How to create a digital marketing strategy for your business

Creating a digital marketing strategy is no longer the future, it’s the present.

According to a report by eMarketer, in 2016 there were an estimated 1.72 billion marketers worldwide, and by 2023 that number is expected to increase to 3.1 billion.

Digital marketing is taking over advertising as we know it, and with this revolution in advertising comes a revolution in opportunity for entrepreneurs who are willing to take advantage of this new industry-wide trend.

In order to better understand how you can utilize digital channels such as social media and Google Ads in your marketing strategy, let’s look at some key points about digital marketing:

The benefits of using digital marketing

1. Cost-effective marketing – You can connect with your target audience, or expand that audience through the power of digital media at a fraction of the cost that traditional marketing would take to reach them.
2. Ability to track everything – Digital marketers are able to track every interaction with their customers online, so they know exactly how each channel is performing and can optimize according to their findings.
3. Create a personal connection – Marketing strategies are based on data-driven processes instead of guesswork, which helps create a more personalized experience for the end-user.
4. Exponential growth potential – Your business can grow exponentially by tapping into people’s endless desire for sharing content on social media.
5. Brand image – With digital marketing, you can create a more personal relationship with your audience by sharing content that is relevant to them at the right time. This, in turn, will help increase brand loyalty and get people talking about your company even if they don’t buy from you immediately.
6. Reach anyone across the globe – You can target anyone across the globe through digital marketing strategies, so long as you know how to use various channels effectively.
7. No boundaries – Digital marketing allows for better outreach of any kind, whether it’s for lead generation or customer acquisition. There are no geographical barriers limiting you from making an impact on your business, which means that it’s easier than ever to tap into any market you’d like.
8. 24/7 marketing – You can reach your target audience anytime, anywhere with digital marketing strategies because of the “always-on” nature of online platforms.
9. Cost-effective – digital marketing is much cheaper than other forms of advertising in that you only pay when something tangible is done in response to your money spent (i.e., someone purchases a product after seeing an ad for it). Since there are no middlemen, digital marketing doesn’t carry additional costs such as printing materials or third-party distribution channels which are generally involved in traditional types of advertising.
10. Targeted – If you have a customer base already established and know what they’re interested in, you can target them more effectively and efficiently than with traditional marketing methods.

Tips for creating effective digital marketing campaigns:

1. Focus first on the basics. Before diving into any specific forms of digital marketing, make sure your website is well optimized to be user-friendly and mobile-friendly. Make sure it also has a strong call-to-action for users to take action, such as making a purchase or signing up for an email list. Without this, your digital presence will not be able to provide you with much insight into how many potential customers are coming from different platforms and finding your business.
2. Invest time in comprehensive strategies that use multiple channels together instead of separate tactics that only work one at a time. By utilizing multiple channels together, you can create multi-channel campaigns that allow you to gain insight into all of your marketing methods and better work towards your overall goals. You should also have a comprehensive strategy in place for how these channels are integrated together so that each one works towards the other instead of working against it.
3. Ability to track everything – Digital marketers are able to track every interaction with their customers online, so they know exactly how each channel is performing and can optimize according to their findings. Doing this will help you determine not only what kind of digital media is the best choice for the audience you’re trying to reach, but also whether or not there should be any changes made in order to achieve optimal results.
4. Keep your digital marketing strategies fresh – In order to keep things from getting stale and taking away from potential gains, create a calendar for your digital marketing strategies that allows you to constantly test new tactics and measurements without forgetting the previous ones.
5. Gather customer data early on – By gathering information about what your customers want or need through online channels at the beginning of your relationship, you’ll be able to tailor future campaigns with this knowledge so they will be more effective than if you had not done so before launching them. This is also helpful considering it can take time to build up an email list or find out what social media channel would be best suited towards reaching your target audience, along with finding out which apps are being used by them.
6. Make sure digital marketing strategies are suited to your target audience – In order to fully reach your intended audience, you must establish a clear idea of who they are and what they want so that the content you create will resonate with them effectively. Knowing this ahead of time can help ensure your campaigns have a much higher rate of success in reaching their intended recipients.
7. Have an action plan in place in case something goes wrong – You also need to have a way out in case things go awry for whatever reason, such as if the strategy is not well received or doesn’t appear to be working anymore because people aren’t using it any longer due to changes in their preferences or behavior. Having a backup plan is essential for those unexpected moments that may affect your results, and can keep you from losing all of the progress you’ve worked towards.
8. Test your campaigns before launching them – When creating digital marketing campaigns, make sure to test them out first through small-scale tests or trials with a very limited amount of people before rolling them out more broadly so as to avoid any major issues that might arise such as only reaching part of the intended audience or having unintended consequences take place relating to how it will be received by others.
9. Keep things fresh and interesting – Another way to help ensure your campaigns are effective in keeping them fresh and interesting. There are many forms of content you can use including videos, infographics, podcasts, photos, articles, and more that are shareable on various platforms. Each type of content has its own benefits that can help you connect with your target audience through the content they’re most likely to engage with based on their preferences and choices.
10. Do not neglect your digital marketing strategies – The advantage of using social media or other digital channels for marketing is that it allows each individual interaction to be tracked so the success or failure of each campaign can be assessed in order to make adjustments accordingly instead of just throwing something out there and seeing what happens. This also gives you the opportunity to monitor for customer feedback so any problems can be worked out ahead of time instead of waiting until after everything goes live to find out about them.

Conclusion:

Use these tips as a foundation to help you begin developing your own digital marketing strategies that will work for your business to help grow it online. Remember that not all strategies are going to be effective, and some may do more harm than good, but with a little time and patience, you can come up with a winning formula that will allow you to connect better with those looking for your product or service through the internet.