At the Union, nothing gives us more pleasure than helping our clients grow their business.  And you cannot build a profitable enterprise without a strong structure.  So we put together this infographic to outline our 5 pillars of digital marketing.

It all starts with your brand and the assets you are publishing in the digital world to connect with your target audience.  Gone are the days when DTC brands could slap together a store and drive traffic with product images or a few clever video clips.  Make sure you have high quality social/advertising assets.  All of the ubiquitous platforms will reward you with lower CPM’s in exchange for bringing engaging content to their users.  And of course, you can never underestimate the power of standing out in a crowd.  So take pride in your brand and don’t skimp when it comes to creating content.

Now we would all love for our product to “go viral” or earn a top organic spot on a search engine results page, but that’s not realistic for most brands.  So how is a marketer to get their product in front of the right audience?  It usually starts with paid media.  You can waste a lot of money with the wrong strategy.  So before you go for the kill and try to drive immediate revenue, take a step back and make sure you have a plan in place.  Of course, you may have to pivot based on the story that your data presents, but setting the table to create a cohesive customer journey is wise. Remember you don't have to invest in every ad platform in existence. Choose one or two that you feel are right for your brand and go deep.

And once you have traffic clicking through to your site, it is critical that you have an optimized experience.  There’s nothing worse than paying to get prospects to your store, only to have them get lost and bounce.  Make sure your landing pages are built based on where users are coming from and that your proposition is clearly stated.  Then once you have them hooked, don’t let them get away because of a poor checkout interface.  Test your site from a new user perspective and verify that even the least experienced online consumer can easily complete a transaction.

You don’t really have a business if you only sell to customers one time.  Repeat purchases and ultimately brand loyalty are fundamental to creating a long lasting enterprise.  So how do we nurture that relationship in a noisy environment?  Inspire your customers to tune in by offering them valuable content and a personalized experience.  Email and SMS Marketing have become the default tools in our digital marketing arsenal, and when used properly can enhance your relationship with all customers - new and returning.  If you want to have brand fanatics, then don’t make every message transactional.  Offer valuable and/or entertaining content.  Create community or just make sure they have a fantastic experience at every touch point.

And finally, eCommerce is a data driven game.  If you don’t have data collection tools in place and a measurement plan, then chances are your business will not be growing.  There’s lots of metrics you can track, but feel free to click on over to our post where we detail the 7 most important KPIs for your online business.

‍