Since the dawn of the internet, digital marketing has become more complex than ever. Businesses rarely had a plan for digital marketing back then. Those that did focus on digital marketing focused mainly on banner ads and websites.
There are many digital marketing platforms and channels that you can choose from nowadays. Do you want to focus on SEO? Or PPC. Blogs or webinars Email or social media? Are you interested in podcasts? What is Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)? What should you budget and what time can you expect to get results?
What does a digital marketing strategy look like?
The digital marketing plan is an outline that outlines your objectives and the steps you will take to reach them. It can also include
- Goals for business.
- Digital strategies
- Analysis of the competitive landscape.
- Timelines.
- Budgets.
- The digital channels
A digital marketing plan is a sort of roadmap. The plan will help you determine where you are going and provide a roadmap.
Your digital marketing efforts won’t be efficient and effective if you don’t have a plan. It’s likely that you will waste your money, and get diminishing returns.
What is the best way to develop a plan for digital marketing?
Let’s now discuss the components of a digital marketing strategy and the steps you should take to create your plan.
1. Set your business and digital marketing goals
You can define and measure your digital marketing goals by setting clear, quantifiable, and achievable objectives. These goals should be clear and concise. To benchmark your progress, you should include precise numbers and timeframes.
Avoid goals, for example, that says you’ll improve your digital customer experience, update your lead generation system or increase conversion rates. These are too vague. It’s impossible to measure the results of your efforts and you don’t know what actions should be taken in order to achieve that goal.
A better goal would be to increase organic search traffic by at least 20% over the next twelve months. You will have a time frame, a structure for setting milestones, and specific actions (optimize the site, write amazing content and do strategic outreach for SEO). ).
Keep in mind that SMART goals must be specific, tangible, achievable, pertinent, time-bound, and measurable.
2. Define buyer personas and audience segments
Digital marketing has many benefits. It allows you to pinpoint your target audience and targets them with precision.
To make any digital marketing campaign successful you must know your target audience. You can gain insights into the most efficient marketing methods by segmenting your audience.
Let’s say, for example, that you are selling IT services. Your target audience could be smaller businesses that have less than $500,000 annually in revenues. Large corporations may also be interested in your services. These segments may have different buyer profiles and marketing strategies. A message that is appealing to a small business owner won’t be understood by the heads of large IT departments.
Begin by understanding the segments of your target audience. Start to build personas for your ideal customers within each segment. These are great people to start with.
Your buyer persona information can vary depending on whether your business is B2B, B2C or both and what the cost of your product/service. You may also want additional demographic or other information.
- Age-range
- Rent
- Position title
- Localization
- Priorities
- Goals
- Challenges
- Interests
- Social media platforms
- Industry
- Points of pain
- Products/features desired
Personas are created to help you get into the heads of your customers. You can create a digital marketing strategy that addresses their most pressing issues and deepest desires.
3. Do a competitive analysis to determine the market share
You need to understand your competition if you wish to make marketing campaigns that are effective. You can use competitive analysis to determine your competition, your market share and the marketing strategies that they are using.
Consider the following items when doing your competitor analysis:
- What audience segment are they targeting?
- Which digital marketing channels do your competition use?
- Which are their strongest points?
- Which are their weakest points?
- Which percentage of traffic are they earning/owned/paid for?
- How do they position themselves in the market
- How do they differ?
- Which type of language and messaging do they use?
- Which brand personalities and tones do they have?
An in-depth competitive landscape analysis can give insight into the best online marketing strategies to beat your competition. You may find that the positioning and differentiation of your competition is well-known. This will allow you to better understand yours. You might also discover that they are strong in social media marketing, but poor when it comes search engine optimization (SEO).
4. Do a SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis is equivalent to a competitive landscape assessment. This provides a framework for analyzing your company against the market. This process can be used to spot opportunities for organic growth, identify areas that are working and plan for potential threats.
| Strengths | Which are your main advantages over the competition? What are your strengths? Which unique assets do you possess? |
| Weaknesses | Are there any things that prevent you from reaching sales goals? What are your weaknesses? |
| Opportunities | Look at all the possibilities available for your business. Is there any market trend you could take advantage of? Are you able to use new technology in a way that is different from your competition? Are there any segments in your audience that are underserved? |
| Threats | Is there a threat to your business? What are the obstacles to business growth? Is there a potential for financial problems? |
