search results or on content network websites that are generally paid for clicks (also known as Pay Per Click or PPC).

To appear, ads need to be relevant to the keyword used in the search or a context chosen in the targeting.

The great advantage of sponsored links is being able to take advantage of an existing demand in relation to organic search and, in this way, direct the sponsored link to the search response for a destination link focused on the objective for whoever is searching or researching.

Example: Instead of sending to your website’s home page, which is what happens when you search in organic search, you can advertise with paid search and direct the link to a related page focused on your objective and the user’s search.

What is the importance of sponsored links in the context of Digital Marketing?

Sponsored links are one of the ways to attract qualified visitors and generate interest to direct them to your website.

They require a certain knowledge of how to operate the management tools for these ads and, mainly, how to set aside an investment from a budget so that they are effective during the period of your campaign.

Common forms of applying sponsored links

• Search Network Ad
• Display ad (banner on content network websites)
• Social Ads

Sponsored Links Tools Guide

Use tools that can determine the likelihood of finding high-conversion or purchase intent keywords on your page, pay-per-click bid values, and search volume. There are tools like RD Station, SEMRush, and Google AdWords’ own Keyword Tool.

The most commonly used tools are Google AdWords , UOL Cliques and Bing Ads to manage sponsored link ads.

More advanced tools such as Google AdWords Editor can be used based on spreadsheet management such as Excel or Google Spreadsheets. Depending on the investment volume and campaigns, an agency or paid tools may be hired to create these ads in volume and optimize management.

How to make a Digital Marketing plan

Making an investment in Digital Marketing can really be something that will save your business’s numbers. However, executing the various actions that make up this methodology in a disorganized manner, without strategic planning, can also be a shot in the foot.

Therefore, there are a number of stages that must be considered when planning your company’s Digital Marketing. These will guarantee maximum results from each action. See below:

The steps for a successful planning

Make a report of the current status

Before you do anything, keep in mind that in order to determine where you want to go, you need to know where you are. By using the current status report, you will be able to clearly see your main strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. With this information, you will be able to more effectively determine your objectives and take the next steps.

Conduct a study of your target audience (people)

At first glance, many business owners who want to invest in Digital Marketing do not find it necessary to carry out a  persona study , claiming that they already know enough about their audience. However, the saying that “knowledge is never too much” applies here.

The fact is that you need to know your target audience in depth. This can provide insights that will make all the difference in your results. This study serves precisely to, in addition to finding new crucial information about your target audience, confirm the information you already imagine you have.

This way, you will not only be able to adapt the solutions you offer to your audience, but also plan all Digital Marketing actions with the people in your company in mind, creating strategies that are more appropriate for your audience.

Ultimately, to produce the content that will lead your target audience through the buying process, you’ll need to create that material based on the characteristics and behaviors of your personas.

If you don’t know where to start creating your personas, you can use our  fantastic Persona Generator . And, to learn more about personas and the buying process, download our Personas and Buying Process kit.

Determine your goals

With a clear vision of who your target audience is and what your current challenges are, you determine your objectives. It is important that you set some goals so that you will later be able to say whether your Digital Marketing planning was successful or not.

For example, if you are just starting out in Digital Marketing and your website doesn’t have much traffic yet, you can set a goal to increase traffic to your website, either as a percentage or in absolute numbers.

From there, you can set specific goals to achieve that increase in traffic, such as creating and publishing content on your blog at least once a week, promoting all of your content on social media through posts and ads, etc.

If you already have a more developed digital presence, but your problem is lead generation, you can set an objective to increase lead generation and identify what kind of strategies you can create to stimulate that. For example, you can offer educational materials on Landing Pages, so that interested parties have to leave their contacts to download the material, becoming leads.

Beyond that, you can create other situations on your website that encourage lead generation, such as spaces for visitors to sign up for your  newsletter , an easy-to-access contact page, pop-ups to participate in a promotion, receive a discount or download material, etc.

Now, in case you already have visitors and leads, but your problem is connecting with them, you can focus on objectives such as sending Email Marketing and creating  Marketing Automation flows . Once this is done, you can evaluate what the result of these actions is, such as analyzing the opening and click rates of the emails, etc.

List the resources needed to achieve your goals

Once you are very clear about what your goals are, it is time to chart the path necessary for you to achieve them all, right?

To do this, list all the tasks that need to be done in order for the goal to be achieved, including all the resources needed for the tasks to be completed (money, manpower, etc.). After having all of this written down, you will have a pretty clear idea of ​​the path that needs to be taken in order to achieve all of the goals.

Make a schedule

Making a schedule is important to ensure that there is as little delay as possible. It is also a good exercise to estimate how much time and effort will be spent on each task. Also, doing a regular schedule check-up can be quite helpful in achieving a healthy consistency throughout your plan.

Certify that all your actions can be monitored and do it

Give preference to actions that can have a 100% monitored outcome. This will be important to evaluate your actions and determine whether the outcome is positive or negative.

After completing each important task, do the exercise of evaluating all the numbers and identifying points of improvement in the process or task in order to make corrections. Also observe the points of success to replicate them in the future.

4 Advantages of Digital Marketing over Traditional Offline Marketing

Even though Offline Marketing continues to have a place, Digital Marketing has grown rapidly. That’s because, beyond being more connected every day, marketing on the Internet has some advantages over Offline Marketing. See some of them below:

More precise segmentation

Unlike Offline Marketing, where it is often impossible to know exactly which audience you are speaking to, Digital Marketing allows for a much more precise level of segmentation of your audience.

That’s because it’s much easier to monitor users’ activity on the Internet, be it their consumption habits, their personal preferences and tastes, their professional career, etc. This way, it’s possible to very specifically segment the people for whom you want to advertise a product, service or content.

For example, if you sell stock control software, you can segment your audience by profession and, in this way, you can choose professionals who work in sectors that deal with stock, such as owners of small markets.

This allows you to personalize your marketing actions and campaigns much more. For example, if you have segmented your actions for small market owners, you can create ads and campaigns that respond to the specific questions and problems of that segment.

As a result, your audience will identify much more with your actions and thus the results tend to be much better.

Clearer and more definitive measurement of results

As we said above, Digital Marketing allows you to determine with much greater precision who your audience is and what their tastes and preferences are. In the same way, we can monitor the results of Digital Marketing actions with the same precision.

For example: while someone who makes an advertisement on open television about a product has a much harder time clearly seeing how profitable the investment in the advertisement was, Digital Marketing allows you to know exactly what is giving a return and if that return is managing to pay for the initial investment.

In this regard, tools such as Google Analytics are very helpful when it comes to measuring the smallest details of the results of Digital Marketing strategies.

Price

Over time, the price of doing Offline Marketing has become higher. TV, radio and print ads are expensive and, as if the high price were not enough, the ability to clearly see whether that investment is making sense is very limited.

Digital Marketing, although it does require a minimal investment, can be much cheaper than Offline Marketing. It is not in vain that Digital Marketing strategies occupy a large part of the marketing strategies of many large companies today.

Implementation Agility

The Internet is, at its core, agile and democratic: in a few seconds you have access to virtually anyone and information that would otherwise be many hours – or perhaps even days – away, and would cost much more to reach.

The same thing happens with Digital Marketing: today, with just a computer, a lot of will to learn, and access to the Internet, anyone can implement Digital Marketing techniques and strategies in their business.

That’s because there are countless online tools – many of them free – that teach you how to perform tasks related to Digital Marketing. You just need time and willpower to learn them.

Digital Marketing Metrics

You’re creating and engaging relevant content for your audience, but how do you know if it’s working?

To do this, you can include some metrics that serve to measure the performance of your marketing actions and suggest improvements and optimizations for the team.

There are many others, but these are the ones we consider most important:

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

CAC is the average investment in direct efforts to win a customer. In the vast majority of companies, the areas that act directly in this process are marketing and sales, but depending on the business, it can vary.

For example, if your direct investments in customer acquisition total R$ 10,000 per month and, with that, you get 20 customers, your CAC will be R$ 500.00.

It is also worth mentioning that the calculation is always made considering investments and new clients acquired in the same period. The CAC is calculated on a month-to-month basis, but it is important to consider some sudden variations from time to time.

For example, if you hire two more salespeople one month, the CAC should increase, since they are unlikely to bring in clients right away in the first month of work. But over time, this value stabilizes again.

Lifetime Value

LTV is considered one of the most important metrics in companies that offer a service contract (signature model) because it shows the business’s profit potential, that is, how much it is possible to earn for each client in a given period of time.

For example, if the average monthly ticket charged is $150 and the ideal client remains in the database for 36 months, your client’s LVT is $5,500.

If the company is just starting, this will be a difficult figure to calculate, but it cannot be ignored, since it is one of the main supports for the financial plans.

By comparing LTV to CAC, the business knows it is healthy: the Lifetime Value is estimated to be at least 3x greater than the CAC. Beyond that, LTV allows for projections of future returns.

If you know that X number of customers will enter the database, the company can also calculate that the billing will be Y in the following months.

MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) and ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)

In SaaS businesses, the client pays for the use of the service or product on a recurring monthly basis. The characteristic of this model is that it spreads the client’s costs over the months of payment and, therefore, also has a lower average ticket than in the perpetual license model.

Monthly or annual recurring revenue is increased with growth in the average product/service ticket.

Going further, it is worth thinking in a more advanced way and measuring, among the leads generated, how many are qualified and will actually be attended to by salespeople.

If the company manages to maintain a MRR or ARR value greater than the revenue lost from churning customers, it reaches negative churn, which, if it is not already, should be the dream of any SaaS company.

With the cancellation rate below zero, turnover increases considerably to the point of making that number insignificant in terms of the company’s growth.

Cost per Lead (CPL) or Cost per Qualified Lead

The CPL allows us to know the value of each Lead generated, dividing the amount invested in Digital Marketing work (R$) by the number of Leads generated, originating from the various traffic sources.

According to research, Inbound Marketing techniques that involve blogs, SEO and social networks, entail a cost per Lead for companies that is generally 61% lower than Leads generated by more traditional techniques.

Therefore, measuring and comparing this value can be an excellent move for Digital Marketing to gain more credibility (and investments) within the company.

We know that, despite using some strategies to define who your business persona is and how we are going to reach them, we often end up having a greater reach, reaching Leads that are not always the focus or that are not at the ideal moment to purchase your product or service, still requiring some Lead management work to transform them into an opportunity. That is why Cost per Qualified Lead comes in as another even more important metric.

Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

Another metric that should be evaluated is the Cost per Acquisition (CPA) . In this case, the factor considered is the value of the investment, which will be divided by the number of effective sales (acquisition of the product/service).

What usually guarantees that Digital Marketing continues to grow and receive investments is, precisely, having a cost per acquisition that is profitable close to the average sales price of the products/services. Therefore, despite also depending on the sales team, it is an essential indicator for marketing.

Return on investment (ROI)

The return on investment rate, designated by the acronym ROI or Return On Investment, consists of a metric used to measure the performance obtained with a given amount of resources.

ROI is one of the many existing performance indicators to evaluate the so-called cost-benefit in relation to investments and can be calculated as:

In this case, all sales originating from the Digital Marketing channel are added together and all expenses incurred for this are subtracted.

ROI = Profit obtained – Amount spent on the investment.

In the case of sales by signature model, it is interesting to place here an average expectation of how long the client stays there and how much income should be generated, so that the ROI is actually reflected in reality.

Inbound Marketing: A new way of doing Digital Marketing

The term Inbound Marketing means attraction marketing and consists of a set of strategies that aim to voluntarily attract consumers to the company’s website.

Unlike traditional marketing, it is based on the relationship with the consumer instead of advertisements and interruptions. The main difference between traditional marketing -also called Outbound Marketing- and Inbound is that, in the latter, it is the customer who seeks out the company and not the other way around.

Thus, actions are carried out with the aim of attracting the potential client to your blog or website and, based on that attraction, a whole relationship work is done with that person. This relationship is carried out through personalized and authored content.

Content is a way to educate your audience and potential customers about your company’s segment, transform your company into a reference on a certain subject related to your market, and influence the purchasing decisions of future customers.

Inbound Marketing is an increasingly important strategy to attract, convert and retain customers

Many people believe that Inbound Marketing and Digital Marketing are synonyms, but that is not true, since it is also possible to do Outbound Marketing in digital media.

However, Inbound Marketing uses Digital Marketing tools (website, blog, social networks, search engines, etc.) to implement its strategies, and that is why the two concepts are closely related.

Considering that the purchasing process is changing more and more, Inbound Marketing is an increasingly important strategy to attract, convert and retain customers, since it reverses the logic of companies going after customers, and makes customers seek out companies.

And if we think about a Digital Marketing context in which people have the power to search and find the information they need, Inbound Marketing is increasingly present in Digital Marketing.

Ultimately, it is not enough to reproduce the traditional marketing model in online media – we need to rethink the way customers consume on the Internet.

Inbound Marketing Methodology

As we said, the main objective of Inbound Marketing is to attract and retain potential customers for your company. But, for that to work, it is necessary to use a methodology that is what sets Inbound apart. Next, we will explain the steps of this methodology.

Attract

The initial pillar of Inbound Marketing is attraction. After all, a website without visitors does not generate leads. Without leads there are no sales and, consequently, the entire reason for working with this strategy is lost.

So, instead of looking for people who might be interested in a certain business/market, the company focuses on building something worthy of legitimate attention and, thus, attracts people who are voluntarily interested in the subject. The result of this is a much more engaged audience that is more likely to actually consume the product.

There are many ways to do this, such as producing content on your blog, optimizing that content for search engines (so-called SEO or Search Engine Optimization), making paid advertisements for that content (sponsored links) and sharing that content on social media.

Convert

Next we have the conversion stage: visitors need to become leads in order to move forward in the purchasing process. When we talk about conversion, we are referring to the action of the user passing on their information in exchange for a reward or benefit, such as an offer of a material, which we will discuss later.

This is why you should not only attract visitors to your website but also create opportunities to convert them into leads. One of the main ways is to offer content on landing pages, i.e. pages that are geared towards conversion.

Generally, these pages do not contain much more than an explanation of what the material offered is and the advantages of obtaining it, beyond the form that the visitor must fill out to become a Lead.

Among the offers you can generate to obtain Leads are direct offers (those that are more directly focused on the purchase, such as budget requests, software demonstrations, free trials, among others); and indirect offers (generally focused on less advanced stages of the purchase process, that is, they have the objective of educating and solving specific problems of the Leads. Some common offer formats are eBooks , webinars, tools, etc.).

Relate

But not all generated leads are ready to buy. To give you an idea, it is estimated that only 3% of your potential market is looking for a solution, that is, they are at the point of purchase.

Therefore, it is necessary to continue educating your Lead until they are ready to buy. This is where the relationship stage of Inbound Marketing comes in: through some strategies, we identify the stages in which the Leads are and we make them advance in the process, that is, we accelerate the purchase process.

One of the main ways to interact with leads is through email marketing. It is through this that you continue to offer increasingly advanced content to your lead, until you perceive that they are sufficiently mature for the purchase.

But to make the relationship happen dynamically and not “go cold”, it is necessary to automate the process. In this way, you will be feeding your leads with content automatically, without needing to send emails manually.

This makes the process happen more quickly, increasing sales, improving customer retention and decreasing acquisition costs.

Sell

Ultimately, all lead generation and engagement work is aimed at generating business opportunities for your company. In some cases, the sales process takes place within the website itself. In others, contact between a salesperson and the potential customer is required.

Generally speaking, the more complex the product (the larger the ticket), the more the purchasing process tends to be consultative, concluding the role of lead nurturing in closing the sale.

This paradigm shift, in which the Lead now goes through part of the purchasing process before coming into contact with the seller, brings various implications that are transforming the world of sales.

Among them, we can mention:

• Lead Scoring (automatic scoring of Leads based on their profiles and interests);
• Inbound Sales (sales made from within the company itself, once sellers use technologies that do away with work, reducing costs and streamlining the process);
• CRM (Customer Relationship Manager, or software that is capable of organizing, measuring and saving the history of all negotiations made by the seller, assisting in the sales process).

Analyze

Finally, we enter the analysis stage, which is extremely important for Inbound Marketing, as it allows us to evaluate which strategies are working and which are not, and to verify or not the return on investments.

There is no more room for guesswork: everything is confirmed based on data. Metrics must be peeled like an onion, from the most general (and strategic) to the most specific contribution of each detail (operational).

It is possible to monitor every action that occurs in your audience’s interactions with your websites, posts and campaigns, which makes working smarter. Beyond that, the entire process can be optimized, detecting rates that are below expectations to direct the marketing team’s efforts.