Does your brand have a developed digital marketing strategy that’s integrated into your existing marketing efforts? If not, you’re likely in the majority. Plenty of companies try to wing it without a predetermined digital marketing plan and stagnate as a result. It’s up to you, the decision maker, to turn this situation around so your business can prosper.
A well defined digital marketing strategy can have a significant positive impact on your bottom line. Additionally, it encourages you to track results and have better insight into the areas where you can improve and innovate. Let’s talk about ways to develop a robust digital marketing strategy in more detail.
Defining Your Goals
There’s not much use of a digital marketing strategy if it doesn’t fit with your ultimate business plan. Before you even start, you need to figure out what the goal of your digital marketing efforts will concern your business goals. For example, if you strive to be the best local creative agency, you’ll want your digital marketing efforts to help position you as such. In digital marketing terms, that may include campaigns to raise awareness of your services, content marketing, customer testimonials and the like.
Next, you will want to focus on your KPIs. Be realistic about what you want to track and achieve. Which KPIs will be the most useful for your overarching digital marketing strategy? What will you use to measure your conversions and engagement? These are some of the questions you should answer before you start.
Defining Your Message and Audience
Sometimes it’s difficult to keep your audience in mind when you’re lost in the world of KPIs and budget setting. However, defining your message and the audience is crucial to a well-rounded digital marketing strategy. Put the people you serve at the heart of what you do and center your plan around them. You’ll accomplish this by developing buyer personas and then crafting a message that caters to their needs.
Knowing your current customers gives you an insight into what your current strong suits are. However, buyer personas are about your ideal customers. Demographic information such as age, location, and gender is the base. Expand it by identifying their emotional needs and goals, fears, aspirations and pain points. Once you learn what makes them tick, you’ll know how to market to them.
Deciding on Your Channels and Budget
Your marketing team needs to know the budget they have to work with to carry out the strategy. Any plan you come up with, and the digital channels you select, will depend on your budget. Start by defining the overall sum you can invest. If you have any historical marketing data, analyze what worked in the past and what didn’t.
Decide if you wish to use paid promotion, and on which channels that it will benefit your strategy the most. Then allocate the sum you can spend on each channel of development. Make sure your team sticks to it! If there are elements of your plan that aren’t giving you the results you predicted, don’t be afraid to make changes.
In this guide, we’ve scratched the surface of developing digital marketing strategies. However, there will be plenty of variables each business has to account for. It’s best to discuss these with a digital marketing professional. At Wink Media, we help you take out the guesswork and devise the best possible strategy tailored to your needs.