How To Create A Digital Marketing Strategy

We live in a society where everyone’s online, and marketers have shifted their efforts toward building campaigns on the Internet to reach their target markets. Digital marketing has become an indispensable aspect of brand marketing.

Creating a digital marketing strategy follows the same principles of any traditional marketing strategy. It begins with research and analysis, setting goals and mapping out action plans. Then, it’s executed and tracked. With different digital marketing methods and channels available, it can get complicated. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to build a strategy using a structured approach that makes the digital marketing plan easier to implement, track and sustain.

What Is A Digital Marketing Strategy?

A digital marketing strategy is a step-by-step action plan created to achieve the marketing goals of a brand or business. It includes sales, conversions, and other chosen calls to action. And it is done solely online through different digital marketing channels, including social media, digital publishing, websites and earned or owned media.

Companies that have a marketing arm (or better yet, a team dedicated to digital marketing) can build a digital marketing strategy on their own. However, businesses with the necessary budget may prefer to hire the best digital marketing creative agency to do the work. 

Types of Digital Marketing

There are multiple ways of approaching digital marketing, and the most effective digital marketing strategies combine different techniques to make their campaigns effective. Below are some of the most common types of digital marketing.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing uses tactics such as keyword research, content optimization, website optimization, etc. to increase a brand’s visibility on search engines like Google. This brings organic traffic to a website.

Content Marketing

Content marketing involves creating and publishing useful content to attract, educate, and maintain a target audience.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing uses platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to connect to audiences, promote brands and sell products. 

Influencer and Affiliate Marketing

Influencer or affiliate marketing involves engaging an influencer, YouTube or Instagram digital creator or celebrity, as a means to communicate or promote a brand’s message to a large or niche audience.

Email Marketing

Email marketing refers to using email communication to generate leads and nurture existing clients. 

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-per-click advertising is a form of digital marketing that utilizes online ads. Advertisers only pay each time a person clicks the ad. This tactic is often used for strategies like retargeting in digital marketing.

Advertorials

Advertorials are similar to native advertising done in traditional marketing. It involves the addition of promotions to an online advertisement or publication in a way that resembles the content of the platform it’s on.

How To Create A Digital Marketing Strategy

Creating a digital marketing strategy requires a lot of research and decision-making to structure an actionable plan that will drive the intended results. Here’s how to get started.

Understand Your Audience

The first step to creating a digital marketing strategy is knowing your audience. This involves defining your target market, and then zeroing in on the specific demographic of customers you want to reach. Doing so helps you craft a more personalized marketing approach based on information such as where to find them, what messages resonate with them, and what tactics will work best at helping them discover and engage with your brand.

Identify Your Goals

Marketing goals are often glossed over. They’re left as general, abstract concepts, which make them hard to track and achieve. While it’s good to think big, try to break down goals into quantified and achievable statistics, which you can use as key performance indicators (KPIs).

For example, if the main goal is to increase sales, define the specific percentage, amount or quantity needed to evaluate if a marketing campaign achieved its targets. As an example, it could be an increase of 50% versus the sales of the previous year during the same period.

Map Out Your Strategy

Once you know your target audience and have identified your KPIs, map out the specific strategies you can use to achieve them. It’s best to use a combination of different types of digital marketing to reach results quickly and efficiently, But make sure you’re choosing the right channels.

Execution

After everything is planned out, you can begin executing the strategy. To increase the chances of success, ensure you do everything according to digital marketing best practices. 

Track Your Progress

Your strategy doesn’t end at execution. During and after the plan launches, make sure to monitor its progress. Identify what can be fixed if there are issues, or use lessons learned when starting a new campaign.

Final Thoughts

A digital marketing strategy has many different moving parts, which can be overwhelming. Proper planning and preparation are essential to creating a robust digital marketing strategy. It won’t just deliver immediate results, but will add value to your brand in the long run.