You’ve developed a kickass product or service offering. Packaging and delivery are wrapped up with a nice bow. Now you just wait for the sales to pour in.
Right?
That’s how it goes, no?
Well, not really.
If a tree falls in the forest nobody hears it, does it make a sound? How are people going to find out about your groundbreaking products or services if you don’t tell them?
That’s where an effective and well thought out digital marketing strategy comes into play, which is defined by HubSpot as, “a plan that helps your business achieve specific digital goals through carefully selected online marketing channels such as paid, earned, and owned media.”
Marketing strategy is part of what gets you to your goals and skimping on it is a misstep. Worse yet, is taking a throw everything at the wall and seeing what sticks approach. Developing a real, actionable strategy gets you where you want to be quicker.
Digital Marketing Strategy Explained
Marketing without planning or strategy is like a road trip without a map. Will you be moving? Sure. Will you get where you’re trying to go? Maybe? If you’re very lucky. But in most cases, probably not.
Digital marketing strategy starts with research. It’s data driven. A strategy is built out of knowledge and know-how, not guesswork. This is where you develop your targets, customer personas and the general who of it all. As in, who your audience is for your marketing.
Knowing who you’re targeting also helps you hone your unique selling proposition. It’s impossible to get your messaging right if you don’t know who’s going to be receiving. Think about it, what are you going to say to those that find you online if you don’t know them? How do you know it’ll be effective?
Luckily, the digital space is so, so incredibly measurable. Answers to that question and many others about your customer’s online behavior are easy to come by in the days of Google Analytics and other sophisticated software.
After you’ve created those personas, it’s time to create actual goals. The simplest way to do this is by making the goals, S.M.A.R.T. goals. Meaning:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Timely
By creating goals in this way, particularly with an eye towards measurability, you’ll be able to set key performance indicators aka KPIs for your strategy.
Whether this is the first time you’re putting together a strategy or if it’s old hat for you, taking stock of a campaign or strategy’s effectiveness is imperative. In the face of changing customer tastes and behaviors, with data not aligning exactly with your expectations, you must be ready to shift with anything and everything. Nothing stays static because static gets old fast.
In other words, auditing should always play a part in your strategy formulation because auditing leads to understanding which eventually turns into optimization.
Of course, part of the process is landing on a budget and that’s its own separate ballgame. An important consideration nonetheless though.
At this point, you might be wondering where to put your marketing. That’s something that gets answered along the way. As you understand your audience more and what their online habits are, you can pinpoint methods of delivery and marketing tools that would work best. Will it be SEO, email marketing, content marketing, traditional media, social media, etc.? It’s different for each company and there’s no blanket solution, determining the media mix relates directly to everything that precedes it is the process of creating a digital marketing strategy.
Who Needs Digital Marketing?
Everyone!
Unfortunately, not all companies are and around 45% are doing digital marketing with no defined strategy.
Strategy can get you where you want to be faster. If it’s something you’ve struggled with or haven’t even thought about, give us a buzz at The Snow Agency and let’s go over what you’re doing, together. Let us help you create a plan that steps you up to the next level.