Just over ten years ago, the web was viewed as just one of the marketing channels available to businesses. Now it is a powerful platform not only for promotions, but for direct sales. How effective are your digital marketing efforts? If they are not organised in a whole digital strategy with clearly set objectives, then you are most probably losing money as well as prospects. But how do you create a strategy that works? As an experienced digital consultant, I’d like to take you through the primary steps which have to be taken.
Analysis and Goal Setting
It is important to approach the development of a digital strategy in the same way as the creation of a business plan. It all begins with analysing your strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats in the digital environment. Given how dynamic this environment is, you need to identify your competitive advantage and come up with a strong value proposition.
Millions of people in the UK alone use the web, but it is neither effective nor cost-efficient to target all of them. One of the first steps to take is to define your target audience using precise demographics. This will help for the development of your website and its content and for the choice and utilisation of digital marketing channels later on.
You have to define precise goals that you want to achieve with your digital strategy. The key thing is for them to be measurable. You should focus on traffic, conversion rates, sales and revenues.
Digital Channel Selection
It is a common misconception that you can focus solely on two or three digital marketing channels. This is because they are all connected just like everything on the web today. Due to the numerous changes in the algorithms of Google in recent years, driving organic traffic to a business website has become more challenging and requires a great amount of effort to be put in content creation. PPC campaigns still have high return on investment, especially thanks to Google AdWords.
Content marketing is essential for promotion and should ideally be spread to a variety of social media. Social media marketing can be used not only for driving traffic and conversion, but for creating engagement and building loyalty. This is where its strength lies. Email marketing remains one of the most effective and dependable digital channels allowing you to capture and convert high-quality leads.
Planning and Scheduling
Once you have the big picture, it is time to come up with the actual plans to follow. It is up to you to decide on the period which is to be covered by a single plan. It depends on your individual business operations. For many companies, the three-month plans work well given the dynamics of the online business environment.
The decision on the number and types of digital marketing campaigns which will be carried out during the year should never be underestimated. In addition to those for new product launches, you may want to boost sales during traditional low periods or to increase your revenue during the holiday season. Advance planning combined with flexibility will give you the best chances of success.
It’s time to start creating your digital strategy for the coming periods. Count on me to help you at every step of the way.
Need an experienced digital consultant to help you with developing your digital strategy? Email me or send a message online.