How To Create A Digital Marketing Strategy

September 19, 2018

“Success is 20 percent skills and 80 percent strategy,” according to American entrepreneur Jim Rohn. In today’s culture of ever-evolving technologies, creating a strategy for digital marketing can be challenging. Here are a five do’s and don’ts to start planning for digital success.

1. DO an audit of all online activity.

Even if you don’t have a formal digital strategy, chances are you are already marketing digitally. Evaluations of each element of your digital footprint, including website performance, Google AdWords campaigns, social media platforms, and paid social media advertising, will provide a base point to get started. Ask your web development team or marketing agency to help gather data and provide insights. Then sit down as a team to discuss the findings.

Learning how customers have been responding to your online presence can help identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current activities. You may learn the social media platforms you’ve been using aren’t the best choice to reach your audience or that your website is behind on the latest SEO techniques.

As wins and losses are uncovered, an overall digital marketing strategy will begin to form. The process may even help your company define its “Why,” leading to the development of the overarching mission behind the strategy.

2. DON’T jump on every bandwagon.

It’s true that digital technology continually offers new ways to reach customers.  But before jumping on the latest and greatest bandwagon, take stock of where your audience is present and engaged. This can be as simple as exploring the latest Pew research of social media platforms or examining the demographic data available on each platform and through Google Analytics.

For example, if your target audience is in the 50-64 age group, it may not be wise to invest in developing a presence on Twitter, where only 19% of people within that age range are on the platform.

At the end of the day, one specifically chosen social media platform or pay-per-click campaign with a focused, consistent message–and quality content–will yield better results than multiple campaigns haphazardly spread across numerous channels.

3. DO utilize up-to-date SEO techniques.

SEO is a continual process. New techniques must be implemented so your site can stay competitive as search engines release algorithms and developments.

For example, keyword stuffing was once an acceptable practice in the SEO world. Now it can hurt your website, leading to a decrease in your overall site performance.

If SEO was implemented as a once-and-done process when your website launched, you’re falling behind the competition. A website audit can quickly reveal the current issues plaguing your site and create a pathway for improvements.

4. DON’T neglect paid advertising online as part of your strategy.

Organic and paid results go hand-in-hand. Your company will not achieve desired results without dynamic paid digital marketing and social media campaigns.

There are numerous budget-friendly pay-per-click and social media advertising options that can yield the results you want. But whatever campaigns you run, don’t develop a set-it-and-forget-it mentality. These unchanging, evergreen campaigns will grow stale to searchers or social media users, eventually plateauing and then declining in performance.

Rolling out new ads with different wording, images, etc., keeps your brand fresh and engaging to customers while also revealing key insights about what content they’re most likely to interact with.

5. DO focus on the customer.

Your digital marketing strategy will fall short unless it can add value to the customer’s life. So before solidifying a strategy and approach, weigh every piece of content, every PPC ad and every social media post through this lens.

Ultimately, the customer doesn’t care about your company’s product or service. They don’t care if you’ve been around for 30+ years. The customer cares about solving a problem or meeting a need. Successful digital marketing strategies address those problems and needs, sometimes without customers even realizing it.

Is your digital strategy reactionary, nonexistent or on-point? After considering these digital do’s and don’ts, don’t hesitate to reach out if you do have questions. Let the Fresh digital team help you create a strategy for digital success.

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