Digital Marketing for Digital Nomads
Published on October 5, 2021
If you’re reading this from a coffee shop - while you also have spreadsheets, sales reports, or your personal portfolio open in other tabs at the same time - you might just be a digital nomad.
Today, technology has made it easier than ever to get work done without having to tether yourself to a traditional office. Digital suites, Skype, task managers, messaging apps like Slack - all of these innovations have made it possible for people, and perhaps even entire businesses, to work without having to ground themselves in place.
For some people, this means getting to work from the comfort of home. For others, it means making stops at a shared office space, or the classic coffee shop. And for still more, embracing the life of a digital nomad means truly hitting the road, working and traveling all at the same time.
Our friends over at Hubspot have a great article spotlighting some digital nomads turning work into a vacation, available here. One big takeaway from that read, for us Geeks, was this: Embracing the traveling lifestyle and combining it with work can be an amazing opportunity, one that leads to increased productivity and more “moonshot” thinking. But it can also mean having to make sacrifices - when it comes to time and when it comes to budget.
But here’s one sacrifice you shouldn’t have to make: digital marketing.
Whether you’re a startup without a dedicated office space, an entrepreneur on to the go, or the head of a department who gets more done working remotely, it’s still important that you’re always bringing in fresh leads and clients for your business. And there’s nothing like a digital marketing strategy, rooted in creative, compelling content, to keep bringing in those essential opportunities.
Why digital marketing for digital nomads? Here are three important things to keep in mind:
1.) Results Will Keep Coming In - Even When You’re Not Working
There are some marketing strategies that require a constant investment of time, energy, and money. Paying for conventional advertising for instance, requires a consistent evaluation of results and budgeting. Some digital methods such as Google Ads similarly require a lot of hands-on attention - and a great deal of financial planning.
These are methods that we traditionally think of as “outbound” marketing. You are reaching out, and actively trying to bring in new leads. In contrast, many brands have greater success with digital marketing strategies that are more inbound.
Inbound marketing is all about creating content that enables your next customers to find you. You (or a company) creates the content and put it into the world, and your next client discovers it, enters into a conversion funnel, and makes their way to you. It’s an active process - but you get to be substantially more hands-off than you would with more conventional advertising. Inbound marketing strategies might include:
- SEO
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Reputation Management
And the results of these content marketing efforts can be staggering. For instance, did you know that, compared to paid ads, SEO generates 3X as many leads per dollar spent? Or that content marketing strategies compound and accelerate over time - meaning that initial investment could continue to lead to substantial pay-off down the road?
Bottom line? Inbound marketing is all about attracting customers to you, without you having to go out and find them. For businesses on the go, this is an attractive proposition, one that will continue to grow and generate new results without you having to spend all of your time thinking about ads - when you could be spending it reaping all of the benefits of working remotely!
2.) Without a “Brick and Mortar,” Your Online Brand Is Your First Impression
When you carry out most of your work online, there’s a good chance that most of your future customers or clients will reach you online. After all, digital nomads won’t necessarily have a storefront they can use to leave a great first impression. Indeed, for some entrepreneurs who live and work digitally, there’s a good chance that their entire transaction with a client might be done online - whether via email, messenger, or video chat.
This means that your digital presence will be vital for leaving a first impression - and maybe even carrying your client through every step of your workflow. Putting your best foot forward online will come with several different, interrelated parts. Here are a few things to keep top of mind as a digital nomad:
- Web design, development, and maintenance. Is your site beautiful? Intuitive? Responsive? Does it convey who you are and what you can do? Does it load quickly - especially on mobile devices? Are the forms functional? Do you have a contract in place for someone to take care of your site for the long-term, should it ever need to be updated or bounce back from an unforeseen glitch?
- Reputation management. The more reviews you have across different listing sites - and the more positive those reviews are - the better the chance you have of connecting with your next client. There are automated workflows you can use to immediately reach out to your previous clients and encourage them to review you on sites like Google or Facebook - all with the push of a button, from anywhere in the world!
- Informative content. Blogging is the preferred marketing channel by B2B, because it conveys a lot of complex information in a quick, readable way. The more you content you create on your site and for social media, the easier it will be to connect with the right audience, and help nudge them along the conversion funnel - again, all without having to take time away from your busy day to make sale after sale!
3.) You’ll Have More Time for the Things That Really Matter
When you work remotely, the world is your oyster. Often, you get to set a more flexible schedule and work when you’re operating at your peak. You may get the opportunity to travel, to spend time with friends and family in the middle of the day, to (could it be?) nap when you want to.
The gist of it all? Being a digital nomad comes with a whole host of benefits - benefits you may not get to see if you spend all of your extra time having to deal with marketing.
That’s where Geek Chicago would love to step in and help! Here at Geek, we believe in a concept called Marketing as a Service, or MaaS.
At the core of this idea? We’re here to help wherever you need us, whenever you need us, acting as contractors who can add a ton of value and productivity to your business - at comparatively little cost. You’re free to take on as much or as little marketing as you’d like - and pass on the rest to us!
We’re here, and ready to be your extra set of hands whether you’re looking for social media management and marketing, content creation, blogging, digital newsletter creation, web design and development, reputation management, and more.
Drop us a line today to get the conversation started!