In our interconnected world, digital marketing has proven to be imperative for every existing business out there. While it can sound a little overwhelming, at the core of it, digital marketing is essentially marketing your brand online via various digital channels. Digital marketing in Singapore has drastically evolved even in just the last five years due to the rapid digital transformation that has taken place. The question is — how do you digitally market your brand in Singapore? From creating user personas to analysing your competitors or deciding on marketing channels and even executing an entire digital marketing campaign, there are lots that a creative agency in Singapore can do for you. But first, let’s explore some fundamentals.
What is Digital Marketing?
Good ol’ marketing often involves the process of understanding your audience, taking the necessary steps to build meaningful relationships with them and then make the effort to maintain these relationships or even expand your reach. Digital marketing is digitising this entire process where you connect and engage with consumers by taking it online. Now, there are numerous mediums in which businesses today use to connect with their audience, but you just have to find out what works best for you.
Step 1: Define your user personas
First things first, you need to know who you are marketing to. The key to an effective digital marketing campaign can come from defining the right target audience. Your buyers exist somewhere out there, and you just have to specify exactly the group of people you want to be communicating to. In order to do this, you can conduct surveys, focus groups, or interviews. You’ll also need to ask insightful questions that’ll help you address any pain points, find out what can convince them to convert to consumers or what you need to do to retain your existing ones. Some questions you can ask will include:
- What is your age?
- What is the range of your income?
- What characteristics do you look out for in a brand?
- What is the most important factor you consider when purchasing a new product? E.g. Price, Packaging, Reviews etc.
Of course, the list goes on and should be tailored to the industry your business is in and the type of product or service you offer. Asking these questions will allow you to identify the different marketing channels you’ll activate to effectively convey your brand message. By defining all the nitty-gritty details, this can help you get a headstart into mapping your digital marketing strategy.
Step 2: Analyse competitors and evaluate your brand’s strengths and weaknesses
It is important to know who you’re competing with out there and what competitive edge you have over them. Once you conduct your audience research (in step 1) and find out which competitors your potential consumers are already engaging with, you can start to analyse your competitors and work on your brand’s unique selling point(s) (USP). This way, you’re able to find out what marketing strategies other brands have employed, what worked (or did not work) for them, what you can do to better your approach or even what you can do differently for your own consumers.
For instance, McDonald’s holds the largest market share in Singapore while KFC is the most popular fast-food chain in China. This shows that every very market is different, so take the time to analyse your playing field. Then suss out your competition and identify your brand’s position. This is a good time to discover what sets you apart and to pinpoint any gaps between your brand and its consumers.
Step 3: Identify marketing goals
Every digital marketing campaign works towards a goal (or goals) and there is something they want to achieve. Relative to the brand’s wants and needs, the goals definitely vary for each company. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do I want to increase my revenue? If so, by how much?
- Do I want to increase sales conversions? Or increase website traffic?
- Do I want to establish a social media presence? How many followers or what level of engagement do I want to achieve?
Establishing goals here will set the path and the framework for your campaign to take place. Keep in mind to strive for realistic goals within a certain time frame.
Step 4: Decide on marketing channels
The digital marketing channels you decide to utilise will need to ultimately address your marketing goals. Essentially, if you wish to increase your Facebook following by 20%, you wouldn’t be focusing too much of your efforts on Instagram or YouTube. Start by laying down all your options and narrow down which strategies will work for you. Let’s have a look at some of the digital marketing strategies that you can consider:
- Search engine optimization
A very niche category in the world of digital marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO) is a very much needed asset for every business. SEO fundamentally means trying to rank your website pages/blogs on Google organically. This option will require a little more time and effort but can yield amazing results. - Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM), on the other hand, are paid listings to drive more traffic to your website. This is a more straight-forward approach that can bring you quicker results as compared to SEO. - Content marketing
Often confused between any form of marketing, content marketing is a valuable piece of content that is marketed to engage and build meaningful relationships with consumers. This can come in the form of videos, blog articles, infographics or even podcasts! Content marketing allows the freedom of exploring how else you can value-add the lives of your consumers. This, in turn, develops a connection of trust and reliability consumers can have with your brand when they turn to you for more educational content. - Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one we’re all too familiar with. It is almost impossible to scroll Instagram or Facebook without seeing a ‘Sponsored’ post today. And that is what makes social media a hot spot for advertisers and marketers to engage with their audience. With the constant shift in the social media landscape, digital marketers also have the opportunity to explore various forms of content on various platforms. - Pay-per-click advertising
As the name suggests, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is “a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked”. That means every time a user clicks into your website, you pay Google a small fee. This, of course, means that you’d only stand to gain when you earn a profit from the amount you paid for a user to click in. - Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a way to tap on to your potential partners’ consumer base. You basically promote a brand that you resonate well with and earn a commission out of it when a sale is made from your promotion. Not quite the same as influencer marketing, as affiliate marketing often requires you to promote another brand on your own website and you often work with established brand names and influential figures. - Email marketing
Email marketing is one of the more popular options that many brands have adopted and are continually doing so. It is the process of sending emails to prospects and customers where brands feature weekly updates, new videos posted or new product/service launches. Think WhatsApp broadcast group but in email. It is quick, can be effective when used right and highly trackable.
With so many umbrella options available, how do you pick the ones that will work best for you? Based on steps 1-3, you should have a rough gauge on which platforms your consumers are active on, which they prefer or where your potential competitors are thriving on. This will give you an idea of where you think your brand could benefit most from. Moreover, the platform you choose to leverage should correspond to the budget you choose to allocate for your entire digital marketing strategy.
Step 5: Execute!
The most exciting part of the entire digital marketing campaign — the execution of your digital marketing campaign. We’ve covered research, brainstorming and the big idea so now we’re left to execute. For the most part, many brands hire a creative agency to execute their digital marketing campaigns. Lucky for you, we do exactly just that!
Step 6: Monitor metrics & observe trends
One of the biggest pros of opting for digital marketing is that it is absolutely trackable. This makes monitoring a lot easier when you can see precisely how your ads or campaigns are doing. Using platforms like Facebook Ads Manager or Google Analytics, knowing how many people clicked into your website is as easy as a few clicks. With that, you are able to trace which methods have worked the best for you and which other ways you can try to reach out to a larger audience instead.
At the same time, it is good to identify any new digital marketing trends that you can ride on simultaneously during your campaign. This will give you a deeper insight as to how your campaign has performed and learning points for any upcoming ones.
Let’s get down to business
As of mid-2020, Singapore had the second-highest rate of internet penetration within the Southeast Asian region, at 88.4 per cent. So it’s safe to say that digital marketing can only get better and bigger from here. If you still have questions, check out our digital marketing FAQ for starters. Otherwise, you can also chat us up if you want to grow your business with digital marketing today.
