The Yorkshire and Humber region is home to over 600,000 companies, ranking them the 7th among 12 regions in number of businesses.
Out of these 600,000 companies, there are many businesses that rank “high” on the scale of digital marketing impact, including wholesale/retail, construction, and real estate.
Source: HitHorizons
These, among other business activities, can benefit greatly from digital marketing in Yorkshire and the Northeast of England as, for the most part, their customer acquisition process starts online.
The Role of Digital Marketing & Business Growth
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing uses online channels to sell or promote a product/service. It allows you to use a range of outbound and inbound marketing tactics to attract, inspire, drive, and sell to potential clients.
Types of Digital Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The ranking process on search engines like Google and Bing.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: Paying advertisers to show your products/services. Popular PPC advertisers include Google and Bing.
- Social Media Marketing: Involves using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter organically, by posting, or by paying by using their advertising features.
- Content Marketing: Using content (such as blog posts, articles, and infographics) to engage your audience.
- Email Marketing: Emails to your subscribers or clients to promote your latest products/services.
4 Ways to Implement Digital Marketing in Business
Now you know a bit more about digital marketing in business, let’s take a look at some real-world examples of how you can implement digital marketing in business.
- Brand Awareness Campaigns
With Online, you break away from geographical barriers, gaining access to billions of potential customers – perfect for brand awareness campaigns.
Take social media, for example. Statista reports that there should be around 5.17 billion social media users worldwide – much more than the 5.4 million people in Yorkshire.
Alongside this, you can target people interested in your product/service. You can advertise to specific demographics, interests, and much more, allowing you to focus on people who truly benefit from your business.
It also provides an “even playing field”. You can, essentially, advertise to the same audiences as top companies in your industry, regardless of your size.
Without question, having the ability to advertise to the masses, regardless of the size of your company (big or small), provides an excellent opportunity for a successful brand awareness campaign.
- Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on a customer-centric approach across several advertising channels.
Each of these marketing channels offers a consistent experience; however, each is slightly personalised to the user depending on where they are in the customer journey.
For instance, someone searching online for more information about your product (inbound) has a higher buyer intent than someone browsing on a social media site like Facebook (outbound).
With digital marketing, you can create optimised strategies at every customer touch point. Whether via display, social media, email, or search ads, it doesn’t matter. Each can target and retarget users depending on various factors, which is why 94% of retail companies use it.
- Influencer Marketing
With the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, influencer marketing has become more popular than ever. Put simply, people trust people who share similar interests, which is why businesses use influencer marketing to tap into their audiences.
This marketing tactic can target a range of people. However, it’s commonly known that Gen Z’ers trust influencers the most. It makes sense, also. Gen Z’ers have grown up with social media, so they look at influencers differently than, let’s say, Millennials or Gen X.
Even better, it’s affordable. Most SMEs target nano influencers. These are influencers with a small number of followers, 0 to 10,000. Though small, they provide better reach and engagement rates while being more affordable than macro influencers (500,000 to 1M followers).
- SEO & Email
With digital marketing, two areas are commonly neglected: SEO and email marketing. People view SEO as a lengthy process, while others consider email marketing unnecessary.
However, according to Website Builder Expert, these are some of the most rewarding digital marketing channels:
- Email marketing has an ROI of 3,600%.
- SEO marketing has an ROI of 2,200%.
Without question, the results are great. But why? Well, email marketing is very targeted. The users you email market to are likely subscribed to your newsletter or are already customers, so they’re further through the buying journey.
Regarding SEO, think of it as a long-term PPC plan. PPC is short-term, and when you turn ads off, they’re off. However, with SEO, when you rank on the search engine results page (SERP), you stay there, getting free traffic – please note that SEO is difficult but very rewarding.
Grow Your Business with Our Digital Marketing Training
After reading this post about digital marketing and its impact on business in Yorkshire and the Northeast of England, you’re probably thinking about implementing it.
And honestly, that’s the hardest thing, especially if you’re not knowledgeable in digital marketing. Though it can bring great results, there’s a learning curve you must overcome to ensure profitability.
As local experts in North Yorkshire and Teesside, we want to invite you to our Immediate Impact Digital Bootcamp. During this bootcamp, you’ll learn high-impact skills to improve your business’s digital marketing immediately.
In total, the bootcamp has 8 days of training (both in person and online). You’ll learn the ins and outs of several social media and email marketing strategies, all targeted towards growing businesses based in Yorkshire and the Northeast.
If you’re ready to reach new audiences, beat quarterly and monthly targets, and keep Yorkshire and the Northeast businesses thriving, this digital marketing training is for you. To learn more about availability, check out this page.
