Why Your Business Needs A Digital Marketing Plan
If you want your business to survive in the 21st century, you need a digital marketing plan. Do you want to attract more customers? Increase sales? Build brand loyalty? A digital marketing plan helps you channel all your business goals so that they become achievable — not just on paper but in real life.
Given the current era of digitalization, most of your target consumers can be reached online. It’s time to move on from traditional marketing efforts. Digital marketing is the new hype; it has evolved into the most effective form of marketing because it allows you to market in a direct but also very personable way.
Digital marketing can feel overwhelming in the beginning; especially if you have little understanding of the online world. In addition, the diverse range of digital marketing methods makes it all the more puzzling. This is why we came up with this blog, to educate business owners, like you, about digital marketing.
What is a digital marketing plan?
A digital marketing plan is a detailed outline of what you want to achieve within a certain timeframe, and how you intend to achieve it. Essentially, the purpose of a digital marketing plan is to guide you towards your business goals. When constructing your digital marketing plan, there are a few important factors to keep in mind:
What are your business goals?
What product/service are you going to promote?
Who is your target audience?
Which online channels does your audience use?
Who are your competitors?
What is your digital marketing budget?
What is your time frame?
What strategies and actions will you implement?
How will success be measured? Aka your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
With this in mind, every digital marketing plan is unique to each company’s goals and objectives.
Why do you need a digital marketing plan?
A digital marketing plan is your roadmap to success. It helps identify marketing strategies, refine your initiatives, and keep track of your progress. The end result is attracting more customers to buy your product or service and falling in love with your brand.
Most companies already realize that they need a digital marketing plan in order for their business to grow. But, not many know how to create a successful one. Over 45% of organizations fail to come up with a clear digital marketing plan. And as the saying goes: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
This is why your business will have the upper hand if you start working on a well-developed digital marketing plan today.
Having a well-developed digital marketing plan is proven a whopping 313% more likely to report success. The reason for this drastic difference is because there are many advantages that come with a well-developed digital marketing plan. These advantages contribute to your brand’s overall objectives.
The advantages of a well-developed digital marketing plan include:
Achieve business goals
As previously mentioned, a digital marketing plan is a strategic blueprint of how you intend to pursue your business goals. While your digital marketing goals may not directly translate to a business goal, they serve to push you in the right direction.
Improve your judgement of the market
A well-developed digital marketing plan consists of an in-depth analysis of your target audience. For example, what are their demographics? Are they on social media? If so, which channels do they use most?
When you have a deeper understanding of your target audience, you will determine the most effective way to reach out to customers, engage with them, and gain their trust.
Make use of resources efficiently
Most businesses that just started do not have a lot of capital saved up for marketing efforts. Every cent counts; you don’t want to invest in something that will not benefit you.
A digital marketing plan helps you organize your expected spendings in detail. This way, you know exactly where your time and money are going. As your marketing campaign progresses, you will be able to track down less effective measures and make the necessary changes.
Strengthen team dynamics
There are many challenges to running a business. However, we can all agree that the worst way to jeopardize a business is through an internal fallout.
A digital marketing plan clarifies your initiatives and ensures that everyone is working on the same page. It not only prevents conflict within your team, but it also strengthens communication, coordination, and the overall team dynamics.
Ability to experiment with different approaches
The term “digital marketing” is an umbrella term. Under digital marketing, there are various areas to explore and experiment. During your digital marketing journey, you might realize that one method works best, or a combination of a few works even better.
There are many opportunities for you to elevate your digital marketing efforts.
Categories of a digital marketing plan
A digital marketing plan brings forth a handful of advantages to your business. However, it is crucial to invest in strategies that will produce the best results. Here are some popular digital marketing channels that you may consider incorporating into your plan.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) makes use of SEO techniques such as keywords, organic content, backlinks, and crosslinks. The purpose of SEO is to elevate your website’s ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It is a useful tactic because it allows more search users to access your website and learn about your brand. In a survey conducted by Databox, 70% of respondents said that SEO is better than Pay-Per-Click (PPC) for generating sales.
Content marketing
Content marketing is one of the most vital strategies for attracting a wider audience and establishing your brand voice. Types of content vary from guest blogging, photos for social media, videos, podcasts, and Ebooks. Potential customers usually come across digital marketing through organic and paid search.
You want to post high-quality content high that serves a purpose. Your content should be informative, engaging, and interesting to your target audience. When you apply content marketing effectively, you can boost your site’s SEO rankings while persuading your audience to buy your product/service. Most marketing teams consist of a content marketer because of the value in content marketing.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is a major component of digital marketing. According to Statistica, improved traffic, lead generation, and fan loyalty are among the top reasons why marketers use social media campaigns. Social media marketing efforts are often combined with paid advertising and sponsorship to reach more customers.
There are many social channels available to establish your online presence. The more prominent platforms are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest. You might find that it is unnecessary to be on every social media platform. As such, choose the few where your target audience is most active. It would be beneficial to compose a social media strategy to make the most out of your social media efforts.
Email marketing
Email marketing is a very direct form of marketing that allows you to connect with customers on a one-to-one level. Marketing emails usually involve promotional messages that highlight in-store offers, special announcements, and seasonal sales. Some companies even devote time to sending out personalized messages to their customers. By doing this, you effectively show your customers that you care for them.
Mobile marketing
Mobile marketing is another direct form of marketing that specifically targets mobile users. It is effective because it allows businesses to reach a large audience through their mobile devices which is particularly useful if your target audience is the younger generation. As studies have found, mobile web traffic has consistently accounted for about half of all global web traffic since the beginning of 2017.
Mobile marketing works by sending promotional materials through text message or advertisements in downloaded apps. In order to fully optimize mobile marketing, marketers also work on enhancing the user experience on websites, landing pages, emails, and content on mobile devices.
Video marketing
Video marketing is a key method in digital marketing. In fact, 80% of video marketers claim that video has directly increased sales. Given how internet users are inherently visual creatures, videos are the perfect way to engage and interact with your audience.
You can make use of video marketing to showcase your product or services, events, and special announcements. Corporate video production is another form of video marketing that companies implement to promote their business from a professional and high-quality perspective.
Most marketing videos are shared on YouTube and the company’s site. However, most social media platforms allow video uploads as well. As such, making videos is a well-rounded strategy that can be applied in both content and social media marketing.
Your digital marketing journey
Digital marketing is an extensive terrain to explore and manage during your role as a business owner. While there are many digital marketing strategies that you can implement, it is important to have control of your campaigns. A digital marketing plan is fundamental as it helps ensure that you stay on course and don’t lose sight of your goal.
FAQs
Aside from the digital marketing strategies mentioned in this blog, are there more strategies I can use?
Yes, there is an infinite stream of digital marketing strategies out there. The strategies mentioned in this blog are simply what we found to be the most effective and cost-friendly.
You can always explore other forms of digital marketing. For example, affiliate marketing, radio advertising, television advertising, and paid search. Though keep in mind that these efforts usually require greater capital investments.
How do I know whether my digital marketing plan is well-developed?
Measuring the success of your digital marketing plan is critical because it is basically the foundation of all your marketing efforts; you want it to be as sturdy as possible.
We recommend using KPIs (key performance indicators) to clarify your idea of success and keep track of your progress. KPIs are useful in helping you reflect and amend decisions in future campaigns too. You can learn more about KPIs in our social media strategy blog.
How do I know which digital marketing approach would work best?
This is an important question to consider when you’re developing your digital marketing plan. A good way to gauge which approach works best is to first solidify your business goals and target audience. Then, conduct research on your target audience to understand their purchasing trends. You can also look to your competitors to observe what tactics they are using.
Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all solution in digital marketing. This is what makes digital marketing so intriguing. However, some might say otherwise. Indeed, digital marketing can be overly-complex and a tough nut to crack. Which is why most companies resort to digital marketing experts to handle the workload.
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