7 ways to be a digital marketer

1. Create a plan​

Digital marketing planning sounds simple to some and daunting to others but creating a plan will help organise your thoughts for your business and put structure into achieving your goals. A simple method marketers use is called a SOSTAC, which stands for six different factors – Situation analysis, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Actions and Control. Visit our marketing page​ for the latest marketing stories.

Advanced Marketers Tip: Create a marketing budget to predict and measure ROI of every digital channel. ​

2. Get social​

Delete your social media accounts, that is those that don’t work for you! If you are reading this, you are probably a business owner who is consciously trying to better your business daily. Therefore, over the years you have probably added four or five different social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and maybe even Snapchat. It’s unlikely all of these are right for your business and if they are (trust me, they’re not), investing more time in one rather than splitting between four or five will see higher returns.

Advanced Marketers Tip: Invest in a dashboard tool such as Hootsuite to understand the value of each social media account and manage it properly. ​

3. Web analytics​

Install an analytics tool on your website. Google analytics can be installed quickly, and for free, allowing you to log in at any time and see what people look at on your site and how they found you. This can become addictive and will no doubt spur a monthly report but it informs you what customers are looking for and how they find you in the digital world.

What’s that? You don’t have a website! Mintel research showed that a website was the second biggest reason to bring new customers into a pub, behind only the food offer. There are lots of ways to launch a site very cheaply and handling this yourself enables you to regularly (daily or weekly) update the site.

Advanced Marketers Tip: Go mobile or responsive. More than 50% of website visits are now from smartphones.​

4. Search engine optimisation (SEO)​

Check customers’ first impressions. Is your kerb appeal good? Well, it’s equally likely that a potential customer searches for your pub or tries to find somewhere to go to have a pint, food or ‘watch the match’ online first.

A negative TripAdvisor review or an out-of-date photo being shown first will likely mean the £20,000 exterior refurbishment project you did never gets seen. Search online for what customers may see as a first impression.

Advanced Marketers Tip: ‘Rich snippets’, which give extra details in sections about your business to people using a search engine, can help you stand out in Google and shows users what they require quicker – and higher click-through means higher Google ranking.​

5. Build a database​

This is the foundation of digital marketing, a record of past, present and future customers enabling you to communicate via email, newsletter or text. A good email service provider would also let you see who opens your email and segment your database into those that are your more ‘engaged’ customers.

Marketers Top Tip: An automated email work flow saves you time and communicates with your customers at the right time for them.​

6. Content marketing​

Content is king and new images for your website and social channels show customers what you are all about. These don’t need to be staged or professionally shot and customers like
to share pictures of themselves with their friends – who will hopefully want to come along next time too.

Marketers Top Tip: Embrace customer-generated content. Share theirs and they’re likely to share yours.​

7. Integrate your branding​

Your core business message should come across through all your channels, in your venue and in digital. Customer service, high end – whatever your USP might be – reinforce it at every opportunity. When you land on your website or go to your Twitter account, do your brand values stand out? If not, why not?

Advanced Marketers Tip: Use social media to engage with other brands and people that share your principles. ​