As the Managing Director of All Things Web® I am often asked what makes an effective digital marketing strategy. So for my latest blog post I have written a brief guide to the top 5 aspects that you should ensure are featured in your strategy.

Do your research

As with all marketing activity, before you start you need to have a clear idea of your target audience and how they are likely to locate companies that offer your products and services.  A good place to start is by reviewing your existing clients.  Group them into natural customer groups and understand what makes them tick then create your customer personas.  Once you know who they are you can start to understand their buying habits, and create messages that will resonate with them.

If online search features within your strategy, then it is worthwhile to take time to conduct detailed keyword research; this will help you to you know what to target in your website and campaigns.  There are a range of tools to enable you to do this more scientifically but don’t forget to ask your sales team and customers too as they will have some valuable insights.

Understand who your competitors are and what they are doing so you can benchmark your own activity and be clear about timeframes and investment required to compete.   Keep an eye on them throughout your own campaigns as they won’t stop activity just because you’ve started and may change tack to counter or even copy your own strategy.

Consider the Resources you will need

Activity such as Social Media can be very time consuming if you are going to do it well.  Adwords can be cost prohibitive in some sectors and areas such as Organic SEO needs specific expertise to do right.

Be realistic about what you can achieve with the budget you have available or be prepared to invest properly to get the results you want.  As with anything digital marketing “on the cheap” won’t work and you will end up spending more in the long term.

Look at the resources and skill set you have internally to see whether you need to outsource the work, up skill your team through training or recruit a dedicated resource to your team.

Time is often forgotten about when it comes to looking at resources and yet having sufficient time to dedicate to the activity is critical and can play a large part in determining if you undertake certain tactics.

Have a Plan

Ad hoc sporadic marketing activity never works.  An effective digital marketing strategy should cover a range of different channels, be fully integrated and mapped out.

Most importantly it needs consistency in terms of messaging, timing and delivery so take the time to have a plan and regularly review progress against it.

Measure your results

At the outset set some clear objectives for your digital marketing and some specific measurable KPIs such as traffic, rankings, followers, likes, page engagement or conversions for each activity.

Set up the mechanisms such as Google Analytics, Hootsuite and reports from your CRM to track the results and review them regularly.

Be prepared to adapt

Digital marketing tactics all have varying timeframes for delivering results.  Adwords for example can give you instant visibility on Google results whereas Organic Search should be seen as a medium to long term strategy.

You need to allow an appropriate amount of time for the activity to generate results but that being said don’t continue blindly for the sake of it.  Be prepared to refine and adapt your activity depending on the results you see.

Keep an eye on competitors, abreast of technology and changes in digital marketing and take action as appropriate so that you can build longevity into your online marketing.

Conclusions

Including all of these elements within your Digital Marketing Strategy will ensure it works effectively and makes a real difference to your business.

Help & Advice       

For help with creating an integrated digital strategy for your business or to get help with delivering the activity within it contact the team here at All Things Web®.