With so many opportunities in digital marketing, it can be tempting to dive right in. However, investing time in developing your strategy is the best way to ensure a long-term return on investment. It’s also the best way to make sure you’re focusing your time, energy, and efforts on the marketing channels that are most likely to bring you results.
How to Create A Digital Marketing Strategy
1 – Analyse Industry Trends
The first step is to carry out some market analysis. This means getting a good idea of what people want and expect when buying your type of product. You need to have a clear understanding of what you can offer, what your target customers might prefer, and how you measure up to your competitors. This applies to both B2B and B2C companies.
2 – Formulate Your Strategy
The next step is to start putting together a new digital marketing strategy based on what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it. This means getting a basic understanding of what marketing tactics might be suitable for your business. Use common strategy frameworks, such as the GSOT strategy framework, to help you decide what goals, strategies, objectives and tactics to choose.
3 – Define Your Target Audience
Now you need to decide who you want to target with your campaigns. This means taking the time to really get to know your audience and potential customer base. Start by creating buyer personas for your ideal customer. Then, build campaigns around these personas and target more specific audiences based on things like location, demographics, behaviours, and interests.
4 – Choose Your Marketing Channels
Now you have chosen your target audience, you can start thinking about which marketing channels to focus on. This means researching your options for both paid and organic advertising. Keep in mind that not all channels offer suitable traffic. Some may be not have traffic from your target countries, or for your specific product niche. It’s important to research your options and decide which channels are likely to deliver the best results in terms of ROI.
5 – Create A Clear Content Plan
The next step is to map out a content plan. This involves looking at your customer journey and what content you want to provide at each stage of the buying process. It also involves considering how you want to present your products to customers. Think about your core messaging and what your call to action should be. Then decide what types of content will best help you achieve your marketing goals. Once your plan is ready, work on coming up with content ideas that are engaging and that will help you generate more business leads.
6 – Set Key Performance Indicators
Once you have decided which channels you want to use, and what content you are going to promote, it’s time to circle back round to your marketing goals. Remember, these goals are what will enable you to make sure you are tracking your efforts and achieving the best possible results. Before you launch your campaigns, be sure to go over your goals and again and set targets for your campaigns. Each campaign should have a clear performance indicator that you can use to measure your success. It should also have a clear benchmark. For example, for your email marketing, you could decide to the email open rate as your performance indicators, with a target of 22%, and an industry benchmark of 20%.
7 – Follow Industry Best Practice
Take some time to make sure that you are following best practice for your industry. Digital marketing is constantly evolving, and something that worked last year may not work as well now. Try to stay on top of the latest marketing trends and do your best to meet industry expectations.
8 – Optimise Your Campaigns
After you launch your marketing campaign, the next step is to monitor your performance. Be sure to check your results regularly and optimise your campaigns based on your performance. For example, if an ad isn’t delivering results, pause it, and try something new. Keep testing new content, new creatives, and new targeting options and eventually you’ll find the winning combination.
Final Thoughts
Having a digital marketing strategy is essential. It will help you run better, more cost-effective campaigns. When done right, it will also help you raise brand awareness, generate more leads, and improve your conversions. This, in turn, will help you grow your business and achieve your long-term revenue goals. For more free resources, visit the blog.
