Choosing a digital marketing strategy that is right for you

Are you looking for a digital marketing strategy to implement into your business? You’re probably wondering where to start if you want to develop a digital marketing strategy. Digital and mobile channels are vital in today’s society. However, many businesses still have no integrated plan to so support digital transformation. That’s why we’ve created this blog about choosing the right digital marketing strategy for your business.

What is Digital Marketing?

In simple terms, digital marketing is achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media. Digital technologies and media include:

• Websites
• Mobile apps
• Social media company pages
• Search engines
• Advertising
• Email.

Do you need a digital marketing strategy?

Reasons why a digital marketing strategy is important for your business:

You have no sense of direction

Companies with no digital marketing strategy have no strategic goal for what they want to achieve online. If you have no goals, then what is the point of your business?

While building a strategy, what will you do?

• Learn – get to know what to do
• Plan – build a plan of action
• Do – follow your plan
• Grow – grow your business.

By building a digital marketing strategy to run your campaign, you will get direction and goals. If you have no goals, it’s hard to know exactly what you want to campaign for online.

All your competitors have a digital marketing strategy

If you don’t have the resources for your campaign, how are you going to monitor it?

How do they communicate their brand and what makes them unique? How well do they engage with the audience? Do you think you can do better than them?

You need to develop customer relationships

If you want your online business to work, you need to know how your customers are responding to it. Is the site easy to navigate? Are the font and background colour appropriate? Do you know what could make your market share more secure? The only way you’d find out these answers is through a digital marketing strategy.

Analytics, web data and other digital marketing tools can tell you exactly where you’re going wrong with your website.

You need an online value proposition

How are you going to stand out from the competitors?  A convincing digital value proposition that’s built around customer profiles will help bring in new customers. It will keep those customers loyal to your brand too.

Provides a path to success

The lack of a digital marketing strategy not only means you’re missing out on opportunities. It suggests your company isn’t trying hard enough. If you’re not planning to be successful, then you won’t be.

Implementing a digital marketing strategy can push your business forward in the right direction. A digital marketing strategy ensures that your customers stay at the heart of your business.

To choose the correct platforms

Choosing the right platforms to advertise your business on depends on the products or services you sell. It also depends on the type of customer you target. Which social media channel are they most likely to use? What works for some businesses may not work for yours.

Increases reach

A good digital marketing strategy can increase the visibility of your brand. Digital marketing provides you with new ways to target your audience. It gives great exposure and helps build effective brand recognition.

Your customers are online

Your customers are online and there’s a chance they are already looking for a business like yours. However, if they can’t find you easily, they’ll go for someone else. This is how people do business today. They want a quick and easy option. They don’t have time to spend hours searching for something.

If someone is interested in your business, the first thing they are going to do is search for it online. They want to find out more about you. They expect to find your website and social media platform when they search your company name. They may be looking for reviews of what other customers think of your product or service. However, if they can’t find you online, they may question your legitimacy.

In today’s society, we find it a little bit strange if a company has no online presence. They may decide not to choose your business and go with a competitor. Once they’ve made that decision, it is unlikely they will come back.

Think about how easy your competitor’s website is to find compared to yours.

What are the most effective digital marketing strategies?

Digital marketing is forever evolving, and it can be hard to keep up. But here are the best 9 digital marketing strategies to implement in your business:

1. Email Marketing

Despite predictions of its death, email marketing is still commonly used. Demand Metric and the Data & Marketing Association survey showed email marketing had an ROI of 122%. Four times higher than other marketing channels which were analysed.

The best thing about email marketing is it isn’t that expensive to run an email campaign. There is also marketing software available which can help you plan, design, and send out your emails.

2. Social media marketing

The next digital marketing strategy we are going to look at is social media. It has become a powerful marketing tool these days. According to a Social Media Examiner’s report, 90% of marketers confirmed that social media is important to their businesses.

How does social media marketing benefit your business?

• Increases exposure and traffic
• Develops loyal customers
• Improves search ranking and generates leads
• Establishes thought leadership
• Increase in sales.

To build your social media presence, you need to create high-quality content regularly. You need to maintain consistency and engage with your audience.

3. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing

PPC marketing is a method of using search engine advertising to bring visitors to your website. This digital marketing strategy generates sales-ready leads.

The advantages to PPC marketing are:

• You can reach customers at the right time with the right ad
• You can control how much you want to spend
• You don’t have to wait for results.

4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

You can build the most fantastic website, but if you don’t implement SEO, don’t expect people to visit your site.

There are hundreds of websites in your niche alone. How do you get your website to come up on top when customers type keywords into a search engine? Using keywords throughout your copy.

Search engine optimization not only increases traffic to your website, but also builds trust. If your website ranks high on search engine results pages (SERP) it gives off the impression your business is reputable. Keep track of keywords and track your SERP rankings to see how well you are performing.

5. Influencer Marketing

This digital marketing strategy is a highly effective tool for start-ups to grow their brands. And the best thing is that it is relatively inexpensive compared to other marketing strategies.

Reasons why start-ups should adopt influencer marketing:

• Most customers have become immune to traditional marketing channels
• Less expensive than other promotional strategies
• Easy-to-implement
• Word-of-mouth builds trust for your brand
• Customers will engage with your brand because of the authenticity of influencers.

If you don’t have a large budget for a big influencer, look for micro-influencers to get you started. They still have a high engagement rate and are cheaper.

6. Content Marketing

Whether you’re working in B2B or B2C, most businesses rely on content marketing these days.

By adopting content marketing strategies for your business, you can:

• Increase visibility for your brand
• Build lasting relationships with your customers
• Boost brand awareness and brand recognition
• Build credibility and authority
• Create thought leadership.

Content marketing supports your SEO efforts and provides you with additional content for your website, blogs, and social media posts.

7. Viral Marketing

There’s no better way to create a strong buzz around your business than going viral on the internet. Creating content that goes viral can turn your business into a success overnight.

One viral video can lead to brand recognition, new customers, and an increase in sales.

How do you go viral?

Think about videos that have gone viral in the past, what elements of them made them viral?

Were they:

• Funny?
• Entertaining?
• Silly?
• Emotional?

Think about what content you can produce that can make your content go viral.

8. Affiliate Marketing

The final digital marketing strategy is affiliate marketing. This is when you recruit affiliates for your brand to draw in leads for you. They can be thought of as salespeople who work on a commission basis. The commission payment is up to you.

To keep track of these sales, you use an affiliate link. These are a customised link that you provide your affiliates with. They share the link on their social media channels, which can be clicked on to make a purchase. You can use Google Analytics to generate these customised links.

How to create a digital marketing strategy for your business

Check out these top tips on how to create the right digital marketing strategy for your business:

Identify your goals

Think about what your goals are for your marketing strategy. Do you want to:

• Build brand awareness?
• Increase product sales?
• Attract a larger social following?
• Increase your engagement?

Get specific so you can gear your efforts towards these goals. What will you do in order to meet your goals?

Choose digital marketing tools based on your primary goals

There are many marketing tools out there, all with their own advantages and purposes. There are content marketing calendar templates, social networks, email marketing software, etc. It all depends on your goals as to which tools you use.

Every business has a different need or something holding them back. Prioritise your goals and look at your budget to determine which tools to invest in.

Define your budget

Defining what digital marketing strategy to use will also help you identify what budget you have to work with. Budget allocations may include:

• Fees for a Digital Marketing Manager and staff
• Paid advertising budgets
• Payment for content creation services
• Fees for Graphic Artists, Photographers, and Videographers.

Identify your talent

Maintaining a digital marketing strategy will require staff with the right set of skills and knowledge. Skills required to manage the digital marketing strategy include:

• Development skills – for your website design and development needs.

• Creative skills – includes both writing and visual creation skills.

• Search skills – talent needed for search marketing.

• Social skills – talent needed for engaging potential customers through social media.

Content Creation Plan

Make a content creation plan outlining the content that’s necessary to help you hit your goals.

This should include:

• Title
• Format
• Goal
• Promotional channels
• Why you’re creating the content
• Priority level of the content.

We are here to help

We hope you’ve found our guide on digital marketing strategies useful.

If you have any other questions or want more information about digital marketing strategies, please get in touch.

How to get started

Step 1: Introduce yourself

Why not get in touch with us for a chat with one of our team? We’d love to hear about your business goals and ambitions. This helps set our creative wheels in motion.

Step 2: We’ll do the research

After our chat, we’ll brainstorm how we can produce the best website for you. We’ll then go away and investigate with all our might! We’ll use all our experience and creative knowledge to make recommendations for you.

Step 3: Predictions

We know you want results, and we want to deliver them. We’ll provide our predicted outcomes so that you can make an informed decision.

Step 4: Quote

Once you give us the go-ahead, we’ll provide a quote. Then comes the fun part! Our team will start creating the website of your dreams.