In an age when everything is digital, it is vital to implement digital marketing to benefit your business. Digital marketing is simply marketing to promote your business and gain brand awareness using various technologies and marketing tactics. It is, in a sense, traditional marketing with new tactics and technicality.

This new era of marketing allows you to reach a more specific audience for your brand. Successful cleaning businesses have a marketing plan set in action that helps their business grow, which is the primary goal. Often, business owners know that marketing is required, but are not aware of the different marketing channels and how to best utilize each one.

Some types of digital marketing include:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Pay-per-click (PPC)
• Social media
• Website/content marketing
• E-mail marketing

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization or SEO is a way for your business or organization to appear on Google and similar search engines on the first or second-page rankings or rank higher than its current position. This is important because most consumers often don’t make it past the first page when searching for a company.

According to Philip Petrescu at Moz and CEO of Caphyon, a software company specializing in creating professional SEO solutions, “The first page of Google captures 71% of search traffic clicks and has been reported to be as high as 92% in recent years. Second-page results are far from a close second coming in at below 6% of all website clicks.”

SEO marketers research keywords and phrases within your industry that consumers would search for and implement them into your website to increase organic traffic to your site. SEO specialists focus on how words or phrases appear on your website and how other websites link to yours. It is important to keep in mind that SEO can become challenging because of the ever-changing algorithm of the search engine. For this reason, it is a good idea to work closely with a knowledgeable SEO company.

To succeed with SEO, keep the following in mind:

• Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly. Most consumers nowadays use their mobile devices, so make sure that the content appearing on mobile devices looks nice.
• Gain domain authority by posting regularly to your website and engage with consumers through your social media efforts. Try to become a guest blogger on your favorite websites.
• Initiate good link building by offering valuable content to editors. Google looks for good back-linking and which keywords are associated with those links. The content you link to should be quality-driven and relevant to your industry.

Pay-per-click

While SEO drives organic traffic and can take time to work, pay-per-click or PPC, is a more direct form of marketing. Pay-per-click ads will run as long as you are paying for them. Similar to SEO, PPC will also direct traffic to your website. Often, these ads can become expensive, but you only pay if someone clicks on them. PPC advertisements are the ads before YouTube videos, at the top of Google, or the advertisements that run on the side of websites while you are browsing. The cost associated with PPC will be dependent on the keywords you choose to focus on. Higher-ranking keywords will always cost more or vice versa, with lower-ranking keywords costing less.

To get the most out of your PPC budget, keep the following in mind:

• When you run your PPC campaign, choose specific locations instead of a general area.
• Investigate budget-friendly keywords that will still yield good results. Along with relevant keywords, include negative keywords that will filter unnecessary traffic.
• Be mindful of when your ad runs. Ad scheduling will allow you to run your campaign at specified times. These adjustments will also help keep to your PPC budget.
• Track your PPC ads monthly, using Google Analytics, to allocate your PPC budget efficiently.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing is all of the marketing efforts a business conducts via social media channels. Some of the most common channels include the following:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• TikTok

Each platform is different than the next, and the audiences will also differ. Keeping this in mind, social media marketing is more than just posting and replying to comments. The content must be strategic and consistent. As with other marketing efforts, the content you produce for your social media channels should be relevant, engaging, and raise your brand’s awareness. It requires creativity to allow the social media user to become your customer, increasing your company’s value.

Content marketing

Content marketing provides valuable information for your potential clients. It is an opportunity for the business owner to show their expertise in the field without sounding like a sales pitch. Content marketing can be in the form of blog posts, podcasts, or YouTube videos. It is a way to be creative with your knowledge and engage consumers with relevant content that can include how-to guides and expert tips that you provide for your readers or viewers.

Content marketing works in combination with your other digital marketing efforts. It is a long-term type of marketing, unlike PPC. Using analytic tools to measure the success of your posts will help you define your target audience and their interests.

E-mail marketing

E-mail marketing efforts are an excellent way to engage your current clientele and increase referrals from your existing customers. Offer relevant promotions to your clients to show that you care for their loyalty and patronage over the years. During the holidays, promote your gift card sales. E-mail marketing offers a way for your current clientele to stay up to date with things going on in your company.

Furthermore, try to create a quarterly newsletter that will inform your customers of expert tips, promotions, and what your company is up to while incorporating creative content from your website. E-mail marketing can also help bring back customers that once used your services but put a hold or canceled their services for one reason or another.

Digital marketing efforts are a culmination of multiple channels, and strong communication skills are at the forefront of any marketing campaign. Your message as the business owner needs to be clear. With adequate time, consistency, and powerful content, your brand’s reputation and awareness will lead to valuable sales and growth.