Digital marketing has revolutionized the world of business, with the key to success now being the ability to engage. Whether your business sells t-shirts, cleaning products or IT solutions, your efforts in the digital space can make or break your business – so be sure your campaigns are going viral for all the right reasons. Here's a few tips to get you on the road to a flawless digital marketing campaign.

Implement cross channel promotion

The most effective digital campaigns offer a seamless connection between multiple channels, such as your website, your social media presence, and television commercials – Chipotle's Scarecrow campaign was a fantastic example.

Not only does a cross-channel approach provide a consistent experience for your customers, but it helps to deepen your overall brand messaging and appeal. While you can tweak your content based on who will be most likely to engage with each channel, keep it consistent, stay customer-focused, and use similar images and colors throughout.

Encourage sharing

Make people want to share your content by provoking an emotional response, inspiring them, being useful or entertaining. Alternately, follow Old Navy's lead and give everyone a free pair of flip-flops in exchange for a tweet!

Volvo's campaign featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme was hugely successful for several reasons, but mostly because it sparked an explosion of Jean Claude memes.

Avoid jargon, embrace simple concepts and use basic language, because the more people can understand your message, the better.

Get into specifics

Even if you are targeting a worldwide audience, having a local version of your campaign will go a long way to building a connection in specific regions.

For instance, Walmart provides the most relevant experience for its customers by way of the My Local Walmart feature on its website – here people can enter their postal code and view the information relating to their area.

Similarly, Apple has taken a diverse approach to their Facebook presence by creating several different pages, rather than just one – users choose to connect to the page most relevant to the products and services they use, allowing Apple to target their content more effectively.

Take a natural approach

Focus on quality over quantity and take the time to explain who you are and what you are doing, rather than relying on slick sales pitches and slogans.

Choose the most relevant channels as opposed to all of them (are your customers on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram?), as this will show that you understand your target audience and prevent you wasting time and energy on shouting into a void.

Most importantly, structure your campaign so it builds naturally. This will help create momentum and engage your audience – AAMI did this brilliantly with their captivating romance between Rhonda and Ketut.

Digital marketing has revolutionized the way businesses communicate, but don't just jump in unprepared. Take the time to investigate what is and isn't working, and learn how to make the most of all those fantastic new tools and technologies.

Want More?

Need more insight into how to make the most out of your business? Maybe these articles can help:

Common Social Media Mistakes to Avoid

All You Need to Know About Content Marketing

3 Easy Ways to Get a Standout Homepage

Written by Jane Murray on Thursday, September 10, 2015

Jane Murray is a freelance copywriter based in Sydney. Apart from writing up a storm for the DesignCrowd blog on anything from logo design to Michael Jackson's shoes, she enjoys reading literary science fiction and hanging out with most animals except wasps. Get in touch via LinkedIn.