Digital Marketing Strategy: It is the
marketing of products or brands via one or
more forms of electronic media. To be competitive these days,
brands need to engage with customers regularly. Technology and social platforms
have made it very easy to do so, and there seems to be no shortage of
opportunities for engagement with the customers. For example, advertising
mediums that might be used as part of
the digital marketing strategy of
a business could include promotional efforts made via
the Internet, social media, mobile
phones and electronic billboards, as well as via television and
radio channels.
Digital marketers monitor things
like what is being viewed, how often and for how long, sales conversions, what
content works and doesn’t work etc. While the Internet is, perhaps, the most
close channel associated with digital marketing, others include wireless text
messaging, mobile instant messaging, mobile apps, podcasts, electronic
billboards, digital television and radio channels etc.
Digital Marketing Strategy
In oversimplified terms, digital
marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or additional types of
electronic media. Digital marketing differs from traditional marketing
strategies. It involves the utilization of channels and ways that alters a
company to research marketing campaigns and perceives what’s operating and what
isn’t in real time.
1. Goals & Objective
In digital marketing strategy, the
key to success is being able to define objectives and measure how successful
they are. The objectives you decide for your digital marketing strategy need to
be SMART( Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely). When
defining your digital marketing objectives, you should think about how they
will align with your overall business’ goals and your key performance
indicators. Your plan needs to look at the whole customer journey. This can be
summarized simply as awareness, acquisition and conversion. Different online
tactics will support different parts of this customer journey. Once you have defined
your objectives, you should provide a summary of your digital marketing
strategy, showing how you are going to use digital marketing to meet your
goals.
2. Identify Your Customers
An effective digital marketing
strategy starts with knowing your customers and your goals. Before your
customers ever land on your digital properties, you have to find creative ways
to fill them in on who you are and what you are doing as an enterprise. This is
where the acquisition game comes into play, and it is a crucial and the most
difficult step for marketers looking to Attract the Right Customers for
their business, who actually add some value to it. Websites, e-commerce stores
and blogs, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Vine
are all effective ways to draw new crowd and customers to your website, and
other methods such as search and display may also help you optimize your
digital marketing strategy. That’s why it is crucial for your company to
identify what your target market is before you begin the acquisition portion of
your digital marketing campaign.
3. Identify Your Competitors
The purpose to identify your
competitors is to gain a level of insight that allows you to evolve your
digital marketing strategy based on competitor insight. It’s not that you
should be dictated by what you learn about competitors, as being very reactive
to that can be worse than doing nothing. What you need to do is, you find
businesses similar to yours, but not limit your analysis to competitors of a
specific size. Go through the social media sites and identify your true
competitors and focus on the USP (unique selling point); e.g. what extra and
beneficial values you can add to your product as compare to your competitors.
4. Assign Roles
The most efficient marketing
strategy is considered as the one which explains the goals and objectives of
your business to your team and customers. Marketing strategy is very
important that before going to start the business you have assigned and
identified the roles of every members in your team. This will make your
marketing strategy more clear and ambiguity free.
5. Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a
form of internet and Digital marketing that involves the promotion of websites
by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through
paid advertising. Many small businesses think running a paid search campaign is
too expensive and don’t have a marketing budget to compete with bigger, but
this is not a true case for all. I will explain how you can make your digital
marketing strategy even more better with search engine marketing.
5.1 – Keyword Research
Keyword research is the most crucial
step, for being competitive with your competitors is to be strategic about
which keywords you go after. Perform a deep keyword research. These are the
words that you want to get found for online. In order to identify these
keywords, I recommend conducting a brainstorming session with stakeholders from
your company. After choosing a good keyword strategy, you can also save money
by restricting certain keywords with matchtypes and negative keywords. This is
an excellent way to reduce wasted spend.
5.2 – Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is
the process of improving the visibility of a website on organic search engine
result pages (SERPs), by incorporating search engine friendly elements into a
website. There are many aspects to SEO, from the words on your page to the way
other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making
sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand. On the
surface, search engine optimization is a good way of marketing a website.
In search engine optimization,
on-page optimization refers to factors that have an effect on your website or
webpages listing in natural search results. These factors are controlled by you
or by coding on your page. Examples of on-page optimization include actual HTML
code, meta tags, keyword placement and keyword density. On page optimization
refers to all measures that can be taken directly within the website in order
to improve its position in the search rankings. The small things on your
page add up to huge SEO benefits. Many website owners forget, or neglect to add
the proper tags, headings and descriptions for their on-page SEO.
In search engine optimization,
off-page optimization refers to factors that have an effect on your website or
webpages listing in natural search results. These factors are off-site in that
they are not controlled by you or the coding on your page. Examples of off-page
optimization include things such as link popularity and page rank.
Link-building is another important
aspect of search engine optimization and digital marketing strategy. It is a
process that involves increasing the quality and quantity of sites that are
linking back to your domain. The landscape of SEO and link building is always
changing, and today the importance of building high-quality links has never
been higher. The need to understand and implement high-quality campaigns is
essential if you’re going to compete and thrive online. The volume and quality
of links pointing to a page always make the difference between rankings.
5.3 – Paid Search Ads
Paid search provides immediate,
measurable feedback into which keywords and content are performing well, so we
can use PPC(Pay Per Click) as a testing environment for SEO strategies. Paid
search marketing means you advertise within the sponsored listings of a search
engine or a partner site by paying either each time your ad is clicked (PPC) or
less commonly, when your ad is displayed (cost-per-impression – CPM).
5.4 – Paid search advertising
In digital Marketing, Search
Advertising is a method of placing online advertisements on web pages that show
results from search engine queries. Through the same search-engine advertising
services, ads can also be placed on web pages with other published. Some search
engines will make it easy for users to determine which search results are
natural and which are paid, while others will mix the results making it more
difficult for users to determine which are the paid search results. It is also
called sponsored search and considered one of the best practice for digital
marketing.
5.5 – PPC (Pay per click)
Paid search marketing, also known as
pay per click or search engine advertising, is by far the fastest way to drive
relevant, quality traffic to your website. By utilizing ad platforms like
Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, Facebook Ads or Twitter Ads, a website can
drive as much traffic as it can handle and afford with a solid pay per click
program.
5.6 – Measure the Results
For search engine
marketing and a strong marketing strategy, you need to have a mix of above all
mentioned features. Spend some time on selecting the keywords and work on your
link building, as well as on-page SEO and off-page SEO, because these are the
two most commonly used techniques for digital marketing. Closely observe the
results of your website’s ranking and conclude if your marketing strategy is
working fine or not.
Content Marketing
Content marketing means creating and
sharing valuable content to attract and convert visitors into customers, and
customers into repeat buyers.
Content is king nowadays in
digital marketing strategy.
The type of content you share should
be closely related to what you sell. In other words, you’re educating people so
that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you. Content
marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating
and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or
enhancing consumer behavior. Content marketing is known as one of the most
powerful source of digital marketing.
6.1 – Blogging
While blogging evolved out of personal
expression, business blogging is less about corporate ego-centrism and more
about empathy with customers. Customer-centric content for blogging is more
relevant and does a much better job of engaging. Collect data through reader /
customer surveys, analytics, social monitoring and other tools to form a
profile. That profile represents topics, behaviors and preferences that can
translate into search keywords, social topics, social channels, editorial
calendar and promotion plans.
6.2 – Guest Blogging
Guest blogging helps you gain
traffic and make you implement your digital marketing strategy in a good and
gentle manner. Guest blogging helps you get more audience, and boost your SEO
ranking in a cost-effective way. Whether you’re looking to drive traffic to
your business’ website or would like to enhance your personal brand, you can
benefit from a strategic guest blogging approach. A quick search on Google will
bring up a few suggestions of guest blogging but if you are going to take guest
blogging seriously you’ll need to know what to look out for in a potential
opportunity. Things like domain authority, social media following and topic
performance are key to your guest blogging strategy’s success.
6.3 – LinkedIn Blogging
As for the premier business-to-business
social network, LinkedIn is one of the most effective ways to market with other
businesses today. For information about your work experience and education,
LinkedIn allows you to enhance your profile with the Web 2.0 capabilities to
showcase your expertise. LinkedIn groups help you stay informed and keep in
touch with people that share your interests. You can create your own LinkedIn
groups or join any number of groups that focus on your area of interest or
expertise. Participating in LinkedIn groups by adding value to the discussion
is a great way to expand your circle of influence and to attract customers.
Platforms like LinkedIn can boast your digital marketing strategy and in a very
short time you can gather good number of audience for your business.
6.4 – Press Release
Press releases are not only an
effective tool for distributing content to the media and consumers, they can
easily be syndicated creating a excellent opportunity to attract incoming links
for marketing. Press releases are very strong digital marketing tool now a
days.
6.5 – Documents
Documents like, presentations, to do
lists, checklist, PDFs and e-books are considered a good way to convey your
business goals and to gather maximum number of customers by using written
content . But that content should be written by the one who have a clear
understanding of what actually your digital marketing strategy is. Once it is
clearly mentioned that what are the goals and objectives of your digital
marketing strategy , you can decide how you are going to gather a massive
audience who actually need your products.
6.6 – Presentations
Growing tactical expertise is
essential, but understanding the customer universe and their buying experience
is even more important in today’s always on, always connected, digital world.
Presentation is one very useful way to attract , inspire and engage the people
with your business and product.
6.7 – Webinars
Webinars are one of the most popular
ways for B2B marketers to reach new customers and build enduring relationships
with existing ones. 62% of B2B marketers currently use webinars and 63% believe
they’re an effective content marketing tactic. Webinars are also great for
list-building. Unlike most top-of-funnel content, attendees often register with
contact information before participating. Host recorded webinars on a resources
page to continually attract and generate leads. Marketers can use these
recordings for nurture campaigns and calls-to-action across channels.
6.8 – E-books
content marketers have embraced e-books
for marketing their businesses and as a source of income. Their goals vary, and
so do the formats they prefer. Some use PDF-style e-books they create and sell
from their own websites, and some publish EPUB-style e-books they upload and
offer on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the iBookstore.
6.9 – Forums & Q/A Sites
Q&A sites can be a great
opportunity to exploit for digital marketing while it’s still fresh. The value
that Q&A sites and forums offer is their ability to give you an unlimited
source of content ideas, particularly for long tail phrases. Q&A sites and
forums are filled with people who have a problem, and need helping solving it.
That gives you the chance to offer them VALUABLE content the right way. It’s
not about promoting your products and services. It’s about helping your
audience, which is the basis of inbound marketing. You have to think for the
customer’s benefits as well to make your digital marketing strategy workable
and successful.
6.10 – Videos
Businesses are flocking to video
content marketing as an efficient and wickedly effective content tactic for
digital marketing strategy. When it comes to content marketing, the role of
video is becoming increasingly clear. Today, more than ever, companies are
realizing that video has a key role to play in the content and digital
marketing strategy. It is a tool for capturing the user’s attention and
delivering a brand message in a memorable and meaningful way.
6.11 – Infographics
Infographics are creative and
illustrative representations of your business philosophy that you are trying to
convey. In creating infographics, the designers involve various elements such
as charts, colors, images and graphs. Your posts attract more people when
it is accompanied by a visual thing like infographic. The whole reason why
visuals were introduced into marketing campaigns in the first place was because
marketers wanted to capture the attention of the audiences in a more effective
way. Now the audience’s attention span is shorter than ever, which is an important
factor in increasing the prominence of visuals in the whole digital marketing
strategy.
6.12 – Measure the Results
Content marketing is
one of the most important way to promote your business. The more efficient and
more understandable your content, your posts will be, the more customer will
reach you. For better results, Info graphics, video and images are the most valuable
resources one can use to make his product viral. A good digital marketing
strategy always works hard on the writing the content.
7. Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing(SMM) refers
to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites.
Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate
your audience and customer base in a dramatic way. Success with social media
and content marketing requires more listening and less talking. Read your
target audience’s online content and join discussions to learn what’s important
to them. It’s better to specialize than to be a jack-of-all-trades.
A highly-focused social media marketing strategy is
intended to build a strong brand, which has a better chance for success than a
broad strategy that attempts to be all things to all people.
Goals of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing programs
usually are center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and
encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message
spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come
from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.
Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-mouth, meaning it results in
earned media rather than paid media. Without a clear idea of the results you want,
your program may not reach its potential that means you need to work on your
digital marketing strategy seriously.
7.3 – Chose channels
As the social media platforms
continues to expand at a rapid rate, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to
hone in on the most effective platforms for your business. A general rule of
thumb is to focus on developing a strong brand presence on three social media
channels. But, which ones are right for you? Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram,
Facebook, Tumblr… the list goes on and on. The different social media channels
prove to be more or less effective dependent on what you are hoping to achieve
and whom you are trying to reach with your digital marketing strategy.
The popularity of Facebook spreads
across nearly all demographics making it a great way to increase brand
awareness. You need to plan for success. It is important to understand the
unique aspects of Facebook’s functionality to deliver the best experience for
your fans which should beget more fans. Facebook can help drive brand
awareness, loyalty, engagement, and ultimately, benefit to your bottom
line. Speak in your brand or business voice, but respect the Facebook
platform for length of post. Also, look to how your fans comment to
adjust for tone and approach-ability. Vary first and third person to reflect
the conversational approach that is appropriate for a particular piece of
content. Utilize the power of the news feed and Start with a 14 or 30-day
advanced planning to layout events, topics and content that might be meaningful
to your brand advocates.
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform
for rapid and efficient distribution of information. Twitter uses its
interactive nature to not only connect with your own target audience, but also
with other similar or complementary businesses, and hence also their target
audiences, and this is what is the best part of choosing twitter as your social
media channel. Twitter’s Strength is in short-form communication, Twitter users
are masters of condensing information into short spaces. Because of its live
updating feed, Twitter is a great place to announce new products, deals,
events, news headlines, etc. Moreover the character limit provides a great
opportunity to re-direct your followers to your other social media pages or
website in order to ‘learn more’ about the subject of the tweet.
LinkedIn is the largest
business-to-business social network, designed for networking and making new
connections. Its more formal nature caters to a predominantly older
demographic. LinkedIn is the place to sell your product or service, and not
your brand’s likeable personality.
LinkedIn is less of a place for you
to share general useful content. It should be used more as an opportunity to
drive purely your brand’s original content, website, or other service details.
Keep posts direct and to-the-point to increase the perceived accessibility and
ease of working with your business. Again, the content in digital marketing
strategy is the back bone of your marketing strategy.
Google+ is a bit more professional
than Facebook, making it a highly appropriate platform for B2B firms and
bloggers to reach their audiences. Besides, the Google+ ‘Communities’ feature
provides the opportunity to join and post in various groups, further broadening
awareness of your brand. Google+ is a casual, yet professional, atmosphere
which makes it a great place to share fun photos and videos, as well as content
like helpful articles and blog posts. In terms of digital marketing, businesses
that want to reach people who are passionate about something will find it
easier to do so with the new changes to Google+.
Instagram is a fast-growing platform
and businesses are eager to establish a presence and encourage engagement on
the network. One of the most important things marketers need to know is how
well their Instagram account is driving traffic and leads back to their
website. For personal use, Instagram is fun and spontaneous. But if you want to
use it as a marketing tool, you have to be a little more calculating with it.
Instagram has built itself up as a platform that thrives on users being able to
engage with the visual content brands share.
YouTube is the
world’s biggest video network. By understanding how you can take advantage of
YouTube’s algorithm will help your channel and videos be seen by more people.
You must create and share valuable video content that’s relevant to what your
ideal customer is searching for on the Internet. YouTube Cards let you add
interactive cards to your videos. They provide excellent motivation for viewers
to act on your calls to action.
7.4 – Plan Your Content
Planning content on social media
still allows for flexibility to the schedule and provides opportunities to slip
in real-time engagement. It is also critical that you develop your content
with the objective of helping people as much as possible. The more your content
works to help people resolve problems they face, the more of a chance it has of
attaining viral distribution or word of mouth exposure. In terms of
publishing frequency, consistency can help your audience learn when to expect
new content from you, and keeping a consistent schedule makes sure you maximize
engagement without hitting any lulls or stretches without updates. So be very straight
forward while writing on social media for digital marketing strategy works only
if you stick to the goals and objective of your business.
7.5 – Advertisement through Social Media
Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and
other social media advertising platforms offer very effective targeting
capabilities to address that problem. One of the great virtues of social
ads is instant feedback. You can gauge the effectiveness of a sponsored post in
minutes, and follow up with advanced analytics reports. With all this available
data, you should be sending out several “test” ads to small audiences, tracking
the results, and then pushing winning ads to larger groups. It’s cheaper and
more effective.
7.6 – Measure the Results
When it comes to social media
marketing, Facebook is the big guy on campus. It has the largest user base and
has withstood the test of time. The company has redefined the way we look at
social networks and also expanded the possibilities of social media for
businesses. But at the other hand the other social media platforms like twitter,
YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram have also proved their worth to be used for
social media marketing. It all depends on your business and product’s nature
that which channel you should be using for digital marketing.
8. Email Marketing
Email marketing occurs
when a company sends a commercial message to a group of people by use of
electronic email. Most commonly through advertisements, requests for business,
or sales or donation solicitation, any email communication is considered email
marketing if it helps to build customer loyalty, trust in a product or company
or brand recognition. Email marketing is an efficient way to stay connected
with your clients while also promoting your business. An email marketing
strategy is part of your overall digital marketing strategy and business plan.
It helps you market your products and services with the use of the email
channel with the best chances for making a profit and reaching your goals.
8.1 – Goals of Email Marketing
Setting goals makes it easier to
measure the results of your different marketing activities, and also provides
the focus and motivation you need to stick with them. Your ultimate goal should
be to continue to deliver actionable content that your business and nonprofit
audience can use to do more business and achieve success. If you want to
build an audience of people who actually look forward to your emails, you need
to get permission before adding new contacts to your list. Once people sign up,
it’s your responsibility to provide value in every email you send out.
8.2 – Grow Your List
Email is a proven method for
reaching prospects and cultivating long-term relationships with customers.
Growing your business means lots of things. When you have an engaged group of
customers and prospects who want to hear from you, getting the word out about
your business, your services and your offers is much easier.You can grow your
list by just sending business cards, creating your own events and etc.
8.3 – Write Great Emails
Writing Emails is one hell of the
critical task for a digital marketer. Because you have to be very concise and
focused a nobody reads long emails. To avoid this problem images and
infographics are the best options to use in email to convey your message.
8.4 – Create a Schedule
Schedule your email in a way that
most of your target audience can read it.It is purely dependent on your
audience nature that which time you may schedule to send mails and
newsletters. While many a quality email may be built during business
hours, the ones with the best open rates aren’t being sent from 9 to 5. The top
email strategy is to send at night. Moreover ,not as overwhelming a winner as
the 8:00 p.m. to midnight time of day, Saturday and Sunday did outperform their
weekday
8.5 – Measure the Results
Your email marketing strategy
should match your brand’s look and feel. If you’re using a template, you might
want to customize it to include your company’s colors and logo in the header.
If your emails are consistent with the rest of your company’s content, then
readers will feel more familiar from the start.
9. Mobile marketing
Mobile marketing is any marketing
activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are
constantly connected using a personal mobile device.Or you can say, using
interactive wireless media to provide customers with time and location
sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas,
thereby generating value for all.
Mobile marketing consists of ads
that appear on mobile smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices. Mobile
marketing ad formats, customization, and styles can vary, as many social media
platforms, websites, and mobile apps offer their own unique and tailored mobile
ad options.
9.1 – Goals of Mobile Marketing
The increased usage of smartphones,
tablets and similar mobile devices has made mobile marketing a must for many
online businesses.
Goals of mobile marketing are
- To reach the maximum audience.
- To increase lead generation.
- To increase sales conversions.
- To increase Customer retention.
- To Improve customer service.
9.2 – Choose Platforms
There are multiple platforms for
mobile marketing and you can chose any one or several for your digital
marketing strategy. Some of the common platforms are
- Mobile messages.
- App based marketing
- In game marketing
- Mobile search ads
- Location based marketing
You can use any one of above
mentioned ways for your product’s mobile marketing.
9.3 – Measure the Results
Mobile marketing is
the future of marketing and comparatively a new concept in digital marketing
field. Using mobile marketing is not that much critical, you just need to spend
some time to create your ads and content and use them in an effective way with your
digital marketing strategy.
10. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is
the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s)
products. An affiliate marketing program is a lot of work, and in most
situations there’s a lot of competition so you’re not going to be bringing in
money immediately. Business owners and entrepreneurs suppose that all you need
do is setup a site and choose an affiliate to associate with and then just let
it run its course. An affiliate program is only going to help bring traffic to
your website or business; you are in charge of turning that traffic into
conversions.
10.1 – Goals of Affiliate Marketing
Setting goals for affiliated marketing
is an important task. Once you define your goals and objective for your brand
or company, you will be easily available to tackle and fulfil them. Some common
goals includes
- Generating content and traffic
- Trial registrations and email subscriptions
- Conversions, sales and revenue
Taking the time to understand your
business, your image, and your goals from the start can save you valuable time
and resources. If you haven’t already, define the foundational elements of your
online business and brand image by how and to whom you advertise.
10.2 – Build Affiliate Program
Affiliate programs is an opportunity
for you to get hundreds, even thousands of web sites all driving traffic to
your site and making sales for you. You should start with your existing customer
base. Simply send out an email announcing your program and providing the link
where they can sign up. I had a feeling my affiliate program would take off
because I had customers emailing me asking if I had an affiliate program they
could join.
10.3 – Distribute to the Market
Although affiliate products are
created by others, the moment you promote something you become a representative
of that product and it reflects on you and your brand. Whether you have a site
or a network, visualizing and defining a successful affiliate marketing plan
with your dedicated Binary Option Affiliates manager will ensure that your
digital marketing strategy will be as successful as possible.
10.4 – Measure the Results
An affiliate program is basically a
referral system that allows other people to promote your physical products and
gain a commission on any sales made from people who are referred. Once you’re
ready to launch your program, start putting feelers out by contacting people
you think would be a good fit as an affiliate. As your affiliate program grows,
you’ll notice little things about it you’d like to tweak, so this tip is a
friendly reminder to do that as soon as you can.
11. Measuring Results
There are multiple ways to design
and work on your digital marketing strategies.
I have explained most of them above
and gave you a clear picture of how you can start working on making a good
digital marketing strategy.Your main focus should be on selecting and
writing good Content and choosing the best social channel suitable for your
business.
Last Words
I have Shared my
experience regarding what is Digital marketing and how you can Establish your
digital Marketing Strategy. Flexibility is one of digital marketing big
characteristics once, besides changing from organization to organization.If you
want to know more about The Digital marketing and digital marketing strategies
and how to be a good digital marketer and how you can influence your business
by making Better digital Marketing Strategies. Do let me know in the comment
box
Comments
Post a Comment