Digital Marketing Strategy Guide

The foundation of every successful digital marketing plan or campaign is a solid, and well-thought-out digital marketing strategy ... It's important to note that main difference too ...

Your digital marketing strategy is the “why” behind your efforts - while your digital marketing plan is how you're going to execute your strategy !

A digital marketing strategy is a set of planned actions performed online to reach specific business goals. In simple terms, this means performing consistent actions at the right time via the most suitable online channels to increase revenue and improve relationships with your audience. The main difference between a digital marketing strategy and a more traditional marketing strategy is that digital marketing relies upon online or digital channels that generate data. This means that digital marketers can hone and perfect their strategies in a way that wasn’t previously possible with more conventional marketing methods.

The Framework for a Digital Marketing Plan

Before you can execute a digital marketing plan, you have to formulate one!

The first step in planning is to define and articulate the campaign’s goals.

When setting goals for your you’ll usually want to include both your revenue and brand goals. Your revenue goals will consist of metrics related to sales, while your brand goals will involve elevating your brand’s reputation or recognition. Setting SMART (Specific, Measureable, Actionable, Relevant, Time-based) goals ensures your goals are attainable and will provide you with data points to analyse your results.
Let’s break down each letter in that acronym:

Specific

Setting specific goals removes any ambiguity. If you set a goal of “increasing brand recognition,” you’re likely to fail because there are many different ways to measure this, and so it will be difficult to know if your campaign is effective. However, a more specific goal like “increase targeted website visitors” will help you create a campaign that helps your brand in a measurable way.

Measurable

When you set your goals, establish both what you want to achieve and the KPIs you’ll use to know if you’ve succeeded. Per the example above, “increase targeted website visitors” is specific but isn’t quantitative. However, a goal like “increase targeted website visitors by 20%” is measurable. Your KPI will be the number of new targeted website visitors you have at the end of the campaign.

Actionable

Unattainable goals set you up for failure, so digital marketers use their current data to determine if their goals are actionable. With the previous example, a goal of increasing targeted website visitors by 200% in three months may be quite ambitious, but with analysis may be found to be achieveable.

Relevant

This may sound obvious, but it’s important to always remember that the goals of a campaign should be relevant to the company’s business objectives. If you don’t know precisely how a goal will move your business forward, it’s not relevant. To further the example above: increasing your targeted website visitors is likely to result in more occupancy enquiries, it’s highly relevant.

Time-Based

Decide how long it should take you to reach your goals. Your goals may be long-term or short-term, but they should have an end date. Combined with a specific, measurable goal, having a firm end date puts everyone on the same page and provides a definitive measure of success. For example, if you want to increase your targeted website visitors by 20%, and setting a three-month deadline, this gives you a specific timeline.

Why Do You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy ? 

Generally, making a strategy helps you make more aware, confident and informed approaches in the digital world as your actions will be allied to your plan. When it comes to digital marketing, building a strategy can help you in the following ways:

• It motivates you to learn more. When you start to develop a digital marketing plan, (see The Framwork for a Digital Mrketing Plan) you need to think through every aspect of your business. You also have to thoroughly analyze your audience, competitors, trends, and neighbouring niches to create a polished and up-to-date digital marketing strategy. Developing a plan and subsequent digital marketing strategy is an amazing chance to get more in-depth knowledge of your business!
   
• It provides real data. During the analysis, and after turning your strategy into action, you will get a lot of comprehensive data about what works well for your brand and what doesn’t. Empowered with that information, you’ll have a catalogue of options for improving your business.
   
• It structures your actions. Developing a digital marketing strategy avoids the chaos of making blind guesses that you have to make without having a plan. If you create a strategy, you will get a better understanding about how to combine various marketing channels and realise a greater potential for your company.
   
• It helps to increase ROI. Once your actions are structured, you make fewer actions and fewer mistakes. With a well-crafted plan, you will be able to detect your weaknesses, predict problems, and quickly react. You will save time, money, and efforts to increase margins as a result.
   
• It helps you reconsider your relationships with your audience. A digital marketing strategy gives you a fresh look at your communication with prospects and customers during all of the stages of their online buying journey. When you make a business plan, you need to focus on your customers, find ways to add more value to your relationships, and develop new ways to engage with them.

So, now you know that you need a digital marketing strategy, let’s sketch a general digital marketing strategy.