When creating your digital marketing strategy, there are a number of key components you need to think about. Whether you are just starting out, or you are already well established, your digital marketing strategy should not fall bottom of your to-do list.
In order to make a positive impact on your business, digital tactics should work together in order to achieve your objectives and end goals. Each element of your strategy should come together in unison and complement each other – therefore it is important to understand what digital building blocks you should put in place before laying the foundations of your digital marketing strategy.
As digital marketing specialists, we are experts when it comes to crafting strategies which pack a punch – and in this latest blog post we are sharing our top five tips on creating a show-stopping digital marketing strategy.
Top 5 Factors For Digital Marketing Strategy
1. Think About Who You Are Targeting
Your audience is potentially the most important aspect you need to think about before you roll out any digital marketing activity.
Think about their demographics. How old are they? Are they male or female? What interests them? Where are they located? What motivates them? What are their habits?
It’s important to build a picture of your target audience so you can fully understand what traits they have within the digital landscape. The more you get to know them, the more effective you can be when you target them online.
If you are looking to target a B2B audience, consider the kind of job titles your audience would have. Perhaps they are the procurement manager or a HR director. If you’re communicating with people within a corporate environment, you’ll need to factor in digital marketing tactics which are more effective with professionals – for example, LinkedIn or informative blogs which provide added value.
On the flip side, if you’re looking to target a consumer audience, consider what social platforms these individuals will be using, whilst thinking about the tone and language of your content – this will help ensure that you are communicating effectively online.
2. Observe Your Competitors
Take a look at what your competitors are doing online. What social platforms are they using? Does their website come up first on search engines? Are they using PPC effectively?
If there are things your competitors are doing well, think about how you could replicate this for yourself. It’s important to understand what others are doing within your marketplace
3. Set Your Objectives
What results do you want to achieve through your digital marketing strategy? What actions so do you want your audience to take?
This could be to increase sales, drive leads or enquiries, or simply to build brand awareness. Or all of the above.
If you know what your objectives are, it’s much easier to work backwards and understand what tactics you should implement as part of your digital marketing strategy.
4. Monitor Your Digital Presence, Be Agile And Upskill Yourself
Don’t just rely on one or two digital tactics. And never rest on your laurels when it comes to digital marketing. Of course, as the old saying goes if it’s not broke don’t fix it… however a reluctance to expand your digital presence could ultimately have an impact on your bottom line.
We recommend that you review and monitor your digital activity on a regular basis… at least once a month. Utilise tools such as Google Analytics to understand how your digital marketing activity is performing, and don’t be afraid to try new things. After all, the digital landscape is continually changing and evolving, and if you’re not clued up you could quickly fall behind.
Keep abreast of all the latest trends and developments, and take advantage of these in your digital strategy where possible.
5. Budget Effectively And Understand How To Use Paid Advertising
Although you can achieve success through organic marketing activity online (SEO, engaging social media content, etc), paid advertising should also play an important role within your digital marketing strategy.
In order to utilise paid ads on social and search engines successfully, it’s important to first understand your budget and how much bang you could get for your buck.
When used properly, paid for digital advertising can reap many benefits. Not only can you be extremely targeted with your advertising strategy, it can also offer excellent value for money and ultimately maximise ROI.
However, for many businesses they don’t have an effective strategy for paid advertising purely because they don’t understand the basic fundamental principles of how it works. Squarestar Digital have seen this on numerous occasions.
When it comes to how much you want to spend, make sure you have some degree of flexibility. Keep your maximum budget in mind, but also think about how you could scale your budget as your marketing strategy progresses.
Whilst ensure you can be found quickly and efficiently by carrying out keyword research. When it comes to PPC, you don’t want to scrimp on this part. Use tools such as AdWords to collate information about the highest ranking search terms, and regularly review this so you can make sure you are ranking highly on search engines such as Google.
Squarestar Digital is a leading digital marketing agency in Essex.