You have made a decision to create an digital marketing strategy to help you achieve your business goals for this financial year but you don’t really know the where to begin? Don’t worry! Developing a simple plan to begin with is easier than you think and this post will help you create a plan to guide your digital marketing activities as well as increase your ROI.
Here are the main components of a simple digital marketing plan:
Start with an Audit
This will include your website, social media channels, customers, what they need and what devices and online channels they use as well as lead management process. You’ll also audit your competition to see where they how well resourced they are and are advertising online.
You’ll can also carry out an external audit which covers details that are outside the control of your organisation like cookie usage legislation, trends in smartphone use by customers and several others that you have to review constantly.
Evaluation
Now you may look at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and this is the SWOT Analysis. Work towards boosting what is working for you and minimise any shortfalls in your marketing operations. It is important to highlight short-term opportunities and whilst implementing long-term ones. For example, social media ads could help drive leads and capital instantly that will fund the SEO efforts for a select list of keywords.
Target Marketing
Having identified the market segments you want to target, now you need to determine which ones to target based on your resources. It’s normally not possible to target all segments as a result of resource constraints so you must decide the most workable and valuable. Sometimes your current client base is actually not a representation of the client base you need to be having.
Finally, you want to build your relationship with your clients. Focus on nurturing them to become advocates so that you can request reviews or referral. Online reviews and Social media reviews are ways that your customers can become advocates for your brand and company and also plays an important role in your online reputation.
Marketing strategy
The marketing strategy covers all the approaches of your plan and includes the 7 Ps of the marketing mix: product, price, area, promotion, people, process and physical evidence. You are going to describe your goods or services, what costs you may charge and what on-line promotional tools and stations you’ll utilise to achieve your target markets.
Some promotional tools you will include are Google Ads, social media ads, affiliate marketing, email marketing, SEO, blogging and several others.
Your strategy will include short-term goals for a 6 month window, and long-term like 12 month to 24 months. With the accelerated changes in the digital world, short term strategies are frequently more appropriate. Ultimately your goal with the strategy is to set out the tactics you will do to reach your objectives.
Budgets and Management
With all the info you have collated and documented about your objectives, target markets, your competitors, and marketing strategy, you can now set a budget to implement your tactics. Make sure you factor in the cost of services and goods, Lifetime Value of a customer and breakeven point for any spend you have.
It is essential that you realistically allocate enough budget to be able to implement strategy and achieve you’re the goals outlined. If you want 100 customers at set return, you must invest a set amount based on the data and projections.
If you need help with your strategy of digital audit, get in touch with one of our team members. We are here to help.
