“Winners have a plan, losers have an excuse.”
Nothing is less true than this winged statement. One of the biggest reasons companies are skeptical about marketing; they put a lot of money into it, but the question is whether it pays off or not.
We regularly see entrepreneurs floating around aimlessly. Not only in the consumer market but especially in B2B.
If you don’t have a strategy, but your competitors do – you will lose the battle!
For a digital marketing strategy THAT WORKS, it is important that you know who your target audience is. You use a flexible process – a process that can adapt as your company grows or changes. Make sure you know what you are doing. By this, we mainly mean that you have to think in the long term.
At Cyber Web Services, we are constantly thinking of interesting things to share with our audience. This way, we always have things to move on when we are without inspiration.
What exactly is a great digital marketing strategy?
A digital marketing strategy is actually the logical consequence of your business strategy. The online plan ensures the deepening of the digital channels. You focus on online activities and the online channels at your disposal.
By drawing up an online marketing strategy, you map out exactly which steps you want to take online and where your priorities lie.
Why is a digital marketing strategy of added value?
Did you know that only 24% of SMEs have an (online) marketing plan? Given this number, there’s a good chance your competitors don’t have a strategic digital marketing plan yet. Our conclusion is that you can be quickly ahead if you do make a plan.
Be clear about what you want to achieve and what you will be posting in the next one, three, or probably six months. If it works better for you to work out a number of posts at fixed times and schedule them, then feel free to do so!
But, the most important thing is that you always keep your goal and target audience in mind. What do you want to achieve? Are you going to realize more leads and turnover? Do you want to make a better margin on your sales? Then you need to plan a digital marketing strategy.
What does a good online marketing strategy look like?
When you get started with your online marketing strategy, it is important that you record the strategy in a clear plan. This plan contains at least the following elements:
- Target goals
- Budget
- Target audience
- Errand
- Proposition
Take an example: When you go fishing, you first have to think about the fish you want to catch. So your target audience. Each target group requires a different approach. Just like catching different fish. The online marketer’s fishing box is full of all kinds of handy tools to do that – just like Facebook or Pinterest.
Preparations of online marketing strategy
You can almost get started with your online marketing strategy, but before you can do this, preparation is of great importance. Before developing your marketing plan, you need to prepare 3 essential things:
1. Zero measurement
Map out where the company is now online. How is the website used? What results is the website getting now? How is the findability of the website? How is your business performing on social media?
2. Process Analysis
Marketing and sales are normally process activities. Both activities work together. Clearly map out how marketing is currently being used, how sales activities are carried out, and how the two will connect.
3. Engagement
Marketing is people’s work. And marketers depend on other people in the organization. From sales, from product specialists, from customer service, and of course from the management. A marketing strategy can only be successful if people can work well together.
How do you create a successful digital marketing strategy?
Time to plan out your marketing strategy! Describe in your online marketing strategy per customer journey phase what you want to use, how you want to use it, and why you want to use it. Think long-term. A visitor may have a buying need in a month, in a few months, or maybe in a year. You become a lot more aware of this when you work with a marketing model.
Work on the customer journey
Marketing is 100% about responding to the needs and behavior of your customers. The best way to map out how you can reach and convince customers is to tap into the customer journey.
Determine your target audience
Know who you want to reach! Personas can be a useful tool here. With the help of a persona, you can easily think about who you want to target with your marketing strategy.
When creating such a persona, try to go deeper than just the standard data. For example, think about your persona’s interests and difficulties. Following this, you immediately know which type of post may interest your target audience.
Once you understand who your target audience consists of, you will also know where to meet them.
For example, it is easier to meet someone 19 years old on Instagram than someone in their 50s. Someone who likes to be creative will probably find themselves on Pinterest from time to time.
Create your content
Now, when you know who you want to reach, you can start composing your content. Creating quality content is way more important. But this doesn’t mean you have to write long paragraphs. Just a short and sweet description is enough to pull customers’ attention. For your website, write the blogs with the problems that users are searching to get the solution for. Don’t forget SEO here, as you would want the article to rank on search engines.
Again, as we stated in reasons for your strategy failure, don’t share the content randomly. Take a notebook and pen, write down the problems that your customers face, and create a content calendar based on how you will help them.
Keep in mind that a content marketing strategy is a long-term process, and don’t give up if your first 5 shares are not a huge success. Please continue to do so and make adjustments where necessary.
Use the trends
It is important to know that people like watching trendy things on online platforms. Thus, channels such as Facebook, Instagram show the content on top that interests people.
Video marketing is super hot these days. It’s a big step and often takes you out of your comfort zone, but it just works so much better than a lengthy text telling you the same thing.
Final Verdict
Setting up a digital marketing strategy yourself is not something you can do in one, two, three. Set aside some time for it and think through all your steps carefully. Would you like to sit down together to work out your digital marketing strategy? Then feel free to contact us!