What is a Digital Marketing Strategy and How to Create One

For any business that wants to succeed in the digital space, developing a well-rounded digital marketing strategy is essential. According to Gartner, more than 72% of all marketing budgets get spent on digital marketing, which means that it is a valuable strategy to consider if you want to keep pace in our increasingly digital world. Whether you utilize a digital marketing agency or manage your own digital marketing efforts, having a comprehensive strategy is essential for success. A well-thought-out digital marketing strategy for a brand can help you to reach new audiences, build brand awareness, increase sales, and set measurable goals and objectives that can be tracked over time. With the right tactics and tools in place, digital media and marketing strategies can be leveraged to achieve your desired business goals.

A digital marketing strategy is essential to any business plan that focuses on leveraging online activities to accomplish desired goals. This approach can be used to increase website traffic, build brand recognition, and generate leads and sales. It is important for businesses to have a well-thought-out digital marketing strategy in place because it allows them to identify their target audience, set specific goals, and allocate resources that are needed to achieve those targets. There are also several strategic elements that go into formulating an effective digital marketing strategy such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email campaigns, and website design.

What makes a good digital marketing strategy?

Digital marketing is the process of using digital channels and tactics such as search engine optimization, content marketing, social media, email marketing, display advertising, and mobile advertising to engage with customers. It allows businesses to reach potential customers in a cost-effective and measurable way. A good digital marketing strategy should be a comprehensive plan that considers all of the different digital channels available. This plan should outline a digital marketing framework that includes how each channel can be used to reach and engage with your target audience. Additionally, it should also include a timeline for when and how each channel will be utilized in order to maximize your digital marketing efforts. Finally, it is important to ensure that you are monitoring the effectiveness of all of your digital marketing initiatives in order to adjust and optimize them as necessary. With this comprehensive plan in place, you can be sure that your digital marketing efforts are helping to achieve your business goals.

What is a digital marketing mix?

The first step in creating a digital marketing strategy is to understand the concept of a digital marketing mix. A marketing mix is the combination of several different tactics and marketing channels to reach the same goals. It should be tailored to your specific target audience and goals to maximize effectiveness. Multi-channel strategies allow businesses to maximize their reach and engage with potential customers in different ways. For example, by combining search engine optimization with content marketing, the company can leverage both channels to connect with its audience. Additionally, a strategic digital marketing plan that balances multiple media channels is more successful than relying on a single channel. According to Aberdeen Group, 51% of companies engage with customers on at least eight digital channels.

Businesses need to consider several factors to create an effective digital marketing strategy. First and foremost, they should ensure that they have adequate resources such as time, personnel, and money available for both planning and implementation of the strategy. Specialists with expertise in areas such as web development, UX/UI design, SEO, and analytics are essential for optimizing a digital presence and achieving desired outcomes. At the same time, automated tools and software such as content management systems (CMS), social media platforms, analytics packages, and customer relationship management (CRM) will help streamline processes and provide valuable insights into customer behavior. Businesses should make sure to invest in data-driven strategies to meet their goals efficiently. Ultimately, a successful digital marketing strategy requires a combination of time, talent, and tools. If a company lacks these elements in-house, a digital marketing agency brings expertise and experience to manage your digital marketing framework so that you can focus on other aspects of running your business.

Essential Resources for a Winning Digital Strategy: Time, Talent, and Tools

The right mix of time, talent, and tools are all essential components in the success of a digital marketing strategy. 

Time is particularly important in the planning and implementation phase when there are deadlines to be met and targets to be achieved. It is key to ensure that sufficient resources (time, personnel, and money) are available to both plan and execute the strategy.

Talent is also critical for the success of any digital marketing strategy as it is crucial to have skilled people with an understanding of how best to optimize a digital presence. For example, expertise in areas such as web development, content development, search engine optimization (SEO), and analytics may be essential in order for your digital campaign to reach its potential. Without the expertise required, your strategy can never be put into action.

Tools play an equally important role in ensuring that the strategy meets its goals. Technology such as automation tools, content management systems (CMS), social media platforms, analytics packages, and customer relationship management (CRM) software can all help streamline processes, improve efficiency, and provide valuable insights into customer behavior which can help inform future strategies.

Time, talent, and tools are three vital ingredients when it comes to creating a successful digital marketing strategy. By having enough time available to plan and implement a strategy along with the right tools and talented individuals who understand how best to make use of technology, any business can maximize their chances of reaching their desired outcomes from their campaigns.

Steps to Create an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy:

Creating an effective digital marketing strategy requires careful consideration and a tailored approach. Not all strategies are created equal, and one size does not fit all when it comes to creating a successful digital plan. Still, the following steps provide a simplified recipe for developing an effective digital marketing strategy.

1. Set Goals and Objectives: Identify the target audience, determine desired outcomes, set objectives, and establish measurable goals. To achieve success, the goals need to be specific and measurable such as increasing website visits, growing organic search traffic, or creating more engagement with content on social media. You want to select goals that are realistic and achievable by your organization.
2. Research and Analyze: Gather data about your target market and analyze the competitive landscape to identify potential opportunities for growth. This can involve looking at search engine rankings, website analytics, and social media insights to gather a better understanding of how your business compares measures up. Look at what competitors are doing in terms of digital marketing, and search for areas where you can distinguish yourself from the competition.
3. Develop a Marketing Plan: Create a plan that outlines how and when the digital marketing strategy will be implemented, including tactics such as website optimization, content creation and distribution, email marketing, social media campaigns, search engine marketing (SEM), and more. When crafting a plan, include objectives, timelines, and assigned responsibility for each tactic, such as who will create the content and when it will be distributed. Consider budget constraints and allocate resources accordingly.
4. Implement the Strategy: Execute the digital marketing plan by creating content, running campaigns across various channels, optimizing websites for SEO/SEM performance, tracking analytics data to measure results against objectives/goals, etc. Before launching any single campaign, consider testing different approaches to ensure they are targeting the right audience and driving results. Your implementation could involve a team of internal employees, freelancers, agencies, or any combination thereof.
5. Monitor & Refine: Continuously monitor the success of the digital marketing strategy and refine tactics to continuously improve results over time. Looking at analytics such as user behavior and website performance, as well as tracking customer feedback, can help you understand if the strategy is working and where improvements can be made. Regularly reviewing your campaigns and making adjustments when necessary will ensure that your approach remains effective and up-to-date.

An effective digital marketing strategy should include research, goal setting, a plan of action, and constant monitoring to ensure success.

How to Evaluate Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has become an essential part of any successful business strategy. Companies need to understand how they can evaluate their digital marketing efforts to ensure they are utilizing the most effective strategies and getting the best results from their campaigns.

What are the 4 Ps and 7 Ps of digital marketing?

The 4 Ps of digital marketing are product, price, place, and promotion. This means that when you create a strategy, you need to think about what products or services you will offer, how much they should cost, where they will be sold, and how they can be advertised, which should be the foundation of any digital marketing strategy. Knowing these core elements can help you create campaigns that not only reach your target audience but also deliver a great customer experience.

The 7 Ps of digital marketing add three more elements to this approach: people (who will help with the process), process (what steps need to be taken), and packaging (how it should look). All these things together can make a powerful digital campaign that helps your business reach its goals. These additional three Ps give you an even more comprehensive view of your digital marketing strategy and how each element will work together to achieve success.

What are the 7 Cs of Digital Marketing?

In addition to the 7 Ps, the 7 Cs of digital marketing is another model that can be used to evaluate a company’s digital marketing strategy. This includes corporation, commodity, cost, communication, channel, consumer, and circumstances. When organizations look at their digital marketing through the 7 Cs, they can better understand how the corporation is positioned within the marketplace and how their products or services are perceived by customers. Additionally, this model allows them to evaluate the cost of their campaigns, how effectively they are communicating with customers, what channels they are using to reach consumers, and any outside circumstances that could affect their campaigns. For example, when considering the circumstances, a company may want to look at what social or political changes could impact its digital marketing efforts.  When all of these components are taken into consideration, organizations can craft a more successful digital marketing strategy.

What are the 5 Ds of Digital Marketing?

The 5 Ds of digital marketing is digital devices, digital platforms, digital media, digital data, and digital technology. These five elements are essential for any digital marketing strategy. Companies need to consider the devices their customers are using, the platforms they are engaging with, the media channels they are utilizing, how they can collect and use customer data, and what technology is available to them. This helps them create campaigns that will be effective in reaching their target audience. For example, if its customer base is primarily using mobile devices, the company should focus efforts on optimizing for those devices and developing campaigns that are tailored to them. If they have access to customer data, they should be utilizing it to create more targeted and personalized campaigns.

Putting it Together

Once you have developed your digital marketing strategy for a brand, companies can be confident that they are taking the first steps to reach their desired marketing plan goals with a good digital marketing strategy. The key to success lies in constantly monitoring the progress of your digital marketing efforts. Once you have identified what is working and what isn’t, you can tweak your approach for maximum success. 

The next step in a digital marketing strategy is to use the data collected from your content, campaigns, and digital channels to understand better what techniques are working for your target audience. This could include testing new ad formats or using a different message for different demographics.

Overall, digital marketing techniques can help you stay ahead of the competition and ensure that your campaigns are delivering the results you want. It is important to remember that digital marketing isn’t an exact science, so it’s important to remain open and flexible when testing out new methods. With the right research and knowledge of your target market, companies can create a successful digital marketing plan that will help them reach their goals.

If you are ready to take your business to the next level or want to talk with us about how we can help supercharge your marketing, reach out to us here!

Cheers!