Are you in the Digital Marketing Industry?
Are you worried about how you can rank high in the industry?
Your only path to rule Digital World:
Digital Marketing Strategy!
With the world going digital, the business world has also shifted to tap the new market.
Going digital means, you use the internet to attract and retain customers. Yet, when people think of digital marketing, they limit their thoughts to social media. But digital marketing is a domain in itself.
To rule this domain, the first thing experts prefer is the digital marketing strategy.
In the words of Lee Bolman “ A vision without a strategy remains an illusion.”
In digital marketing, Strategy refers to action plans to use an online marketing channel to achieve objectives. Digital marketing strategy makes your digital marketing campaigns successful.
Digital marketing campaigns refer to a set of activities. Activities that involve using digital marketing strategy in all digital channels. You can take campaigns as a group of tasks whose implementation is possible with the use of strategy.
But why do you need the strategy?
The main 3 importance of having a digital marketing strategy are;
- Understand your audience
Without understanding who your audience is, you cannot cater to the service. You can’t create a strategy or decide on a channel to use that can appeal to them.
To attract them, show them you understand their issue. People are most likely to trust you when you say things that the other one can relate to.
For instance, in a comedy show where a comedian tells you things you are afraid to talk about in public. Instead, you laugh at enjoying the show because you can relate to it.
- What content does your audience prefer?
- Which channel to use? Email or social media?
- What to say to your customer?
Know your audience so you can increase your sales. You can use Quora, Facebook Groups, Forums, and interviews with people. Apart from these, you can use analytics, demographics, or psychographics for Customer research.
- The Strategy gives you direction
Strategy is an action plan that allows you to achieve the goal. Without a strategic goal, your efforts are meaningless.
Having a goal means you have something you are looking forward to. You have a vision that you want to achieve and work for. It gives you a path for where you are or should be going.
- Outperform your competitor
Strategy is about creating a plan that gives you a competitive advantage.
To outperform your competitor, first, you need to know what they are doing. Focus on what your competitors are doing too rather than focusing on your strategy.
You can do competitor analysis. Analyze their strategy to improve your campaign. Find inspiration and understand where you need improvements or focus.
You can use software to;
- Analyze competitor’s traffic
- Their Online ads
- Content marketing
- Their Social Media Presence
A digital marketing strategy that can yield a desirable return is not an easy process. The process includes;
- Best Use of Resources
- Higher ROI
- Business Growth
- Avoid or Prepare for Risk
Your college degree in digital marketing won’t work unless you have a strategy for your business. The strategy ensures planned performance and can give you a competitive advantage.
But how?
A digital marketing strategy that can yield a desirable return is not an easy process. It includes;
1. Determine Goals and Objectives
Creating a strategy means you have something to achieve i.e. a goal.
What do you want to achieve? Whether it is more sales, profit, or market share, you must be clear on your goal. It gives you a path, a vision, and a direction to move ahead with your strategy.
Without a goal, you are like running in a marathon without a finish line.
Do consider the SMART approach while formulating goals. SMART is made your goals specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
2. Understand Digital Sales Funnel
The sales Funnel represents buyers’ journey to buy a product. It includes;
- Discovery – where the target audience first knows about your product or brand.
- Consideration – where the target audience is willing to take a look at your product or service.
- Purchase – viewers buy the product.
- Loyalty – where the buyers became loyal customers to the brand.
Being a Digital Marketing Strategist, you need to understand these funnels. Recognize how your audience might react in these phases.
For this, you should interact with your audience on different levels. Then, design tactics that complement each funnel, and the strategy.
3. Design Customer Persona
Customer persona represents the key characteristics of your audience. In short, your ideal audience.
Your marketing campaigns and strategy should be customer-oriented. To make this happen, you should know who your customers are and what they seek. Then you can create endearing tactics and strategies.
Gaining a clear understanding of your target audience also involves customer research. This allows you to answer;
- Where are your customers? On which Marketing channel?
- Which age group do they belong to?
- What do they want to see from you?
- Which content is more engaging for them? Video content or blog or else?
4. Understand Market
How are you going to operate in the market if you don’t know it?
Understand the market, and its forces by carrying out a SWOT analysis of the company.
Do some market research, including marketing mix, to stay ahead of the competition. Identity changing market trends. Discover and describe strengths, and weaknesses, and prepare for opportunities, and threats.
5. Decide on Marketing Channel
When you know who your audience is and where they are, decide on the best-suited marketing channel.
Different marketing channels serve different customers. Depending on your design of customer persona, select the marketing channel. The target is to use that channel that has a high chance of generating a return or a high return.
For instance; If your target customer is more than 30 years old, you can choose Facebook ads.
If your target market involves professionals, you should use email marketing.
6. Craft tactics and strategy
It’s time to think of how we can put everything into action. Once you know your audience, your market, and how they will react, you put everything together. You design guidelines and rules on how we are going to make things happen.
Based on goals, audience, and channels, you should put in place different strategies such as;
- Pay-Per-Click Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Website
- SEO
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
7. Add automation
Automation involves the use of software and technologies to deliver digital services. It makes it easier to perform repetitive tasks. It also, helps you to decide on marketing channels, process, and analyze data.
It assists you in;
– Relationship marketing
– Lead generation
– Segmentation
– Retention
– Cross-selling
– Upselling
8. Personalization
Personalization is all about making your content customer tailored. Unless you know your audience, you can’t give them what they seek. Here, customer emotion plays the main role in making sales.
91% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that recognize and remember them and provide relevant offers and recommendations.
This shows personalization has become a priority for every business.
For instance, when you enter any store, the store manager recognizes you by your name. Or, when you get emails addressed by your name.
9. Analyze results and KPI
After you put those tactics into action, analyze the result. This allows you to identify any lacking or find improvement for better results.
For this, technology can be your best friend. It will help you to simplify the work and boost operations.
Digital is the new normal. A world in itself in which you have to survive. You are not alive unless you are visible. Going digital means, you are ready to win. The only thing that you need to win is to style a plan, and a digital marketing strategy.
Conclusion
A digital marketing strategy is essential for the industry’s success. It is not just confined to social media and calls for a plan to accomplish goals. A plan helps with target audience understanding, strategic advantage, and business growth. Set objectives, understand the digital sales funnel, create customer profiles, research the market, and select the most successful marketing channels to develop an effective approach. Increased ROI, growth, and targeted performance follow from this. Always keep in mind that it’s difficult and calls for the wisest use of resources, risk management, and larger returns.