The 10 Commandments of Digital Marketing

In pretty much every financial book I've every read they hammered into my head Diversification! Simply defined it means the process of a business enlarging or varying its range of products or field of operation. As an investor this means you buy stock in multiple industries and companies to ensure that if one of them falls on hard times you're still good. Basically, don't put all your eggs in one basket (I know this one has been said thousands of times).

However, even though this statement may be cliche it gives us insight to how we can succeed with digital marketing. Here's the reality, digital marketing has many channels to help you grow your business or brand you should make sure you exploit tons of them. What platform best connects with your audience? What's is the best way to deliver your message? How can you get the same point across in different ways? Digital marketing is perfect to answer this question.

Here's a simple example! Let's say you have a product or service that requires a lot of explanation. Well you might be best served by growing a following on YouTube! But Wait! Just because you produce long-form content doesn't mean you need to neglect the other channels. You can take the best parts of that long-form content and then cut it up and use it on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or even LinkedIn or Pinterest. You might find your audience responds more on different networks but if you focus on one platform you'll never know.

Good Investors spread their portfolio over many investments! Do you remember MySpace? What about Friendster? I'm pretty sure a lot of people are still on Vine, right? If you can't tell I'm being sarcastic because many people built entire careers around these platforms and when they died so did their careers. Now, some of them were able to transition but if they had already had a strategy that targeted multiple channels they would have saw one going away as a minor inconvenience. This is why good digital marketer like investor diversify across many platforms to ensure they are always visible to customers.

One last thing Money Goes Where Attention Flows the Power of Attention. The most valuable currency online is attention. Think about it what do the social media networks sell? If you guest your attention then you would be correct. This is why, accounts that keep you on the platform are so important. There is no reason to go against the grain here. Find the networks that capture the most attention and put yourself on them. Your product has greater chance to be purchased or your brand is going to gain more followers if you go where people are already gathering. Also, keep in mind that there may be new social networks in the future. Don't be scared to experiment with new platforms. You might catch a trend at the beginning and cash in on the popularity of a new network.

There’s the hard way to do things, the smart way to do things, and a way to basically not do anything at all. I get it most people think that working hard is the only way to prove you're a real entrepreneur. Don't misunderstand me I believe in hard work. However, why would you work hard when there is an easy way to get something done. We use machines to life heavy objects because it wouldn't make sense to try to get 100 people together to move a concrete slab. In the same way you shouldn't work harder that you need to when it comes to digital marketing.

Now I'm going to say something that is the most powerful business concept you'll ever learn, but most people either don't know it or just don't implement it very well. I'm talking about SYSTEMS! I made it uppercase for a reason. Systems are what allow you to automate a process by making it repeatable and predictable. I may sound fancy, but it's really just documenting you processes step by step and then getting someone else or a software to perform the task for you. In the online world there are so many opportunities to automate task to accomplish more with less effort and stress.

A friend of mind told me an acronym using this word and I want to share it with you. System stands for Save Yourself Stress Time Energy & Money! To be honest, I could write an entire book on how to utilize systems in your business. Maybe if there is a demand I'll make a specific article about it. What I want to give you in this article is something simple to remember. It's called Gall's law. Your systems don't have to start out complex. For example, you could have a 4 step process for posting on Instagram, then after mastering that process you add on to it. Gall's law states:

This just means that start simple and work your way up. Platforms like Facebook let you automate post and even advertising by setting rules that will operate your campaigns for you. I like to follow a methodology I learned from programming! DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). The idea was that if you found yourself coding the same thing over and over, you should create a function or class (A little code talk for repeatable segments of code that can be used in other applications) so you only code things once! Your systems are the same way, if you find yourself doing something over and over, find a way to automate it.

Work smarter not harder and eventually automate and not work on it at all. This should be your mantra or if you don't like that idea at least automate processes that don't require you specifically, so you can focus on doing things that you really enjoy.

Take the blue pill and story, but take the red pill see how deep the rabbit hole goes. I love the original Matrix, I don't know what the hell Matrix 4 is, but I'm getting away from the article. In that movie, Neo is given the choice between taking the red pill or the blue pill. The beauty about digital marketing is you can take both.

If you've ever read Built to Last, by Jerry Porras and Jim Collins, you'll know they discourage entrepreneurs from falling in to "or" thinking. Here's an example of "or" thinking. We should improve customer service or product quality. Often times in business we fall victim to this. However, they recommend we switch to "AND" thinking. We should improve our customer service and our product quality. You see the difference?

Digital marketing allows us to test both options of everything to see which performs better. Does a blue button or a red button convert better? Which headline connects with the audience? Which picture causes more conversions? The great thing about this is you can test them all and never have to guess.

Often called split testing, A/B test consist of trying two or more versions of a variable (page element, web page, button, headlines, page copy, etc.) on a website by showing different versions to different visitors at the same time to see which creates a larger impact.

Platforms like Facebook allow you to split test different creatives, headlines, and even copy (descriptions) so you can see which ad performs better. You combine that with a platform like Clickfunnels which allows you to test different landing page variations and you can test until you find out what is the most effective way to convert people into customers.

It's simple there is no need to guess, just test, and fin out what's best! Most people market with gut feeling and ego. While overtime your gut feeling might lead to getting the campaign right, you should always confirm your theories and suspicions through testing.

NFT's, Crypto, and Streaming services all popular trends at the time of writing this video. However, so many people are so reluctant to jump on a trend as if they are proving something by not participating. Once again most of the time it's ego. I'll be honest with you, I was one of these people who trashed social media because I thought it was shallow. Until one day I realized that it's not the platform but me that was being shallow. Not to go on a tangent, but you can choose what you want to see on social media. So, if you follow gossip and negativity well that's what your social media will be.

There's a great commercial with Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm where they display every major invention throughout history and he tells the inventors how they wasted their time creating it. Here's the commercial below.

Besides being a great commercial and marketing for FTX (I'm not affiliated with them, but great commercial) This illustrates a very common attitude towards anything new or trending. People have the tendency to feel a sense of superiority because they are not going with the trend. Yet, sometimes the trend could be the next breakthrough that can launch your brand or businesses in to superstar status.

Here's the harsh reality, trends are always coming and going we can't do anything about it. However, we can create a clear vision of what we want to create and fit trends to conform to that vision. By doing this we are able to capitalize on every trend without compromising who we are. Our goal is to enter the conversation already going on in the mind of customers.

Coca Cola has dominated for over a century, but there was a time in the 90's where Pepsi almost overtook Coca Cola as the market leader. Pepsi launched it's Pepsi Generation marketing campaign. Coca Cola had a stronghold on the older demographic so Pepsi decided to go after the youth. Slowly there market share grew as the younger audience felt like Pepsi was the new trending soda for young people. They even had Michael Jackson do a remix of his hit Billie Jean.

For the first time in history Coca Cola was feeling the pressure. However Pepsi was about to make a huge mistake. You see as their market share continue to climb they felt it was time to take Pepsi head on. So, they began to shift their marketing to go after an older crowd. This turned out to be the deathblow for them as Coca Cola regain market share because they abandoned there winning trend. If you want to read the full story you can read about it in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

Trends get a bad reputation as being shallow or superficial but every major business or movement started as a trend. Not only that, they capitalize on popular trends of the time and use them to massively grow their following. If you want to master digital marketing capitalize on trends and take advantage of all new and emerging Trends.

I remember in 2006 when Facebook first appeared on our campus. My friend told me it would never be like MySpace. if you even remember MySpace you will understand how ridiculous this statement sounds. Yet, so many people take this approach o diving into new platforms. A good friend of this blog CountryCowboyy grew a following fast in the early days of Instagram because he was an early adopter. You want to see if it's the next big thing before it become the thing that use to be.

Have you ever heard of Vine? Many people made their fortune by becoming influencers on vine. When vine shutdown those who where smart move their audience to another platform. Digital marketing is unforgiving. A platform could be here today and gone tomorrow this is why Facebook is always copying the best features from competing platforms to keep their network relevant.

Snapchat was all the rage at one point because it allow you to create little mini-stories of your life. Snapchat began to pull a significant amount of people from Instagram but Facebook had other plans. Boom! Instagram stories emerge and shifts everyone back to their platform. So, what does Facebook recognize that most people don't? It's simple! Explore why new platforms are great and duplicate. What this means for you is always see what new platforms are emerging because they could be where you businesses finds it's wings.

Piss Poor Preparation Promotes Piss Poor Performance, Piss Poor Performance Promotes Pain! The 12P's. I learned this in college and it's still in my head when I think about starting any project. I'll be honest, this is a rule I constantly have to remind myself not to forget. There are a lot of different ways to do research however in the digital marketing space there are some methods that stand above the rest.

The easiest way to be successful is to see what works and model your campaigns after that. I have had the tendency to reinvent the wheel and it resulted in me losing thousands of dollars when all I had to do is see what was working and model my own campaigns after that. Here are a couple of spy tools that are really good for checking out the competition.

These are just a couple of examples of tools you can use to learn about a market before you ever start and advertising campaign. Doing your research beforehand can literally save you thousands of dollars. I have literally flushed money down a sinkhole because I was too stubborn or too caught in my ego to do the right research beforehand. Sun Tzu in The Art of War said, "Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated". When you have an idea of what works you give yourself the greatest chance to succeed.

Without a destination you'll find you usually don't end up where you want to be! It's pretty simple. However, you would be surprised at how many people just start making marketing materials and running campaigns without any clear objectives. The question you might be asking at this point is exactly how does one set clear objectives?

The easiest way to be successful is to see what works and model your campaigns after that. I have had the tendency to reinvent the wheel and it resulted in me losing thousands of dollars when all I had to do is see what was working and model my own campaigns after that. Here are a couple of spy tools that are really good for checking out the competition.

Once you understand how to set a definite objective it will make all your marketing efforts easier because you will know exactly where you're going.

Content is K....! Oh yeah we talked about this already. However, it is worth emphasizing again. Content is visibility. In the digital age, if you don't have content you basically don't exist. You could have an amazing product, great customer service, and a absolutely beautiful brand, yet if you don't produce content nobody will ever know who you are.

If you're a Gary Vaynerchuck fan you might know he talks about producing 1000 pieces of content a day. not easy but his content strategy is really simple at it's core. Basically you take time to produce a long-form piece of content and shorten it into other pieces of content. Every post counts as a piece of content, so if you post 100 times on Twitter that counts as 100 pieces of content. While in the beginning you might not hit this number the point is you should be outputting massive amounts of content if you want to break through the noise.

At the time of writing this platforms like TikTok offer a huge opportunity to grow your business. Users are still going viral and bringing massive amounts of traffic to their businesses. You have the ability to produce across multiple platforms and keep your brand in the minds of the people.

The digital world is a fast growing and evolving landscape that requires some knowledge to navigate properly. Hopefully in this article I have given you some tools that you can use to make the digital world a little bit easier master. Use these 10 commandments and you can find great success, ignore them and you will see your marketing campaigns fall flatter than the tires of old pickup in the back of broke down shack. Digital marketing provides an opportunity to reach millions of people use these tools wisely. Keep taking action! Massive Action Movement.