The 3 Stages of Digital Marketing

Somebody has to sit up top, why not you?

Having a digital presence in 2021 for your business is hugely important and in this post, we're going to share with you the three stages that we use to identify where a business is at in terms of their digital marketing strategy. By the end of this blog, you're not only going to know where your business sits, but you're also going to know what you need to do to get to the next stage. 

Why is this important?

Simple. People need to be able to find you on the internet. They've got to be able to search for what it is that you do or search for you and find your website. They also need to be able to see you on social media, but more importantly, have their daily pattern interrupted by your social media content in order for you to capture their attention and bring them into the first stage of your sales process.

That means we've got to have search and we've got to have social, two very important components. 

Stage 1:

At Tide 55 we identify stage one businesses as businesses that perhaps have a website and they have one or two social media platforms. Maybe they're posting on them, but not very often. And if they've ever done any video it's probably about 4, 5 years old now and a little bit outdated. Now at this position, you're on the internet at least and people can find you. Great. The strange thing is it can actually be a little bit of a hindrance if they do find you because everything is so old and outdated and it can in turn, make you look bad.

Now, this is particularly a problem for companies that have a great reputation offline. They've been established for a number of years, they've got great customers, great clients, people say nice things about them. But new prospects, new potential customers are seeing you on the internet this way. They're seeing the outdated website, they're seeing the old social media and that's not adding up in terms of who you are offline and who you are online. And that's a big problem. 

Now, not only are you standing still, you're actually slipping if you're in this position, because all your competitors look better than you on the internet and that isn't what you want, right? 

Never used to be but in this day and age, 2021, it's now become a need to have not just a nice to have. So if you're in stage one, don't worry. At least you're there. At least you've got your hand in the ring, but we need to be looking at getting you into stage two. 

Stage 2:

Stage two is where we actually aim to bring businesses as a minimum. All of the clients that we work with are at stage two minimum. At least, they are now we work with them! 

What that means is: your website is current, it's up-to-date and optimised for search engines. That makes it easier for your prospects and future clients and customers to find you online. It means that you rank higher on the Google search organically and you're more likely to be found when people are looking for your services. 

It also means that you've got perhaps Facebook, maybe Instagram, possible LinkedIn, Twitter and in some cases maybe even Tik-Tok. But you've got two or three social media platforms healthily moving and integrating and interacting with the world on a weekly basis. With regular posts going out, perhaps even some paid advertising on Facebook, some sponsored content going out on Instagram, maybe even doing some Google and YouTube ads. When we have this in place, we know our clients start to grow. We know that they start to attract more attention and therefore they start bringing people into their sales process.

And because we only work with businesses that are already set up and established, we know that when we bring more attention to your sales process you are going to increase your revenue because your business is set up to do so. And so that provides a real sweet spot for us. 

So if you're already in stage two, then amazing! If you're not, then you know what you need to do to get there. And if you need any help with that, we would love to be able to talk to you about how we can help you in stage two of this process. 

Stage 3:

So now we're going to look at stage three and what we're all striving to do in order to become industry leaders and make sure that we're really taking as much of the opportunities and attention out there in the market as possible.

In stage three you become the go-to company, the go-to person, the go-to people for what it is that you do in your industry. You start to serve your industry with information, education and perhaps even entertainment. 

But before we get caught up in the lights, let's talk practical. Practically speaking you need to be advertising, on the attack, on the front foot. You need to be advertising on social media as well as search engines. We need to have all the things that we talked about before: SEO, regular contact going out on social media but, we need to be using video. 

Video is what's going to elevate your presence because in this day and age it's very easy for someone to put out text and graphic posts every day. Introducing video, whether it's a video like this or whether it's animation or whether it's a tutorial or whether it's promotional video content or product video content video has to be part of your media mix on a weekly basis in order to be stage three, it just has to.

And what we do at Tide 55 is we use these videos to not only feed in more content, but we use them as adverts to attract more of the right type of customers to your pipeline. In stage three we might also have something like a YouTube channel or a podcast or some kind of community or email marketing campaign running in the background to really bring value to your community and elevate your position in the market.

Some may never need to get there. It might suit them to stay in stage two, but for those with the ambition to be the best and to show up in the market or your industry, you need to aim for stage three. You see an opportunity, maybe you're sitting third or fourth in terms of who's the most known. Who's the biggest?

This brings you the opportunity to leapfrog to second. Possibly even first. Because the great thing about this seat around the table in stage three is that somebody in your industry has to sit there. So why not you? Why not your company? Why not your brand being the one everybody knows and everybody comes to? 

Now we know that some of you reading this are going to be thinking that is exactly what I want my business to be. That is the reason why I do what I do. To have that credibility, that stronghold in the marketplace. And if that is you, you're going to need some help and support to get there and we would love to have a conversation about how we can help you to achieve that.

So whether you're in stage one, stage two or stage three, or you're looking to get to stage two or looking to get to stage three, then please send us a message. We would love to talk to you about how the team here at Tide 55 can help your business to grow.