We are past the days when newspapers and billboards were the most effective ways of promoting your products and brand. Online promotion is a necessity for all businesses, and you have to make sure that you have the right digital marketing strategy in place.
The strategies that you choose are critical to your business success. There are several options when it comes to digital marketing. However, so many people have a problem when it comes to determining where to start.
This article will give you great insights on how to create a digital marketing strategy. Following the right steps will help you to attain your business goals with a higher level of precision.
1. Determine What You Would Like to Accomplish
You should know what you wish your digital marketing campaign to help you achieve. You may want to generate leads, build brand recognition, get more email subscribers, increase sales, etc. whatever it is, you have to make sure that you name it.
If you are not sure of what you want to accomplish, you may end up making the wrong choices. Your goals matter and you need to take specific steps to achieve them.
2. Understand the Digital Sales Funnel
It would help if you grasped the digital sales funnel before you develop your digital marketing strategy. It comprises of the various steps that a buyer will go through before reaching the point of buying your products or becoming a loyal customer.
The naming and number of stages vary depending on what you are going to ask. However, it generally includes discovery, research or consideration, purchase, and loyalty. It is good to understand what takes place at each stage.
A user who is at the loyalty stage will not respond in the same way as the one who is at the discovery stage. Each user interacts with your business in a different way and on various platforms. It would be best if you kept these facts in mind when tailoring your digital marketing strategy.
3. Create Buyer Personas
You require a solid understanding of your target audience and what motivates them. It will help you assess the marketing platforms you can get them on, how they interact with it, and what they desire to get from you.
The buyer personas should be precise. Do not use broad terms like ‘young moms’ to describe your buyer persona. Get something that speaks a lot about your target audience, the pain points they have, and what you can do for them.
Make sure your buyer personas are founded on research. Don’t go for the thinly-veiled stereotypes and use the available analytics from Facebook Audience Insights and Google Analytics.
4. Determine Where You Will Find users at all the Stages in the Funnel
Once you know your target audience, you now need to understand where and how you can connect with them. Refer to your business analytics and then cross-reference them with the buyer personas.
Consider all the organic and paid marketing channels and think of your audience members that are utilizing them. Also, get to understand the stage of the Funnel in which they are in. It will assist you in establishing the marketing channels you need to be on and the people to target at every stage in your digital marketing strategy.
5. Implement Specific Guidelines to help you Reach Your Goals
You have already selected your marketing mix, and you know how your audience may react. It is now time to try everything together by creating specific tactics to help you realize your goals.
One tactic would be placing lead magnets or lead generation widgets on all the sides of your blog posts. You can also feature a CTA at the end of all these posts to help you keep in touch.
The next strategy is to share influencer content on social media. It will help you in building relationships, brand recognition, and increasing visibility.
Lastly, you can place email plugins on your site to encourage testimonials. Request users to submit their reviews on Google business to enhance your local SEO scores.
Specificity is also vital at this point. Map out the specific steps that you will be taking to help you accomplish your goals. Go beyond just writing blogs to attract leads. Include link backs to a webinar and CTAs until you begin to register the desired results.
6. Incorporate Personalization and Automation
As you get your digital marketing strategy up and running, you need to look for ways of making your campaigns more effective and impactful. The most effective strategy here is more automation and more personalization.
In some cases, the specific actions of your audience will determine the relevant and personalized marketing messages that they receive. It includes ads that use retargeting to show your users the products that they have viewed on your website.
It can also include the triggered email auto-responders to show customers products that are similar to what they viewed in the past. Use personalization, automation, and audience segmentation where possible in writing focused copy for particular groups.
These people will receive messages at the right time, and they will be relevant to their needs then. This step will take your digital marketing strategy a step further.
7. Look for any Holes in Your Digital Marketing Strategy
We can refer to this as troubleshooting your Funnel. Carry out a careful evaluation of how your digital marketing strategy is running.
In most cases, there are multiple campaigns, platforms, and elements that are involved, and this can make it quite tricky. Google Analytics can help you at this point. You can also carry out a native evaluation of the channels and networks that you are using.
Evaluate how your leads and customers are interacting with your digital campaigns. Also, evaluate how all this translates into assisting you in reaching your goals. It will not help if users share your blog 5000 times in two days, but you have no single sale or lead.
Conclusion
It can be tempting to dive into digital marketing and check the details later. However, this will be like shooting yourself in the foot. You require a clear digital marketing strategy before you run an online campaign. Using the above tips will help you to make the best step forward. You need to do something that will add value to your brand.
