We’re going to help you build a robust digital marketing strategy by following a few simple steps.
These days, we spend most of our time enjoying digital content in one form or another. Our reliance on technology has not gone unnoticed by marketing and sales professionals, who have largely adapted to the situation by going digital.
If you want your brand to have a presence in the digital world, you must keep up with this shift as well. A solid digital marketing strategy is the first step toward building a strong digital presence for your company.
Creating a digital marketing strategy is a broad, all-encompassing task. Should you choose to tackle it on your own, you might find yourself overwhelmed. This is where this practical guide comes in. We’re going to help you build a robust digital marketing strategy by following a few simple steps.
What Is a Digital Marketing Strategy?
In the simplest of terms, a digital marketing strategy is a set of guidelines that a brand or company follows to achieve its digital marketing goals.
We accomplish digital marketing through digital marketing channels. These include digital publishing, paid, earned and owned media, as well as social media.
A strong digital marketing strategy requires making deliberate decisions regarding your digital marketing goals and using the most appropriate channels to achieve those goals.
6 Points to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
Here is a simple step-by-step guide to creating a robust digital marketing strategy for your company or brand:
Set a Clear Goal
Before you get started on any plan, business or otherwise, you must ask yourself what exactly you want to achieve with it. As simple as it may sound, this step is crucial, and it requires you to be very specific and detailed about your goals.
One way to do this is the SMART technique.
Marketing professionals commonly use this simple mnemonic tool to set objectives. The idea is to set your goals, so they are:
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Specific
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Measurable
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Attainable
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Relevant
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Timely
Making more sales is not a SMART goal. Attracting 5% more visitors to your website through organic SEO over the next three months is.
Evaluate Your Current Digital Presence
If you’re looking up tips on creating a digital marketing strategy, your existing digital marketing presence is likely small to nonexistent. That’s perfectly fine; you have to start somewhere, right?
This is the step of the process that will help you understand what you need to focus on to achieve the SMART goals you had set previously.
The first thing you need to evaluate is the current state of your marketing channels. These include your:
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Social media profiles
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Website
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SEO/Content marketing
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Email marketing
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Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
Figure out how each of these contributes to your online presence and rank them from least to most effective so far.
Build Your Customer Personas
Before you try reaching out to your buyers, you need to find out who they are. Let’s see some ways in which you can do this:
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Put yourself in their shoes — If you can imagine who your audience is, you can start to figure out what could appeal to them.
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Build a narrative — What are your customers interested in? What kind of content do they consume in terms of blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.? What channels can you use to reach them?
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Be specific — What is the exact type of product your buyers need? What are their expectations and preferences? Try to meet and surpass these with your products.
If you’re struggling to imagine the specific details that we’ve laid out here, don’t shy away from hiring outside help or using software solutions to perform your research.
Create High-Quality Content
Now that you have your customers’ needs and preferences in mind, you can focus on attracting them through the various marketing channels. You’ll, of course, need a specific strategy for this.
Think about the type of content you need to create to maximize your efficiency on each marketing channel. Create a timeline outlining the actions you need to take to respond to the specific goals you’ve laid out for yourself.
Examples of these actions include:
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Improving SEO by identifying essential keywords and developing a keyword strategy
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Creating a content calendar
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This brings us back to the SMART technique mentioned in the first step. A content calendar keeps your content goals specific and actionable. Each item on the calendar should fit your overall content plan and have a publication date, keywords and topic laid out in advance.
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If possible, specify your goals for each quarter, month and week.
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Making the most of social media
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The research you conducted earlier should help you determine precisely the type of content you should be posting on each social media channel and how often you need to do it.
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Including widgets and CTAs in your content to make it easy for customers to engage with you and your products
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Using automation tools to increase efficiency and safe time once your content strategy is laid out
Pay Close Attention to Mobile Optimization
We live in a mobile-first era, and if you want to have any hope of being successful, you need to optimize your site for a breezy mobile experience. Mobile optimization is a broad term covering various practices, and it’s best to hire outside help if you want to do it right.
There’s an excellent website design company that will not only help you nail the mobile optimization of your website but improve the design of your website overall.
The better the experience your potential customers have on your website, the higher it will be ranked in the search results, creating a snowball effect.
Track Your Progress and Analyze the Results
Your strategy is in place; you’ve done all you can to improve user experience and begun creating high-quality content. Now you may think it’s time to kick back, relax and let the profits pile up. However, this is only the beginning.
Tracking your progress and analyzing the results of your strategy is a crucial step that you need to practice at pre-determined intervals.
Analytics software can help you keep track of your progress through the different stages. Make sure to keep up with the latest tools and software solutions. A new digital marketing tool that addresses your needs perfectly could show up at any point.
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How are your customers interacting with your content on the various media channels?
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Are you making sufficient progress toward your goals?
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Does your website provide an excellent user experience?
The answers to these questions, and others, will help you get a clear picture of what you’ve improved and what you still need to work on. Think of the whole process as a huge ongoing learning experience and correct course as you go.