Alaine Anderson, Digital Strategist and Implementer at Joining Vision and Action – Previous Blog

With so many advertisements and media competing for attention now days, use these four techniques to be a better digital marketer. We constantly are trying to find a way out of the weeds and new ways to differentiate our organizations against the plethora of other organizations that are doing very similar work.

Techniques to be a better digital marketer.

Unfortunately, what I can’t do is give you a quick and easy solution to solve something that thousands of others have been trying to solve. What I can do? Give you some pointers about the mindset you need to adopt to succeed as a digital marketer for social change.

Be a learner.

With everything constantly changing in the digital field, it isn’t enough to go to school, get the degree and do the job. The learning is never over. To be a great marketer you need to keep your finger on the pulse, read blogs, follow experts, experiment and test. Don’t let yourself get comfortable because that is when you are going to fail.

Stay optimistic.

Sure, not everything you try is going to work. When you see those statistics go down, don’t panic. This is the ebb and flow of analytics and testing. If something doesn’t work then try something else. Look back at your past posts, figure out which ones worked and compare this to the analytics on your site. Is there a pattern to who is finding your content appealing?

In my experience at JVA, I’ve noticed that our job postings and blogs do significantly better on social media than other material. This relates directly to our website analytics where a high percentage are going to our job board and internship page. This would be great if I was only aiming for website traffic, but, as with all marketing, I am looking to attract sales-ready leads. As a result, I’m planning to change out content over the course of the next few weeks to see how to better engage with people looking for trainings and other services.

No system is perfect and sometimes all you can do is try. If you feel paralyzed to post or create content, read this.

Speaking of new jobs: We are currently looking for a Grants Project Manager!

Know your audience.

Effective marketing comes from knowing your audience—who they are, where they are, how they operate and what they care about. This knowledge will help you craft your content to resonate with them, and also prevent you from wasting time on platforms that target all the wrong groups. At JVA, for example, our audience is people who care passionately about community and social change. It’s helpful to create personas and ask coworkers and leaders whom they want to target through marketing. Stop seeing the analytics as numbers and try to understand the people behind them.

Find your idols.

When I say idols, I’m talking about those who are getting thousands of likes, posting unique and inspiring content, and seem to have it all figured out. They are the masters; they’ve found their stride and are sticking to it. Humans learn by modeling behavior. If you see something that’s working, study it. Ask yourself these questions:

  • Who’s their audience?
  • How often do they post?
  • How often do they blog?
  • What kinds of posts seem to have the most engagement?

Study their techniques and learn from their successes. 

That’s all for now! Plenty more digital marketing tips to come.