It’s no secret that the world of digital marketing is competitive. Marketers are always looking for new ways to grow their businesses while maintaining a smooth workflow. One of the most effective (and free) ways to attract potential clients is through digital marketing.

What is digital marketing? Simply put, it’s the process of getting information online to attract, interact with, and convert potential customers into paying customers.

Now, there is a wide variety of tactics and strategies that fall under the umbrella of digital marketing. But generally speaking, there are three major functions that your marketing efforts will perform:

Attracting Potential Customers Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You may be familiar with SEO if you’ve ever used Google (or one of its owned properties, like Google Search). SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it’s the process of getting your website to show up in the right spots when customers search for products or services that you offer. It’s essential in today’s world of digital marketing because without high-quality SEO, your website may never reach its full potential.

On the other hand, poor or lackluster SEO can result in lost sales, especially since there are plenty of free tools that can make or break your SEO. To put it simply, if you want to attract potential customers to your website, you need to ensure that your SEO is as effective as possible.

Engaging With The Potential Customers Through Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is all the rage today, and with good reason. According to HubSpot Blogs, inbound marketing is “about earning trust and respect from your audience rather than selling to them.” Essentially, it’s about producing quality content that they want to read and engaging with them on a personal level.

Why is inbound marketing so effective? It’s because customers have more control over the buying process in an inbound marketing approach. Instead of browsing through a list of products that they’re perhaps not really interested in, the customer can become more engaged while browsing through the content that they find valuable. Inbound marketing puts the power back into the hands of the consumer, which is why it’s such a popular approach today.

Converting Potential Customers Into Paid Customers

The final step in the digital marketing process is converting potential customers into paying customers. This is when a customer actually buys something from your website or company (e.g., makes a purchase, signs up for a free trial, etc.).

There are a variety of paid products and services that you can use to develop and grow your business. One of the most popular and effective options is ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels helps businesses develop an income stream by selling and delivering products to customers. What sets ClickFunnels apart from other tools is that it allows you to integrate affiliate marketing, which earns you a commission when a customer clicks a referred link or buys a product that’s been promoted on your website.

To put it simply, if you want to turn a customer into a long-term, paying customer, you need to focus on building trust and credibility. This is where SEO, inbound marketing, and sales come together.

To follow the three steps to successful marketing, you need to:

Put Quality Before Quantity

One of the most important things that you need to do to succeed in digital marketing is put quality before quantity.

This concept is essential to understanding the value that you bring to the table as a digital marketer. You may be tempted to throw up as many campaigns as you can against your competitors, but this usually is not the wisest decision. Instead, you need to focus on developing and growing your audience and making sure that each campaign is on point and brings value.

If you want to improve your SEO and get more organic traffic to your website, you need to focus on delivering value and not just dumping keywords and links into your content.

Focus On Long-term Growth

Another important aspect of being a successful digital marketer is focusing on long-term growth instead of short-term wins. As a startup or a new business, you may be excited about the opportunities that the internet provides, but this excitement can quickly turn to disappointment if you aren’t careful. Just as you need to focus on quality before quantity, you also need to make sure that you don’t get too carried away by the hype surrounding digital marketing and make the mistake of focusing too much on the short term.

For example, if you’ve recently started a blog and are eager to gain some traction, you may want to try and drive as much traffic to your site as possible. The problem is that this often can bring with it significant risks. If you don’t know how to properly evaluate the quality of the traffic that you’re getting, you could end up wasting a lot of time and money on poor-quality traffic. Better to focus on delivering high-quality content that draws in and retains customers longer than trying to beat the competition through sheer volume of traffic.

Avoid Predatory Practices

Another important thing for any business to avoid is predatory practices. These are where companies take advantage of poor Internet security to gain access to customers’ personal information. For example, if you’ve agreed to a free trial of a product or service, a company might send you an email every month with a small update on how they use your information.

This type of email is often called a ‘booster email’, and it’s a common tactic among companies that stand to make a profit from your engagement. While this might seem like a good idea in the short term, if you’re not happy with how the company uses your information and want to terminate your agreement, you will have to find a way to contact the company directly. This is why it’s important to avoid giving out personal information unless you are certain that the company you are dealing with is legitimate.

Take Advantage Of The Internet

The last few years have been good to entrepreneurs and digital marketers alike because of the growth of the internet and the plethora of tools that are available to help businesses grow via the web. Now is the perfect time to take advantage of this and start a digital marketing agency.

If you’re looking to start a business or are currently working for a company, what is your route to the top? Is there a clear process that you need to follow to succeed? Are you wondering if an online marketing agency is right for your business?