If you've ever thought about advertising on the Internet or simply explored how to use digital channels for your business, you've likely came across the concept of digital marketing strategy. It's very likely that you weren't quite sure why you needed it and how to create one.
In our experience, we often encounter entrepreneurs who say: "We need to post something on the Internet. We understand that sales happen on Facebook and Instagram these days. We know we need to be more active there because our clients do use social media. And when we ask them what and to whom they will be posting, whether they have a strategy, the answer is usually, we don't! We don't need that. We just need a few Facebook/Instagram posts a week, nothing too excessive, we don't want to bore our followers." However, when we ask them what those posts should be about, the answer is often unclear, and entrepreneurs are not entirely sure how to approach planning their online activities.
Does the situation described above sound familiar to you? Are you also wondering what the purpose of a digital marketing strategy is and what benefits it can bring? If so, keep reading because we will explain what a digital marketing strategy is and why you need to have it written for your business if you want to achieve your business goals through digital media.
Digital marketing strategy, sometimes also referred to as digital media strategy, is a plan for maximizing business results on the Internet, using digital channels, of course. For a successful digital marketing strategy, it's essential to align business goals with capabilities. What does this mean? It means that to have a plan that can be realistically achieved, you need to set realistic goals, have a sufficient budget to launch all necessary activities, and have people who know how to perform various tasks.
Creating a digital marketing strategy is the first step in planning your online presence. The lack of a strategy is one of the primary reasons why entrepreneurs often fail to achieve significant results on the Internet, and why digital marketing is often deemed ineffective (especially on social media).
While traditional marketing strategies focus on long-term plans that extend years ahead, digital strategies rely on short-term, monthly plans that are linked to specific activities and measurable business goals.
In essence, a digital media strategy is simply your plan for engaging with digital media – a kind of guide that helps you understand which steps to take, when to implement them, and what you need to achieve a specific business objective.
One challenge in creating digital media strategies for small business owners is understanding which parts of the business can be handled in-house, which tasks should be outsourced to external partners, and which tasks need to be adapted for greater efficiency.
It's also important to note that no two digital marketing strategies are the same.
Your business will have a unique strategy tailored to your needs, involving a combination of different approaches.
Now that we've explained what a digital marketing strategy is, you might wonder if digital marketing campaigns are the same thing.
Digital campaigns and digital strategies are not the same! Digital campaigns are what you use to achieve the goals of your digital strategy. To successfully utilize online campaigns, you must first create a digital strategy.
Your digital marketing strategy will help you build successful and strategic marketing campaigns. A well-prepared and executed digital marketing strategy will assist you in gaining valuable potential customers online and generating revenue for your business.
We've noticed that among entrepreneurs, there's a common belief that a digital marketing strategy must be a comprehensive document spanning hundreds of pages and costing a lot. This resistance to the idea of a strategy often leads entrepreneurs to opt for readily available but far less effective half-measures.
In today's fast-paced world of rapid change, we need tools that will quickly lead us to our goals with minimal time and financial investment.
A strategy for digital media or a strategy for social media doesn't necessarily have to be so extensive or require significant investment. Of course, it depends on the goals a company wants to achieve, but since these are typically small businesses that aren't overly complex, a straightforward digital media strategy will more than suffice.
To begin crafting your digital marketing strategy, you need to know the key elements it must contain. Once you've gathered answers to these critical questions, you should document them and decide on the implementation.
Every successful digital strategy has several key elements. Continue reading to learn how to develop your action plan for digital marketing in four basic elements:
1. Business - Here, you state the fundamental values of your business. In this section, it is necessary to define the mission and vision of the business. Why? Because many things stem from the fundamental values of your business. Who you want to work with, how you want to work, what you want to achieve, and the way you communicate. After reevaluating your core business values once more, it is necessary to perform a brief analysis of the current situation. Where are you now in your business cycle, what are your strengths and weaknesses? What are the threats in your environment and what are the opportunities for growth and progress?
2. Ideal Customers - If you want to launch a successful digital marketing strategy, you must know who you are targeting. You cannot have a successful strategy if you do not know who wants your products or services. The best way to determine who is in your target audience is to create so-called "Buyer Personas" or "Ideal Customers."
Buyer Personas are profiles that represent people interested in your business.
Most companies have several types of people interested in their products or services. Creating personas helps you understand each type of person who wants to buy your products or services.
Building a marketing strategy begins with detailed and comprehensive descriptions of Ideal Customers.
Start creating your ideal customers based on existing data about your real customers. Research your audience and interview them to learn more about them. You want to base your 'Buyer Persona' on real data to ensure you don't make wrong assumptions about your audience.
It's important to document demographic data such as:
Location
Age
Income
Occupation
You'll also want to know more personal details such as:
Goals
Interests
Hobbies
Challenges
Based on this data, you can begin shaping personas for your business. These personas will help shape your strategy and determine which channels you should use to reach people like them.
3. Goals - If you're creating a digital marketing action plan, it's crucial to set your goals. You simply cannot create a digital marketing strategy if you don't know what you want to achieve. Focus on short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. Here, your goals must align with your business objectives. When setting goals, you need to determine:
Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals can help you in this regard.
S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for the English words representing:
S.M.A.R.T. goals will help you better define targets for your action plan. They will also help you determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your campaigns. KPIs are metrics used to assess the success of your campaigns, such as the bounce rate or the number of page views, which indicate whether you are successful or not.
4. Budget and Timeline - When setting up a digital marketing strategy, it's important to know how much you can spend and what resources you have for your campaign. You don't want to plan a digital marketing strategy that exceeds your capabilities.
First, establish a budget for your marketing activities. It's most effective if you create a budget for each campaign. This division ensures that each method has a designated budget, and you know how much you can spend on each of them.
If you have only one budget for all your marketing efforts, you might end up overinvesting in one digital marketing tactic and neglecting others or simply spending more than planned.
In addition to the budget, you'll need to determine your resources. People are one of your most important resources. You need to specify how many and which people will work on marketing campaigns. Do these individuals have enough knowledge and time to carry out these tasks effectively?
Other resources include tools.
If you have marketing tools, like Google Analytics, that help you manage or analyze campaigns, you'll need to consider them in line with the budget and resources. Determine the budget and resources to know what you have before launching the strategy.
Of course, it's also essential to set a timeline for implementing the strategy.
Usually, a timeframe of 12 months is taken to complete one cycle. This period is also divided into quarterly intervals with checkpoints to adjust activities to meet the set goals.
A digital marketing strategy greatly contributes to your business growth. When you have an action plan for digital marketing, you'll focus your business on achieving its goals.
At Zona Plus, we have over 4 years of experience in creating digital marketing strategies that work for our clients. Our team of experts will assist you in implementing a digital marketing strategy that leads to your business's success and helps it grow.
If you want to learn more about creating a customized digital marketing action plan, contact us via the contact form or request a free 30-minute consultation to see how we can help you develop, launch, and manage your digital marketing strategy.