Canadian internet use is at an all time high, with many adults reporting that they are almost constantly online. Companies need to reach these customers at the beginning of their online decision making process, which is why digital marketing services are so important.

How do businesses take advantage of this shift in technology? How do you get the attention of these digital savvy customers? It is important to have an integrated digital marketing approach that understands who your customers are, and what tools you need to attract them. Here are some tips to help your digital marketing strategy succeed.

Have a Clear Idea of your Goal

The goal of your marketing campaign may be to drive traffic to your site, but once they are there, how do you get customers to stay, look around, buy, sign up, or request a quote? It is important to set clear goals for what you want your customers to do when they get to your site.

Often, when they get to our site, we want the customer to interact in some way, to buy a product, read an article, or sign up for a service. This is called a conversion, when you get a customer to trade one item of value for another item of value.

For example, a lot of young professionals want to start a successful digital marketing agency without listing down their goals. Do they want it to be client-centric, or do they want to create in-house products? Unless you have an idea about what your final goals are, you will not be able to develop a clear path of action and strategy to pursue those.

Examples of conversions:

1. Online store: product purchase - money from customer
2. Online service: request for quote - customer email address and contact info
3. Company: free webinar - customer further engages with the company website

When you are clear about what your conversion goals are, you can track it and calculate your rate of conversion. This helps you keep track of the success of your campaign, and can be a valuable analytical tool.

It is important to be clear about what you want your customers to do once they are on your site. When you know this, you can design and tailor the site to achieve those goals.

It is also important to track how your site is being used. This information can help you see where your digital strategies are most successful, and help you see where you need to make changes.

Know Who Your Customers Are

One of the most important pieces of information you can have when putting together a digital marketing strategy is to know who your customers are. You need to know how they interact with your site, what their buying habits are, and how they like to be contacted about your product, service, or message. Once you have that information, you can build a strategy that best supports this.

Once you know who your customers are, you can build a digital marketing strategy to suit them, and look for ways to take them into even deeper levels of interaction with your site.

1. For example:

if you know most of your customers for your plumbing repair service are finding you through a Google search for leaky faucets, you may want to put a chat feature, or appointment request right on your landing page.

Think Mobile

Through smart phones, customers have instant access to online reviews, price comparisons and product information. Many customers report they have already done research or read reviews and have decided what items they want to buy before ever setting foot in a bricks and mortar store.

Mobile sites can no longer be considered a second level website. They are often the only way many customers will interact with your company. It is important that your mobile site is responsive to your customers and is a central part of your digital marketing strategy.

This can take many forms:

1. An app for your company with relevant content
2. A mobile responsive site designed for mobile users

Learn From Your Customers

One of the great advantages of digital marketing is that it is very easy to gather data on how a website is used, how long customers stay on a page, how they interact with it and what these numbers look like over time. Using this data you can customize your digital marketing strategy to continuously make improvements and track results.

There are many companies out there who offer digital marketing analysis services who can track your users and give performance results so that you can stay up to date on how your customers are interacting with your site.

You can also use this information to learn more about your customers - where they are in the world, and how they use your site. By capturing their data, you can learn how to analyse it, and use it to constantly improve your site and company performance.

By integrating digital marketing services into the centre of your company marketing strategy, you can take advantage of this tremendous opportunity to connect to and influence customers online.

The important thing is to take the first step.