It’s no secret that Digital Marketing occupies an important place among other types of marketing in today’s world. Both consumers and companies are almost always online – you need to find them, observe their behavior, and what they spend most of their time on.
Apart from generating good results, those companies that require Digital Marketing Certification get up to 50% more success than those that do not have it since courses and certificates benefit sellers who want to enter the market or are trying to grow in their careers.
But if your business is only evolving, it may seem that it is simply impossible to keep up with the constant changes in this field. There is so much to do – how to create, develop, and maintain a flexible and dynamic Digital Marketing strategy.
We compiled a list of digital marketing strategies that marketers can adapt to craft a top-notch digital marketing strategy to uplift their brand and an express course on digital marketing and its campaigns.
1. What is a Digital marketing strategy?
The Digital marketing strategy is a series of actions to achieve the goal (s) with the Internet’s help. Do not be frightened by “strategy”: building an effective digital marketing strategy does not have to be complicated.
A strategy is merely a plan to achieve the desired goal or objectives. For example, your global goal is to collect 25% more potential customers on your site than last year.
Depending on your business’s scale, your strategy may include many sub-goals, constant changes, and additions to the action plan. Nevertheless, your main system will help you stay focused.
Even though we simplified the strategy concept, it is certainly not easy to build it in practice. Let’s look at the Digital Marketing campaign and then go on to the seven components that will help you create an effective digital marketing strategy and make your company successful on the Internet.
2. What is a Digital marketing campaign?
Confusing a Digital Marketing strategy with its campaigns is effortless, but there is a fundamental difference.
As we have already mentioned, a strategy is a series of actions that you are doing to achieve your global goal. Digital marketing campaigns are those basic elements or steps of your system that bring you closer to achieving your goal.
For example, you want to conduct a campaign: leave links to your most successful Twitter content to attract more customers through this channel. This campaign is part of your strategy to attract more customers.
However, it is important to understand that even if the campaign lasts for several years, it is not a strategy – it’s just a tactic, just like other campaigns, within the same system.
3. How to build a holistic Internet marketing strategy?
Draw an image of your buyer.
For any marketing strategy – offline or online – it’s important to know who it is aimed at. The best internet marketing strategies are built on the buyer’s detailed image, and the first step for you is to create such an image.
The buyer’s image is a generalization of your ideal client (clients), which can be created by researching and interviewing your target audience. This information must be as much as possible based on real data because your assumptions about your audience may be wrong and lead your strategy in the wrong direction.
To build a holistic image of your client, you must interview and explore as many consumers and people as possible from your contact list, which may be your potential customers.
But what information do you need to collect about your client to create an appropriate internet marketing strategy? It depends on your business, whether you are oriented to other companies or the ordinary consumer, and your product price segment. Here are some key indicators, but you can change them depending on the specifics of your business.
4. Quantitative (or demographic) information
- Location. You can use web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, to determine where visitors to your site live.
- Age. Depending on your business, this may or may not be an important indicator. Collecting this data by identifying trends in your databases of existing or potential customers is best.
- Income. It is best to collect such sensitive information in research interviews, as people may be reluctant to fill out such information in online surveys.
- Profession. You can get a general idea about this by analyzing your existing customer base. As a rule, this indicator is more important for business-oriented companies.
5. Qualitative (or psychographic) information
- Goals. Depending on the needs for which your product or service was created, you can already have a pretty good idea of what your potential client wants to achieve. However, it is best to confirm your assumptions by talking to customers, sales, and customer service managers.
- Challenges. Again, talk to customers and sales managers and work with clients to get information about your audience’s most frequent problems.
- Hobbies and interests. Talk to customers and people who belong to your target audience. Suppose you are a fashion brand, for example. In that case, it will be useful to find out if most of your audience is interested in fitness and healthy lifestyles. This will give ideas for creating content and cooperation with individuals or other companies.
- Priorities. Please talk with your customers and target audience to determine what is most important to them in your company. For example, a business-oriented software developer must know that your audience appreciates customer service much more than the competitive price.
6. Look for visual recognition
Developing a good digital strategy also means recognizability across different channels. Go for a specific visual style and consistent tone of voice. It was done with stock images, poorly formulated ads, and resized print advertisements. It will strengthen the online recognizability of your company and your efforts. The total is more than the sum of the parts.
7. Last but not least: Be creative
Creativity makes or creaks your digital strategy. You are not the only one who has developed an online marketing plan. Many companies or organizations are currently crying out for attention. But commercial messages have a hard time getting noticed. On the contrary, go for a fun and creative concept. Jump out, fall, do something crazy, be funny, something you do not expect. So, think about how to place your product or company in the market authentically. The possibilities are many.
Gather this information, create one or more detailed portraits of your ideal customer, and make them the focus of your internet marketing strategy.
