How to Create A Solid Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Business

You’ve likely read enough on the topic of digital marketing to know that you need a solid strategy if you want your business to move forward. However, around 46% of companies haven’t defined a solid marketing plan for their business, while others aren’t sure how to implement the plan they have.

There are some basic steps you can take that will help you get your plan in place and implement it no matter what size business you own.

Step # 1: Define a Goal

The first step you need to take is figuring out what your objective is for your marketing plan. If you don’t have a clearly defined goal, then your marketing may be all over the place and not nearly as effective as if you used targeted ads with a defined purpose.

If you aren’t sure just yet what you want your goal to be, you can study your competitors and what they are doing on the digital marketing front. Analyze what you think their goals are. Is it to gain subscribers and leaders? Position themselves as the leading company in your field? How can you fill the niche better or fill a different niche in the industry?

Here are some companies that did online marketing right:

The Shelter Pet Project used Facebook by coming up with a creative campaign that generated strong awareness of abandoned shelter pets. Their “Local Legends” campaign incorporated videos, pictures as well as sponsored Facebook ads for maximum impact.

Mericle Properties did an excellent job of promoting their real estate services by utilizing local citation techniques through relevant directory listings.

The Dollar Shave Club’s main marketing goal was to make shaving (a tedious, boring task) seem funny and entertaining. They pulled it off by keeping their social media engagements silly and lighthearted, while creating funny online content.

Step # 2: Study Your Past Marketing Efforts

Once you have a defined goal, it’s a good time to study past marketing efforts and figure out what worked and what didn’t. Take the time to study return on investment (ROI) for each ad campaign. Which campaigns were most effective?

Now, take a look at the goal you defined above. Did the effectiveness address the actual goal you have or was it in another area? The marketing efforts that were successful and also fit within your goal for your company are ones you should consider for your digital marketing strategy going forward.

Step # 3: Create a Relevant Blog

A blog should absolutely be part of your overall marketing strategy. A vibrant and current blog can drive traffic to your site, help you reach current customers, and grab the interest of readers. When you create new content for your blog, you have an opportunity to include new keywords you haven’t used in the past, which can help you drive traffic in additional areas you may not have before.

Blogging also gives you an opportunity to forge relationships between yourself and your audience. Answer questions that the average consumer has. Create highly researched, reliable pieces of writing so they know they can trust you.

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Step # 4: Create a Budget

Every business has a marketing budget that works best for them. As a rule of thumb, it is a good idea to invest 20% of sales back into your business through advertising. However, if you are just getting started, you may have higher costs and need to reduce that number to a lesser percentage.

Once you’ve figured out how much of a budget you can afford to spend on advertising, you then need to decide what percentage of that budget will be spent on digital marketing and what percentage will be spent on other forms of marketing, such as print and radio. Studying your ROIs is the best way to figure out where your money should be spent for maximum impact.

Final Thoughts

A solid digital marketing strategy can take your business to the next level. If you want to continue growth year after year, you must revisit the subject annually, make a new plan, get rid of what isn’t working, and then move forward.

Anum Yoon is a personal finance blogger and writer. She created and maintains her personal finance blog Current on Currency. You can subscribe to her blog newsletter right here for her weekly updates.

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