Are you looking for a better digital marketing strategy?
The United States has millions of small businesses, making it highly competitive. It matters not whether you’re a local business in Massachusetts. Marketing to an online audience can set you apart.
Read on and learn some ways to choose an effective marketing strategy.
1. Make Your Buyer Personas
Any marketing strategy benefits from knowing the people you’re marketing to. Building the best marketing strategies comes from detailed buyer personas. So your first step toward marketing dominance is creating a persona.
Buyer personas are representations of your ideal customers. You can find them using research, surveys, and interviews. Use accurate data instead of assumptions when making these.
Otherwise, it causes your marketing strategy to go on the wrong path.
A well-balanced persona must have a diverse research pool. Mix customers, prospects, and people outside your contacts. Regardless, they must align with your intended audience.
What kind of information is relevant to your buyer personas? It depends on the type of business you’re in—specifically, the costs of your products and whether you’re B2C or B2B.
2. Think About Your Goals and Tools
Your marketing goals must be consistent with your business objectives. For example, your goal is to increase online profits by 20%. In this case, your marketing strategy aims to make 50% more leads using your website.
An excellent place to start is to use a high-level marketing plan template. It helps outline your yearly marketing strategy. At the same time, it identifies your priorities and other important considerations.
Regardless of your overarching marketing goal, it must be measurable. Use the right marketing tools to determine your strategy’s success in real-time. Some online tools allow you to view all marketing and sales data in one location.
With a centralized system, you can determine strategies that work. It helps get rid of ineffective methods. Finally, it improves your overarching strategy as time passes.
3. Check Your Existing Digital Assets and Channels
Review your marketing channels and assets to know what to use in your strategy. Consider the big picture when doing this assessment. Otherwise, you’ll feel confused and overwhelmed.
Gather everything you have. Categorize each asset using a spreadsheet. It helps paint a clearer picture of your media.
Owned Media
These are the digital assets that your company owns. Most of these include:
- Website
- Social media profiles
- Blog content
- Images
Owned media are channels your brand has total control over. It also includes some of your off-site content. Other websites can host it, but it’s your content.
Earned Media
It refers to your earned exposure using word-of-mouth marketing techniques. It’s the content you put on other websites, like guest posts. It also includes your PR work and delivered customer experiences.
In short, earned media is the recognition coming from these efforts. You can make them when getting press mentions and positive reviews. It also happens when people share your content using social media platforms.
Paid Media
Paid media is the channel or content you pay for. Their primary function is to catch your buyer personas’ attention.
You must add extra features like Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, and other channels. Adding these will give increased visibility for money.
4. Audit and Plan Your Media Campaigns
The heart of digital marketing is your owned media, your content. It’s because each message your brand makes counts as content. It applies to your webpage content, blog posts, podcasts, or social media posts.
Content help convert website visitors into leads and, eventually, customers. It improves your brand’s online presence. Use search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to boost their search and organic traffic.
Regardless of your marketing strategy goal, using owned content is a must. First, decide the type of content that helps you achieve your goals. Then, audit your existing content, identify gaps, and make a content creation plan.
Your content creation plan depends on your identified gaps. It must outline the necessary content for your goals. This includes optimizing the following:
- Title
- Formats
- Goals
- Reason for making content
- Priority levels
You can use a simple spreadsheet for these. It must have information regarding your budget when outsourcing content creation. Otherwise, make a time estimate if you’re making it in-house.
After your owned media, evaluate your prior earned media. See how they measure against your goals. It helps make a concrete idea of where to focus your efforts.
5. Bring the Digital Marketing Campaign Together
After all the planning and research, finalize your marketing strategy. You already have a more concrete vision of the necessary components. It means organizing each to make them coherent.
You now have a clearer picture of your buyer personas, goals, media, and content creation plan. It’s time to bring them together into a single marketing strategy document.
The document lays out your planned course of action. It aims to achieve your goals based on your entire conducted research.
Digital Marketing Strategy Template
As said before, your digital marketing strategy template can be a spreadsheet. It’s an efficient format to map your strategy. However, a long-term plan can overwhelm and mess up a spreadsheet.
You must have a reliable digital marketing strategy document for a long-term strategy. To start, work with a reputable digital marketing agency. They’re experienced with the entire process and know how to make a proper template.
A marketing strategy template walks your business through its summary and initiatives. It ensures you target the right audience while minding your competition. It fleshes out your marketing strategy, including your channels, metrics, and budgets.
It’s an approach that gives a more structured timeline for your marketing activities. You may also have an easier time communicating these ideas to your team easier.
Have a Better Marketing Strategy Today!
These are some of the best digital marketing tips for choosing the right strategy. It’s an invaluable asset to your company’s future growth. So never hesitate and use these to succeed in the long run.
Want to work with digital marketing experts? Talk with us today, and we’ll help you build an efficient digital marketing plan.