Developing a successful digital marketing strategy

For some, digital marketing is as simple as posting a message on social media; for others, it is the only thing the company should do. There is a happy medium, and it is from there that I am writing.

A digital marketing strategy is critical to the growth and success of any business. It must comprehend the organisation, the big picture, and the macro/microenvironment.

If you are looking to develop your first strategy or refine what you already do, the best place to start is by understanding your goals, who you want to talk to, and researching the market.

The first step is to look at the big picture.

The key is to understand the “big picture” as well as the goals for the coming months. Questions like the ones below are essential.

• What is the 5-year strategy?
• What are your competitors doing well/badly?
• How do you see the market evolving in the future?
• What impact will the disruption have on the business? (if applicable)
• What does success entail?
• What are the key performance indicators?

With this information, you can begin to comprehend the situation and the objective.

The following step is to comprehend the business.

Step two – Assess the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Every strategy is based on an understanding of the company and the situation. You now understand the situation, but the business… well, that’s another story. A SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) analysis assists you in defining and evaluating your organization’s current position. The quick 2×2 grid helps you understand what advantages you have, what disadvantages you have, and what you should be aware of in the future. Topics can range from international resources to evaluating existing digital marketing channels. There are no true wrong answers; only things to think about. Each item in the SWOT analysis serves a purpose and is essential to your digital marketing strategy. 

Step three – Knowing who we’re talking to 

You now have a good understanding of the situation, the business, and the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You are in an excellent position to specify who you want to target.

To define a strategy and the user journey of a prospect/client/colleague or potential new colleague, you must first determine who you want to target and how you intend to do so.

Answering the questions below will aid in the creation of a persona. A word of advice: if you can get the information from the source, that is, rather than answering the questions yourself, talk to the person you want to target, you will be in a better position.

When interviewing your target audience, interviewing no more than 5 people yields the best results. 

The following are some questions to consider when creating a persona:

• What are they worried about?
• Where do they look for solutions?
• Where will they be found on the internet?
• How will they track you down?
• What do they anticipate from your online presence?

You can supplement the above questions if you are familiar with Google Analytics and data analysis. Creating a more complete persona by defining how they arrived at the website, for example.

Step four is to design a user journey.

Following an understanding of the personas, it is time to determine how a person will interact with you and your online presence.

You can sketch out how your target audience interacts with you by mapping out the user journey. You can then assess what needs to be improved, added, or subtracted from your current/predicted efforts.

Step five entails developing and implementing a digital marketing strategy.

You now have all of the information you need to create an effective strategy thanks to the previous four steps.

An effective digital marketing strategy should be divided into the following categories:

Goals – what are we aiming for?

Concentrating on the main objective(s) and listing them/it

This includes the following:

Define your vision.

• Set objectives and goals based on previous information, such as the SWOT analysis, to determine what needs to be changed/added/included.
• Defining the Key Performance Indicators

How are we going to get there?

Developing a strategy entails creating a road map that outlines how you will meet your previously defined objectives.

This includes the following:

• Developing a new user journey making certain that it reflects how you intend to appear in order to achieve your goals
• Which personas do you want to target?

Tactics and action – how do we get there and when do we get there?

Tactics and action cover the specific tools you’ll be using as well as a planned course of action. To be followed by you and your colleagues.

This includes the following:

• Making an activity timeline
• Specifying how we will communicate with the designated persona. For example, if they buy your products on Facebook, make sure that is where your strategy focuses.
• Making a content/activity plan
• Determining who is accountable for what
• Define the digital marketing channels in which you will need to invest time and resources. For instance, SEO, paid advertising, 3D Swirl Ads, and so on.

Control – how do we determine success?

This phase examines whether you are meeting your objectives and KPIs. All you need is a relationship between a target and a performance indicator.

This includes the following:

• Making reports to evaluate efforts 
• Knowing how many times reporting will be required
• Making certain that reporting is in place to track KPIs

You will be able to produce better results if you follow the above strategy/template. You will also be in a position to grow your business using effective, researched methods.