5 Steps For Powerful Digital Marketing
According to Smart Insights’ ‘Managing Digital Marketing‘ report, 46% of firms lack a clear digital marketing strategy, while 16% have one but haven’t yet incorporated it into their marketing activities. But here’s the thing: how can you expect to develop and innovate, evaluate real achievements, and learn from past failures if you don’t have a strategy in place?
It’s time to quit worrying about next year or next month and start putting up a solid strategy. We’ve compiled a list of the top five things you should do as the decision maker to guarantee that your digital marketing activities have a positive influence on your bottom line.
1. Be clear about what you want (& Set the Objective)
First and foremost, define your company’s general aim/objective — your digital marketing mission must be integrated into your entire strategy.
Answer this question: What is the overarching goal you want to achieve with your digital marketing activities (for example, do you want to position your firm as Europe’s go-to online source for computer parts)? This is your objective.
Make your KPIs more explicit by stating the metrics for which you will be held accountable.
Make your KPIs more realistic by first analysing your prior digital marketing efforts – this will guarantee that you strive for a positive improvement over your present performance while also preventing you from establishing unrealistic expectations.
Determine a way for measuring each of your KPIs – will you use Google Analytics to track conversions, individual social network analytics to track engagement, or a platform like BuzzSumo to evaluate the performance of your content marketing?
Take a look at this useful KPI template: (Insert aim, such as ‘increase traffic’) by (insert percentage) in (insert year) (insert number of months).
Find out which indicators are most important to your CEO before you start creating your KPIs.
2. Examine Your Previous Experiences (& Learn From Your Mistakes)
You don’t have to (and probably shouldn’t) go into the planning phase blind. Analyzing the successes and failures of your digital marketing plan might assist you in determining the optimal KPIs for your company. As a result, you might choose to combine steps one and two.
Choose a time period to analyse (it’s great if this period coincides with the length of time you want to implement your new marketing strategy) – for example, whether you’ll look at the preceding year, quarter, or month.
How to Examine:
Determine the time period you’d like to study and adjust your Google Analytics schedule accordingly.
To compare your progress to your competition, use Google’s Benchmarking Reports in your Analytics account.
Don’t forget to look into your rivals’ marketing strategies as well – develop an analysis spreadsheet of their online activity (you may use SEMrush to figure out what keywords are bringing the most organic traffic to a competitor’s website). It may also be used to compare other websites’ organic and bought traffic, which is valuable for determining how aggressive they are with their paid expenditure.)
At frequent intervals, ask yourself this question: is there anything more I need to look at that I haven’t considered yet – for example, should I be testing the times I post my content or the sorts of photos I use?
3. Keep in mind who you're speaking with (& Speak Their Language)
Allowing the planning to take precedence over the individuals you’re attempting to reach is a mistake. You already know who your audience is (or at least we think you do), but in the bustle of defining KPIs, budgeting, and channel selection, it’s easy for a digital marketer to forget about them.
This time, you’re not going to make the same mistake. Instead, you’ll centre your digital marketing approach on your audience, catering to their emotional requirements and fulfilling their deepest wants. How? Of course, through developing well-developed and well-thought-out identities.
Begin by writing down all of the demographic information you have about your target consumer, such as age, gender, and location.
Then go a bit further to find the issues you can assist your target persona in resolving.
Examine their emotional wants, objectives, aspirations, and anxieties, as well as any other elements that may influence their behaviour (think about their conscious and unconscious desires).
You may use your Google Analytics account’s ‘Audience Reports’ to uncover essential features of your target persona, such as age, sex, and career.
This is the ideal moment to discover the people who will have an impact on your personas – these are the influencers your marketing plan should target.
4. Determine Your Resources (& Stick to Your Budget)
Your budget, your digital channels, and your staff are all critical factors in determining your means (or people). Before deciding on what else you could need for the following period, it’s critical to assess all of your resources.
For example, now is a great opportunity to do an assessment of your current digital channels and determine whether you’ll outsource particular aspects of your digital marketing or whether you’ll need to set aside funds for one or two new hires.
Your Budget:
Define your digital marketing budget as a whole.
Examine previous data to see what has worked in the past (for example, have any certain channels provided you with high-quality leads at a reasonable cost?)
Make a decision on whether or not you’ll employ paid promotion (for, example Adwords or paid ads on social media).
Set aside a certain amount of money for each digital channel you wish to employ for sponsored marketing (delve into your Analytics to help you assess the most cost effective digital channels with the largest reach and conversions and the lowest Cost Per Click).
If a certain aspect of your paid marketing campaign isn’t delivering the results you want, reconsider it and spend the budgeted amount into the channel that is.
Your People:
Examine your present team and determine what you are capable of (be realistic here and ensure that no-one will be over stretched or over worked).
Determine whether you require additional personnel and whether you have the resources to do so.
Decide if you’ll do all of your digital marketing in-house or whether you’ll need to hire a third-party firm for portion of it.
Request that each member of your team analyse their digital marketing activities and come up with a few suggestions for their future marketing strategy (the more autonomy your employee has in their work, the more likely they will be on board with your new approach).
Your Channels:
Examine your present digital marketing channels to choose which ones to preserve and whether you want to invest in any new ones (this depends on where your customers are and the time you have available).
Clearly define what each digital channel is attempting to accomplish.
Make sure each of your digital channels has at least one KPI tied to it.
5. Make a plan (and then abandon it)
‘Did you make a plan and then abandon it? ‘However, what exactly do you mean?’ Let me explain before the most organised of digital marketers panics… Your strategy will never be ideal from the start. Not every assumption you make will be accurate.
Even if you’ve taken great pains to create a well-thought-out strategy based on a set of intelligent assumptions and analyses, you still can’t foresee how your consumers will respond. As a result, it’s critical to analyse and monitor the efficacy of your digital marketing plan on a regular basis, and to make changes as needed.
Make a digital marketing schedule:
Create your timeline with Google Calendars so that you can share it with your team and allow them to make changes as needed.
Make a list of the important campaigns you’ll produce and promote during the year, and give each one a deadline.
Keep track of the digital channels you’ll need to make each campaign a success.
Examine your marketing strategy and make any necessary changes:
Make a plan for measuring and monitoring your progress (this should fit in with your KPIs).
At regular intervals, evaluate the performance of the various aspects of your digital marketing plan.
If something isn’t working (e.g., you’re not meeting your KPIs), separate the individual aspects and attempt to figure out what isn’t working (e.g., is it the time you publish material or the ad taglines you’re using?).
Try something different using your past analysis, personalities, and budget allocation.
Create a clear set of KPIs for your new business.
You’ll learn how to plan, budget, choose the best digital channels, and analyse the results of your campaigns. Find out more here.
Our advanced certification will assist you in planning and executing effective digital marketing initiatives. To learn more, download the pamphlet below.