By Samantha Lloyd 

Digital marketing is all the rage nowadays – and there’s a good reason for it. Investing in digital marketing is a great way to succeed online and drive traffic from your customer base. If you’re a startup or small business, and you have just launched online, you are probably feeling far behind all these companies that have had years to cultivate and perfect their branding, keywords, social media presence, and more.

As you deep dive into digital marketing, you’ll realize that there are numerous pieces of the puzzle that you need to actually put together to find success in digital marketing. Last time, Hover gave you tips on how to launch your business online, and they are back this time to lend some super tips surrounding digital marketing initiatives for your startup. Read on!

Be Resourceful, Get Creative

When taking on digital marketing efforts such as running your social media pages, launching display ads, or deploying email marketing you need some pretty snazzy graphic design skills to get to work… or so you thought! Thankfully, there are many awesome free tools available online to help you launch professional-looking campaigns.

The favorite and most widely known is Canva, which is a drag and drop graphic design tool that offers a plethora of free art, icons, photos, and templates to work with. You can also use this tool to make some awesome print media for your business, but that’s a discussion for another time!

Consider your Domain Name

You are already aware that your website design needs to be slick so as to keep your customers engaged, however, the whole point of digital marketing is to have them land on it. If your domain name isn’t reflective of your brand, you could lose or confuse customers. There is SEO value in owning country or region-specific domain names too. 

There are also countless new and exciting domain extensions that clearly indicate what people can expect when they land on your website.  For instance, .tech is dedicated to technology businesses and .store is specific for eCommerce and retail businesses. There is a domain out there to represent every niche market – so grab a standout domain name for your needs and drive your traffic to your awesome landing page or website.

Make the Most of Stock Photos and Videos

Yes, we have all seen those hilarious stock photo memes peppering the Internet. Thankfully, not all stock photos are quite as hilarious. In fact, some are downright awesome. If you find a photo released under CC0 it means that it’s released under the Creative Commons license which means “No Rights Reserved”. You’re free to use it in any which way.

Here are some of our favorite stock photography websites are:

1. Pexels – A wide variety of great high-quality photos for social media.
2. Burst: New and updated images and a lot of great office, teamwork, and people images.
3. Kaboom: Arranges the photo selection by color to create a theme. 
4. Pixabay: Pixabay has nearly every CC0 image on the internet on their website. If you’re looking for art, icons, vector graphics, images, or videos, Pixabay has it.

Our recommendations for stock video websites are:

1. Coverr: Beautiful videos for your website.
2. Pexels Video: Awesome videos that would suit video work or social media.
3. Pixabay Video: Pixabay has numerous options. 

Write Awesome Customer-Centric Content

We know that you want to fill the Internet with all of your awesome ideas and become a thought leader in your market. To do this, you need to write content that not only hits keywords and targets searches and trends of your audience but also directly answers your target market’s search queries.

Remember, if you are not answering your audience’s top questions, you will struggle to attract your audience to your website and have them rely on you for answers. Content marketing still reigns as a great method for driving traffic and engagement, however, be sure to tailor your content.

So, there you have it. A clear focus and strategy can help you go a long way in ensuring your startup’s success.

SAMANTHA LLOYD

Samantha is a digital marketing expert and entrepreneur. She currently works for Tucows, taking on the content marketing role for their subsidiary, Hover. She loves filling you in on the booming tech industry of Toronto, and beyond. When she’s not working, she lives for travel and the ocean and is always looking for a chance to dive, snorkel, and recently – *attempting* to surf!