Have you been wondering where to start regarding growing your brand’s online presence? It is of great importance to come up with a plan; in this case, a digital marketing strategy. This strategy will assist you to nurture your business by bringing more valuable traffic to your page, enabling you to earn more leads, and eventually, more conversions.

What is a digital marketing strategy and how do you create one?

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy? A digital marketing strategy involves a series of actions that use online marketing channels, to achieve numerous goals. Channels can include owned, paid, and earned media.

A digital marketing action plan allows you to build and launch your online marketing strategy with success. Strategies differ, and none may be described as best. No two digital marketing strategies will look the same. The effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy will depend on your type of business, target audience, as well as, target market. Some strategies may be more useful to a company than others.

How do you create a Digital Marketing Strategy?

The four key factors that you should consider before creating your digital marketing strategy include:-

1. Available Budget
It is important to know how much you can spend and the resources you have for your campaign before setting up a digital marketing strategy.
For sure, you would not want to plan for an online marketing strategy that goes beyond your means. It will be of value if you establish a budget for your marketing efforts. It is good practice if you come up with a budget for each campaign. This division ensures that each method has a set budget, and you know how much you can spend on each of them. Let us look at it this way; if for example you only have one budget for all your marketing efforts, you are likely to end up over-investing into one digital marketing tactic, living out others.

Apart from the budget, you should also establish your resources. People are among your most essential resources. Determine how many people you have to work on your online marketing campaigns.

Another resource to take into consideration is tools. You might need marketing tools, like Google Analytics, that will help you run or analyze your campaign; you should take these into account when doing your budget. Determine what your budget and resources are, to know what you have before launching your digital marketing strategy.

2. Who is your audience?
Buyer Persona: Do you know who your target audience is?
A good online marketing strategy is one that has its target audience defined. You must know who your message targets. After establishing your target audience, you then create buyer personas. Buyer personas are personalities that represent the people interested in your business; a fictional character that represents your target audience. Crafting personas helps you understand each type of person that wants to buy your products or services. If you know who your ideal customer is, you can target them in a way that appeals to them. What are their challenges? Identify their needs and challenges to make the campaign relevant. How will your message reach that audience? Select the most appropriate and effective tools/mediums to use to release your marketing content; one which will capture their attention.

3. Setting up Smart Goals
You must have goals when creating your digital marketing action plan. You must know what you want to achieve with your strategy. By setting goals for your campaign, you will know what you want to accomplish with online marketing. To begin with, start focusing on short, medium, and then long-term S.M.A.R.T goals. Your digital marketing goals should align with your marketing goals, which should in turn align with your business’s goals. Whether you want to earn a certain amount of conversions or obtain a specific number of leads, set out strategic goals that help you achieve your overall goals. When setting up your goals, establish what you want to achieve, by when, and how you will measure the achievement.

Your S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals will also help you establish key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaign. KPIs are figures that help you identify and establish how to measure the success of your campaign. You want to look at metrics, such as, bounce rate or page views; which will reveal whether you are succeeding with your campaign or not.

4. Audit Your Current Digital Marketing Activities
To improve your digital marketing strategy process, you must audit it. It is indispensable to understand how your campaign functions so that you know how you can improve it. Have a review of what you are currently doing online, what are you doing well? What are you not doing well? or what are you not doing? Instead of sweeping it under the rug, an evaluation of your current activities online will set you to achieve your goals. It will also put you ahead of your competitors and make you target better your audience with the new digital marketing strategy.

Why Audit Your Digital Marketing Strategy? A question might be ringing in your head “I do not have a digital marketing strategy, what am I auditing”? This makes, even more, the right time to audit.
You may not have a proper or an elaborate digital marketing strategy in place but if you are doing any sort of online marketing, there’s something to audit.

Other reasons why you need to audit your current online strategies include:-

1. Maybe your website traffic is crazy-low or it may be on the decline.
2. You have a low following and/or engagement on your social media accounts.
3. The ROI on your Social Media is low or not there at all.
4. You may wish to optimize your current activities and get more people following your accounts and opening your email marketing.

You can audit your SEO, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) to name but a few.

So what should you do with Your Digital Marketing Audit Results? A good digital marketing audit will detect cracks in your digital marketing and help you plan well for the future. It will also show you where you are losing or wasting your time, effort, and money, and how to create relevant content that will differentiate you and make you found online.

A digital marketing strategy is crucial in helping your business grow. When you have a digital marketing action plan put in place, you will keep your business focused on achieving your goals.

Still not sure where to begin? Worry yourself not. We’ve got your back. Let us show you the path to more digital effective strategy marketing; so you can spend less time on content creation, and more time doing what requires you most: running your business.