It is a well-known fact that companies with a well-crafted business plan fare better than those without. The principle behind that success is relatively simple; written plans require more thought and include steps needed to achieve both short and long-term goals. By the same token, it is a good practice to plan other critical business aspects such as sales and marketing. This leads to the next question. What are the essential tips for a successful digital marketing strategy?
Much like having a written business plan, a business will be much more effective with a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. It will clearly outline goals and objectives, expected costs and returns, along with task responsibilities and methods to confirm results.
While most people generally understand the idea of a written strategy or plan, when it comes to digital marketing there are three critical components a strategy needs to have to be successful in the current marketplace. Luckily, we are happy to share this important information learned over many years as an internet marketing company.
More than Just the Essentials
We did want to clarify that a well-rounded seo company is more than just the three essentials we list below. All the basics need to be accounted for and included in the strategy as well. In today’s hypercompetitive and crowded market, you must turn it up to eleven if you want success.
That means your strategy should also encompass:
- Creating and Maximizing a Budget
- Performing Research
- Learning about the Target Audience
- Mapping the Buyer Process
- Incorporating Creative Elements
- Integrating all Marketing Channels
- Optimizing your Website
- Reviewing SEO
- Train and Update Skills
Now – on to the Essentials!
3 Essential Tips for a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy
- Keep an Eye on the Competition – Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer when it comes to marketing. The most successful digital marketers constantly have an eye on the competition for multiple reasons. Both the things they are doing right and wrong should be considered as you formulate and modify your own strategies. Performing a competitor analysis provides an additional level of analytical insights as you gain a better picture of the entire marketplace rather than just your own niche. Additionally, it reduces the chance they will overtake you when you aren’t looking. Even your smallest competitor might find an opportunity that everyone else has overlooked.
- Plan Quarterly – Digital marketing has differences between (what is now called) traditional marketing, which occurs in the offline world. One of the most significant differences to recognize is the short cycles that occur because of the consistent level of change that occurs online. While you should have long term goals, strategies are better planned over quarterly periods. This allows built-in flexibility to account for changes, such as adding the newest social media platform into the mix. It also reduces the chance that developments or changes are overlooked, such as a Google algorithm update. By planning quarterly your business will have more dexterity and the ability to maximize new opportunities rather than abandoning a campaign after six months because it isn’t effective due to an industry shift which took place months before.
- Measure for Success – How do you know if your efforts are paying dividends? The answer is based on benchmarks and analysis. With the power of Google Analytics and other tools, it can be very easy to measure key performance indicators for any type of campaign. Top companies spend time in the analytics pool, swimming around in data to gain insights, understand traffic and conversions, along with gathering audience data. They then measure the important benchmarks for a given campaign. A Web Design Company would look at KPIs such as traffic, conversions, signups, etc. These should be reviewed prior to launching the campaign to establish benchmarks, and then reviewed during the campaign to allow strategy adjustments. If you measure for success it not only helps current campaigns, but post-campaign data can be used to better plan future endeavors.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that in today’s market, it is critical to have a digital marketing strategy. With our experience as a digital marketing company, we have seen firsthand the difference in the performance of companies that have a strategy versus those that don’t. In addition, the essential tips for a successful digital marketing strategy that we have listed are often the difference between victory and failure in the marketing trenches.