Results digital marketing

Planning is the basis of any business, even more so when we are talking about the digital world. At the digital marketing, to define marketing strategies winners is an exercise in constant evaluation and adjustments.

Digital marketing has the great advantage of being flexible and measurable, and measuring the ROI it's essential. In this text, we have tips for developing a killer strategy to create true digital marketing results.

Digital marketing for results starts with a good diagnosis

Understanding the current situation is the beginning of everything. First, let's evaluate the macro environment and then look at each item specifically, starting with sales funnel. Even if you still don't know exactly what a sales funnel is, let's evaluate the numbers below, which will lead us to understand, evaluate and adjust it.

The funnel, roughly speaking, is a marketing and sales methodology where we consider the stage the customer is at. But let's remember that we are talking about the digital world, so our focus is our website/blog.

Therefore, on our website, we separate the prospect/customer into 4 stages in the funnel: Visitor • Lead • Opportunity • Customer. This is the classic funnel. 

There are those who also consider an inverted funnel, which enters after the “customer” stage. It addresses the issue of loyalty and also has 4 stages: Satisfaction • Retention • Improvement • Evangelism. But let's consider, in our initial assessment, the classic funnel.

The classic sales funnel

The sales funnel starts when the user visits your website and becomes a visitor. If he is a visitor, he will browse your website, read about your products and services, look at information, etc… and that is where retention and conversion techniques come in. If your visitor leaves the website and doesn't register, he won't move forward in the sales funnel. Therefore, the objective is for the visitor to leave their registration, so that they become a lead. Let us realize that it has just gone down one stage in the funnel.

From now on, how lead, he will start receiving information from your company. He will receive newsletters and promotional emails, according to the strategy that each company adopts. Content marketing comes into play stronger than ever as it attracts that lead back to the website. Other tools are used, such as digital offers, podcasts, webinars and other types of content, in addition to articles.

As your lead moves down the funnel, they will be taken to the opportunity stage, as they are more likely to consume your product/service, as they already know a lot of information and continue to return to your website or blog. The last path of the classic funnel is the customer, which is our objective. The visitor back there consumed a lot of information and related to your company/product/service in such a way that he became a customer.

Sales funnel metrics

Now that we understand the basic functioning of the funnel, let's talk about numbers and metrics to be able to diagnose the current situation. The sales funnel has an average value of conversions, according to several studies carried out in companies B2B (Business to Business), which will be our focus. It would be more or less as follows:

Visitors convert from 10 to 20% into leads, which in turn convert from 5 to 15% into opportunities, which convert from 20 to 40% into customers. Overall then, we have a result of 0.1% to 1.2%, considering those who leave the top of the funnel (visitors) and convert into customers, at the end of the funnel. Each segment has its characteristics and we may have variations in the funnel percentages. But these numbers allow us to have a comparison for defining objectives and goals and also for future evaluations. To carry out digital marketing results, it is necessary to evaluate all these numbers.

Know who your target audience is and set clear objectives

We know what the funnel is and what it is for. We also know the conversion percentages at each stage. Now, we need to know exactly who our customer is. Knowing our audience to know how to communicate with them is vital for optimizing the funnel’s results. Therefore, trace the profile of this audience, which on the internet, we call persona. With the persona defined and the average percentage of the funnel stages, you will know how much traffic you should generate. Learn more about personas in our article about personas in content marketing.

Regarding objectives, a really cool methodology is to define a goal for the year and divide it into segments throughout the period so that we can measure it in each of the segments. This way, we can know how far we are progressing towards the general objective. This organization by segments will also ensure that activities, tasks for execution and investments are well utilized and also measured, as well as the results. For each segment, it will be easier to define micro strategies that can be easily adjusted and even repeated later. This is results-driven digital marketing being built, block by block.

Use tools and spreadsheets

Digital marketing for results is done with the use of applications and tools. It will be important to evaluate each of them, so that they can be used together or separately. Using APIs (Application Programming Interface, or Application Programming Interface) it is possible to integrate tools and leverage functionalities, exchanging information between each of the applications. It is very important to consider 5 points:

• The email sending application (which may already be integrated into one of the applications) must have an excellent deliverability rate;
• Choosing the software for the sales funnel is extremely important, as it will probably be the most used during customer evaluation and relationships during the purchasing journey;
• The sales team must already be in tune with the CRM software, which, in turn, must be integrated with the marketing automation software (sales funnel);
• What I usually call “the four corners of the strategy” – the pillars of digital marketing (attraction, conversion, relationship and analysis) must be very well aligned. They are: the traffic generating event (paid media, such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc.. + SEO), the quality of the middle traffic items (website + blog + landing pages + forms), horizontal traffic (social media and email marketing campaigns) and the end of traffic (Google Analytics and any measurement tools). 
• Have your marketing strategies mapped out and compare the expected results of each segment with the results obtained. Digital marketing is ROI and measurement.

Set goals. Evaluate and evolve. Metrics, metrics, metrics…

It's worth hitting that button. Digital marketing is measurable. Therefore, constantly evaluate, in order to Evolve always. Be tireless, do A/B tests with everything, from the Adwords campaign, to the email blasts, to the landing pages… the website layout…

And don't give up, because digital marketing results is a difficult task. But rewarding.

Do you want to learn on your own how to do inbound marketing, from A to Z? Purchase the e-book Uncomplicated Digital Marketing – A Guide for Beginners in the Virtual World.

Marcel Castilho

Marcel Castilho is a specialist in digital marketing, neuromarketing, neuroscience, mindfulness and positive psychology. In addition to being an advertiser, he also has a Master's degree in Neurolinguistic Programming. He is the founder and owner of Vero Comunicação and also the digital agency Vero Contents.