9 Best Digital Marketing Tips and Strategies For Beginners
If you are a novice business owner seeking to grow your business in this day and age, you will need to arm yourself with essential digital marketing tips and strategies.
After all, your competitors will be doing the same, and you shouldn’t fall behind.
From creating buyer personas to examples of successful digital campaigns, this article covers the best tips and strategies to get you started with digital marketing.
You’ll also learn how to use and create QR codes for your mobile-first marketing strategies by using the best QR code generator online.
Table of Contents
- What is digital marketing?
- How to do effective digital marketing?
- Best digital marketing tips for your business
- Successful digital marketing strategy examples
- How can dynamic QR codes help in digital marketing?
- How to use a QR code generator with logo for your next digital marketing campaign
- Create your marketing QR codes with QR TIGER QR code generator
- FAQs
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is the act of using websites, apps, social media, and other digital methods to advertise products and services. They can appear on computers, phones, tablets, and other devices and can take the form of:
- videos
- display ads
- social media posts
The same principles apply to traditional marketing. However, the challenge in digital marketing is standing out from your competitors in the digital space.
How to do effective digital marketing?
Digital marketing involves reaching and engaging with your target audience using a combination of strategies and tactics online. To do this effectively, you will need to find the best way of doing these while minimizing costs.
When thinking of effective digital marketing, a question that needs to be answered is, “What should a digital marketing strategy include?” This will entirely depend on your business, your budget, and your goals.
Several tactics are available, but you will have to choose the best ones to market your business effectively.
An example of combining strategies is including the best QR code marketing campaigns campaigns. By displaying your QR code on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google, you can target specific demographics while driving traffic to your website.
Other strategies that you can include in your overall plans include:
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Mobile marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media marketing
Best digital marketing tips for your business
To help you with marketing your business online, we’ve gathered a list of tips you can follow below:
Know your target audience
One of the most important things to know before promoting your business is who your services are for. While everyone can have overlapping interests and needs, it is best to specifically target those that will benefit the most by doing business with you.
Market research is necessary to identify your target audience. If you want to know how to get better at digital marketing, performing research on your target audience is a good start. One way to do this is to ask your current customers to answer a survey or give feedback.
You should also remember that your target audiences will differ if you look for them on several platforms. When conducting market research, note your customer bases on the platforms you check.
Create buyer personas
After gathering data on your target audience, it’s time to build buyer personas. A buyer persona is a representation of the ideal customer. Creating one helps you customize your digital marketing strategy to best fit your customer’s needs.
When building buyer personas, consider all the data you’ve gathered so far. These can include demographical information like:
- Age
- Gender
- Social media platform
- Job type
- Interests
Choose the best digital marketing method for your business
As described previously, an effective digital marketing strategy involves combining several methods to promote your business and attract customers.
This is why one of the most important digital marketing tips you need to follow is to determine which ones will provide the most return on investment (ROI).
For example, promoting an online store can be done through paid advertisements, social media marketing, and SEO.
If you are promoting a service to others, you can combine SEO, content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, a referral platform.
Make your website mobile-friendly
These days, almost everyone has access to a smartphone. Whether it’s for social media or research, many of our day-to-day routines are done through our fingertips.
If your business has a website, making it mobile-friendly makes it more accessible to others. This is especially important these days, as statistics show that 54.67% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices.
Optimizing your website this way goes beyond creating a mobile version. The content within has to load quickly to make it less convenient for customers.
This means you should keep your content informative yet concise through text, infographics, and videos. You should also optimize multimedia content on your website to speed up your pages.
Be visible on social media platforms
In this age of social media, it is crucial to have a strong social media presence. After all, for your digital marketing plans to succeed, you will need to promote your business to 5.07 billion social media users worldwide.
Aside from the most well-known sites like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn, there are other sites to tap into, such as Reddit and Discord.
To find the best ones to break into, use the data gathered during your market research and start building your presence there.
Combine SEO and content marketing
Content marketing is a very common digital marketing strategy where valuable and engaging content is created at a consistent pace to attract customers. This can come in the form of blog posts, infographics, and social media posts.
Business owners can create social media posts and infographics themselves using unique free templates and tools.
On the other hand, SEO is optimizing your website and content to make them easily discoverable and popular on search engines like Google.
When your content is optimized, people who look up something related to your business are very likely to see it first in the search results.
Remember when we mentioned combining different marketing strategies? Combining SEO and content marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tips we have to offer.
By optimizing the content you constantly put up online, you maintain an online presence and make your business easy to find and remember.
Closely track the performance of your marketing
Even after determining your digital marketing strategy and planning out its deployment, your efforts will be in vain if you don’t track and analyze its performance.
One campaign will not be enough to promote your business, so it’s important to study what works and what doesn’t constantly.
By doing this, you can invest more into a certain aspect of your campaign and let go of a strategy that didn’t return much.
For example, if you are using QR codes in your digital marketing efforts, it is important to track QR code analytics so you’ll know which part of your campaigns are excelling.
Use digital marketing tools
To perform well in anything, you will need the best tool for the job. When it comes to digital marketing, the best tools are those that will make the virtual side of your business more efficient and effective.
A very common but effective tool is video. According to a survey by Wistia in 2023, product videos accounted for 43% of all videos created that year.
With platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, creating videos should be on any business owner’s digital marketing strategy.
Another digital marketing tool you can use is QR codes. They are a type of barcode that uses pixels instead of lines. This technology connects your customers to the digital side of your business, which should include your website and social media.
What makes QR codes a great tool is their effectiveness in lead generation and conversion. Several digital marketing strategy examples make use of this tool as it is simply a convenient way of engaging with customers.
When a person sees a QR code on your ad, all they have to do is scan it with their smartphone to see what you’re promoting.
Other kinds of digital marketing tools you can use include:
- content creation and management tools
- social media management tools
- project management tools
- customer relationship management (CRM) systems
- marketing automation tools
Successful digital marketing strategy examples
Now that you know how to make an effective digital marketing strategy, it’s time to look into examples of successful campaigns!
Coinbase’s Super Bowl QR code ad
During the Super Bowl, the cryptocurrency company Coinbase broadcast an ad to viewers that featured a QR code that bounced whenever it touched a side of the screen.
Similar to the famous DVD logo screensaver, the QR code directed scanners to the company’s promotional website and offered a limited-time promotion of $15 worth of free Bitcoin to new users.
This ad was so successful that the sudden influx of visitors caused the Coinbase app to crash.
Burger King’s QR code campaign during VMAs
During MTV’s Video Music Awards (VMAs) in 2020, Burger King ran a promotion during the broadcast that encouraged users to download the Burger King app.
The reason? The award show also featured QR codes on the screen that would activate several offers, including an entire year of free Whoppers and tickets to 2021’s VMAs.
These codes can only be used with the app, which led to several viewers downloading the Burger King app and signing up.
Lacoste’s QR codes during the French Open
During the 2019 French Open, Lacoste and NBC collaborated to add QR codes at key moments of the tournament.
These QR codes would lead to Lacoste’s online store, where viewers were offered products from the Lacoste X Novak Djokovic Collection.
QR code collaboration between Studio Pierrot and McDonald’s
In a collaboration with some of the biggest names in anime and manga, McDonald’s came up with a unique marketing strategy by becoming their anime version, WcDonalds.
Aside from the name and aesthetic change, WcDonald’s also released a new savory chili sauce that came with QR codes on its food packaging. These codes directed customers to a whole new anime by Studio Pierrot.
Once a week, customers can get access to the anime’s four mini-episodes as well as short mangas by Acky Bright.
Product information from Dove’s QR codes
Lastly, Dove began a QR campaign called “Know Your Product” that added codes to bus stands and metro stations. These codes would lead customers to a web page that contained information on Dove’s products.
These included the item’s ingredients, manufacturing process, and impact on the environment.
Aside from giving information, the QR codes also gave easy access to Dove’s website. This allowed customers to post questions and feedback, building a stronger connection with the company.
How can dynamic QR codes help in digital marketing?
Track and analyze scanning data
If you are wondering how do dynamic QR codes work for digital marketing, this is the answer. Because QR codes use a short URL that directs people to the actual content you want to share, this address can be tracked.
Information that can be tracked include:
- Number of total and unique scans over time
- Scans by device type
- Location and time of scans
- Top 5 locations your QR code was scanned
- Heat map and charts
Edit any QR code
Another benefit is being able to edit a QR code even after it is generated. This is thanks to the fact that you aren’t changing the information embedded in the code’s data modules. Instead, you are editing the information the short URL links to.
By doing this, you can update your digital marketing campaigns at any time without needing to redeploy your QR codes.
Gain access to more QR code types
Because of their dynamic nature, you are able to generate different types of QR codes for your campaigns. Depending on your needs, a dynamic QR code platform can generate the exact QR code type you need for your marketing efforts.
Each type differs in terms of storage, error correction levels, and use cases.
Take advantage of FOMO
One way to get people’s attention is by using the concept of “Fear of missing out” (FOMO). How would people miss out on QR codes? Well, if the content behind your codes are only available for a limited time.
Do free QR codes expire forever? Only dynamic QR codes do, so make sure you generate this type of code before giving out offers and incentives.
Personalize your QR code
One of the many benefits of using dynamic QR codes is the ability to customize them to match your brand’s identity.
Catch people’s attention with unique patterns and eye shapes and reach more eyes and get more scans. You can even include a frame with a call-to-action and your logo for more brand recognition.
How to use a QR code generator with logo for your next digital marketing campaign
Digital marketing is key to your business's success in this virtual age. However, the real world is still out there, and it is teeming with marketing opportunities.
This is a great chance to use QR codes to your advantage. They’re easy to generate and deploy in your promotional materials, adding a digital dimension even to your offline campaigns.
To make a custom, branded QR code, follow these steps:
1. Open QR TIGER on your browser.
2. Choose one of the over 16 QR code solutions and provide the necessary information.
4. Select between static and dynamic QR and click the Generate QR code button.
Pro Tip: Use a dynamic QR code to access these perks: edit content and design after generating, track scan data, add expiry, retarget, and many more.
You can start with a Freemium plan where you can create three dynamic QR codes. Sign up now—no credit card details required.
5. Customize your QR code by changing the eye shape, colors, and patterns. You can also add your company’s logo and a call to action using a frame.
6. Check if your QR code works with a quick scan test using your smartphone.
7. Download your QR code in PNG or SVG format.
With your QR code ready, it’s time to add it to your marketing campaign and boost your business.
Create your marketing QR codes with QR TIGER QR code generator
Starting a business is a difficult but fruitful endeavor but running it is a different matter entirely. Marketing is an important part of this, so you will need to use the right tools and strategies. One of them is through the use of QR codes.
If you are looking for a QR code platform, we have the platform for you. With our advanced software, you can create and customize effective QR codes for your digital campaigns.
With the power of QR codes, your mobile-first digital marketing strategies can reach a wider audience with a simple scan from your customers’ smartphones. Combining them with the digital marketing tips found in this article, you’ll establish yourself in the market in no time.
Trusted by more than 850,000 brands in the US and around the world, our platform is all you need. Join them and make your marketing QR codes today!
FAQs
What should a digital marketing strategy include?
To create an effective digital marketing strategy, you should have a defined goal, a target audience, a style of messaging, channels to promote in, and the different tactics and methods to be used during the campaign.
What are the 7 C's of digital marketing?
The 7 C's of digital marketing are:
- Customer
- Content
- Community
- Context
- Convenience
- Cohesion
- Conversion
What are the 5 main strategies of digital marketing?
The five main strategies of digital marketing are:
- SEO
- PPC advertising
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
