To create a Digital Marketing Strategy that is to be approved by the board, or to get your business up and running, there are a few areas which need to be covered to make this a success. These areas all need to be researched thoroughly and cannot be skipped or trimmed down. By not giving each area of the digital marketing strategy enough time or respect, you can easily fail in this assignment.
Within this blog we will discuss what sort of things will need to be included in a Digital Marketing Strategy, please do note that this is not an exhaustive list, there may be other things that you find you will need to add.
Goal Completion
Firstly, and most importantly you will need to create a list of Goals that you would like to be attributed to the Digital Marketing Strategy. How would you define success?
Everything that we do within the full digital marketing mix comes down to the same point.
Goal Completion.
Has this created a successful completion of your goals? Yes, great. No? Then you need to work out why and optimise the channel so that it does have a successful goal completion.
Many goals can be implemented with a Digital Marketing Campaign; sometimes it is not all about the revenue. Here is a simple list of what could be put down as a goal, as mentioned, this is not an exhaustive list, this is your brand, and you make up the rules of what you like.
– Increased Brand Awareness (more people to know who you are).
– The increase in products that are sold.
– Increase in profit being made.
– An increase of New Customers.
– Expanding into a new market.
– To develop the loyalty and affinity of the brand itself.
– To grow the digital presence within your target market.
– To successfully launch new products or services.
– To be able to grow the market share that your company has within its industry.
SMART Objectives for Your Marketing Strategy
Once you have successfully chosen what your goals of the marketing strategy should be, you can then break these down somewhat easier to ensure that they are going to be a success. To be able to do this, each goal will need clear objectives. To create an objective, it would need to be in the SMART Objective Formula.
SMART Objectives are formed by the following;
– Specific
– Measurable
– Achievable
– Realistic
– Time-Bound
Therefore, as an example. A SMART Objective from one of the above goals could be;
‘An Increase of products sold through the website by 20% within the year 2018 compared to the previous year.’
Let’s look again at the SMART Formula to break down the above objective in more detail;
– Specific; The objective is specific to what medium the sales come from, what dates and what percentage, there is no room for doubt within this clear objective.
– Measurable; you can measure the above as it has given a clear percentage and date of growth, with the period that it needs to be analysed against.
– Achievable; only you know if this is achievable, and this all comes down to budget and market share. If you do not have the budget to get 20% growth, then this is not achievable, and you do need to be realistic.
– Realistic; Same as the above comment, if you are not realistic, then you will always miss your targets.
– Time-Bound; within the above clear objective, I have mentioned that the timescale is within the full year of 2018. It does not have to be a full year; there could be a deadline date for certain activities.
While you are writing these clear goals and objectives. Take some time for yourself to be able to think about them clearly; they will be stuck with you for the next few months at least so you should ensure that they are correct.
There should be some different goals included in a digital marketing strategy that is created, and each one will then have a clear SMART objective assigned against them, for instance;
‘An Increase of products sold through the website by 5% within the first three months of the year compared to the previous year.’
‘An Increase of products sold through the website by 10% within the second quarter of the year compared to the previous year.’
And so on.
This will enable you to be able to judge that you are on track when you do your monthly and quarterly reporting.
Budget Allocation in Your Marketing Strategy
Once you have all of your goals aligned with the clear objectives that accompany them, then the next thing that you should focus on would be the budget allocation. You need to look at each goal, look at the objective and put together the budget that you have to make sure that these are completed in time.
When looking at these budgets for your marketing strategy, you will need to have a strong eye for many things such as wage costs, technology costs, equipment rental, etc. Just because you are going to complete something yourself, this does not mean that there is no cost attributed to this goal or objective.
You will still need to have some kind of software or hardware, you will still need somewhere to sit within that time frame, and you still need to earn yourself. All of these factors need to be included in the Digital Marketing Strategy under the budget section.
Working through the Budget Allocation straight after the Goal and Objective setting will help you with other decisions that you will need to make. For instance, will you outsource part of the work to another professional and or marketing agency to complete it for you?
If you have a set timeframe to complete a goal, and you do think this goal objective is not achievable within your current expertise, then make sure you have a budget in that area to be able to outsource this to have the highest possible chance to succeed.
Allocating budgets against the goals and objectives will give you a clear understanding of what is realistic. If they are not, then you can change the SMART Objectives at this point before you have gone too far down the strategic road.
You cannot just throw money at certain objectives to ensure that they are a success, this can be business suicide. In your marketing strategy, you need to ensure that all budgets are realistic within the business and look into what the total yearly income of the business is. Discuss with the team what percentage of revenue you want to allocate to digital marketing.
The budget allocation is tough, especially if you have not done this before. With bigger companies, you will be directed by the Board of Directors, within the smaller companies or if you are just starting, then you will not have much budget at all. In these cases, we would suggest doing a month-by-month plan.
Brand Messaging
On completion of the Goal Setting, The Clear Objectives and the Budget Allocation in your marketing strategy, we come to the next part of the Digital Marketing Strategy. This is the ‘Brand Messaging’
The Brand Messaging at this point is crucial, as you have the goals in mind that you want to complete, and you have the budgets that are assigned to each of the goals and objectives. With this in mind, you can start to think about the Brand Messaging Top 4 Points.
– Mission Statement
– Brand Promise
– Tone and Voice
– Unique Selling Propositions
As you revise or write these points within your digital marketing strategy, you will undoubtedly have to consider the following three points.
– Customer Perspective; how do you want to be perceived by your potential buyers and past clients?
– Internal Perspective; how do you want to be perceived by your staff? What will encourage them to work?
– Market Perspective; how do you want to be perceived by your competition?
You will need to get these correct to inspire both your staff and your customers, so the focus is needed.
As an example of poor planning for your marketing strategy, I once worked for a company that within the interview process mentioned to me that we would be using digital platforms and channels such as ‘webinars’ to create a buzz and bring in new customers. They wanted to be perceived by the customer and the whole market as industry and thought leaders. I thought this was brilliant, exactly what this company needed, and I could see it working. This kind of thought process does motivate the staff to increase productivity.
A few months later, when I sat down with the head of content and asked how this planning was going, they mentioned that this was no longer going to happen as ‘we are not big enough yet to make a noise.’ I was shocked and handed my notice a week later.
The reason for my notice was that a lot of time had gone into the planning and researching of this specific channel, with the members of staff pushing to achieve the perspective of industry thought leaders, yet to be told (after weeks of work) that they were wasting their time.
This was poor planning, poor management and ultimately a kick in the teeth to those who had worked so hard within that time. If the first part of the marketing strategy were done correctly, by making SMART objectives, then time would not be wasted on the research for the Brand Messaging.
Researching Target Audience for Your Marketing Strategy
Within the Marketing Strategy, once we have looked into the Goal Settings, The Clear Objectives, The Budgets and The Brand Messaging, we then need to research and understand who our target audience would be.
Good marketers would not attempt to reach everyone. It is a waste of time and budget. You need to identify the specific people who will purchase your product or service, and whom you will get the very highest conversion rate.
To be able to do this correctly, you will need to break the target audience demographic and psychographic characteristics down so that they relate to the following;
– Age
– Location
– Occupation
– Marital Status
– Gender
– Ethnic Background
– Income Level
– Education Level
– Personality
– Lifestyle
– Behaviour
– Worldview
– Attitudes
– Values
– Interests and Hobbies
There are many different pieces of software that you can use to be able to determine the above in the digital space, though the more personal factors such as values, attitudes, and interests, this can only be done by speaking with the target market. If you are new to a particular project, it is worth speaking with some of the customer bases to understand what they are looking for and how they want certain information to be pushed in their direction.
There is a reason that this area of the digital marketing strategy comes just after the brand messaging, and that is so that you ensure that you have everything correct.
For instance, you may have your brand messaging set out for a certain tone of voice, but if that does not fit the customer base, then you will not get the reaction that you are looking for.
For instance, if you focus your product message on being the ‘Cheapest’ but the user and target market persona of your product is quite well educated with a good income, then being the cheapest is not what they are looking for.
This kind of customer would benefit and react more to having an informative sale, in which you teach the consumer about the product or service and show what would benefit them the most to solve an issue, though you may be the cheapest, this is not the message that they want, they want the message of quality instead.
Buyers’ Journey to be Included in a Digital Marketing Strategy
Following the Goal Settings, The Clear Objectives, The Budget, The Brand Messaging and The Target Audience, the ideal scenario would then be to look into the Buyers Journey.
To be able to help with this, it is sometimes beneficial to create a buyer persona from the above information. Something like the below works well;
‘Bob, 33 Years Old in Essex, United Kingdom, Male Office Professional who is married with one child. Mid Income and Degree level education. Enjoys his job and spends most of his time working, loves his family’.
Using this information, you can look into the buyer’s Journey with much more of a keen eye.
As an outline for the buyer’s journey, there are specifically 3 points that need to be looked into to ensure the highest possible conversion rate within the digital activity.
Awareness; what is the current situation that the customer finds itself in when realising that they need your particular product or service?
Consideration; what is your customer doing when they are looking for a solution to the issue that they have?
Decision; how would your customer make the final decision, where would they be before the purchase? What are their thoughts and concerns?
To bring the above to light as an example, we can look again into the Bob scenario.
‘Bob is at work at 5 pm on a Wednesday evening and suddenly remembers his sister’s birthday is the next day, he is using his mobile device to look for a present in a rush. The biggest concern that Bob has is the delivery time as he has left it so late to purchase.’
There are hundreds if not thousands of situations that you can look into, but if you can try to go into some generic detail, it will help you have a much higher conversion rate on the sale of the product or service that you have to offer.
Understanding Digital Marketing Channels to be included in a Digital Marketing Strategy
The next point within the digital marketing strategy would be to understand the digital marketing channels that you should use to be able to get to Bob in his time of need.
The type of marketing that you do will all depend on the needs that we have already discussed previously in this chapter. There are some different digital channels to look into the features and benefits of before being able to place these correctly to gain the very highest conversion rate and return on investment.
The digital channels you will for your marketing strategy could be;
– Search Engine Optimisation
– Email Marketing
– Affiliate Marketing
– Display Marketing
– PPC (text ad)
– PPC (retargeting)
– PPC (shopping)
– Social Media
You will need to understand each of these channels thoroughly before you can have an understanding of the features and benefits of the channel. How it will help you get to your target market? At what point is the right time in the buying process? All of this will ultimately affect the goal completions that you put together at the beginning of the digital marketing strategy.
Looking at the Bob scenario, we can now understand which digital channels would be best to capture his business and to make a return on investment within the sales process. Bob is not interested in lots of adverts; he will purchase the first item that shows appropriate for his sister AND that can be delivered in time. If your product is the first to be seen when Bob is in need, then you are in a good place to be able to capture this business.
Here we need to understand what the consumer will do and that will help us decide on the channels we should use. I would suggest that his first step would be to use his phone and go to the set search engine. Therefore, if you heavily invest in search engine optimisation, then you have a good chance of getting this sale. Using Social Media would not be so beneficial as that is not the digital channel Bob is looking at when on the buying cycle.
Another good option to capture Bob’s sale would be to look into the PPC Shopping ads which show at the top of most search engine result pages, this will enable your product to be seen and within the mix to be purchased, even if you do not have the authority to organically be at the top of the search engine result pages.
Secondly, your target may be different; if your target persona is an ‘18-year-old female that lives at home with her parents, a small amount of disposable income and spends her time with her friends’ then perhaps the social media channels will work and have a higher conversion rate for you. You can easily showcase your product range and inspire the prospect that your product will better their lives.
When writing your digital marketing strategy, there are many things to consider. We now understand that we need to think of the business goals, the person who is going to purchase the product or service and that we need to think about the channel that we are going to deliver the messaging. To get this all tied together, you need to think of and understand the 4 Ps of Marketing. The Product, The Place, The Price, and the Promotion.
If you need help writing your digital marketing strategy get in contact with HC Media Group today.