How to develop an effective digital marketing strategy

We’re pleased to offer a free digital marketing strategy consultation. Call today, (303) 357-5757, or e-mail dbc@dbcdigital.com.

Are you ready to embark on a digital marketing strategy for your company or organization? Do you have the insight needed to know just what to expect? We are here to give you an inside look into what really goes into a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, and why all of the components included are necessary. Our goal is to provide a high-level overview of what you should expect so you can prepare yourself for a successful digital marketing campaign.

It is important you know what to expect from the process of implementing digital strategies. And, on that note, there should be a process, if not, that is your first sign that your strategy could be all for naught. While every digital marketing agency or team may approach a digital marketing strategy in different ways, the goals and outcome of the strategy should be clear.

Let’s go ahead and jump into the things you need in your comprehensive digital marketing strategy. We’ll be explaining the 7 following components:

1. Know your goals
2. Make Sure Your Foundations are Complete
3. Utilize Your Tools
4. Track and Measure
5. Create Useful Content
6. Promote Your Content
7. Analyze and Improve

Know your marketing goals

This key step will give you the ability to measure success. If you have no marketing goals, or no specific goals in the beginning, there will come a time where you will question if your digital marketing strategies are working and if your marketing plan is viable and sustainable.

Goals should include business goals as well as specific KPIs and ROI you are striving to achieve. Every decision you make in your entire marketing plan will be based upon achieving these goals.

Make Sure Your Foundations are Complete

There are foundational steps that should be taken to create a successful marketing strategy. These foundations are the anchor that will dictate many of the decisions you make, and how you execute them. Without your foundational elements, you are not only guessing every step of the way, but execution of your digital marketing strategy can be made difficult when you must go back and rethink.

Some of the most important foundational tasks include:

1. Identifying your target audience
2. Laying out the customer journey
3. Determining your sales and marketing funnels

Your content creation and content promotion strategies will heavily rely on these fundamental  components. You will always know who you are speaking to, where they are in their customer journey, and how to bring them through your marketing and sales funnel.

 

Utilize Your Marketing Tools

Regardless of what is included in your digital marketing strategy, there are tools that you must determine in the beginning. These tools are considered your marketing and technical stack, and include the programs you need to successfully run your campaign. By not planning what tools you will use from the beginning, you will be left unprepared when it is time to measure, automate, and implement tactics in your marketing strategy.

An example of what to include in your marketing stack include:

1. CRM (customer relationship management tool, such as Salesforce)
2. Analytics
3. Email
4. Website/Blog
5. Social Media Management
6. URL Shortener

This is not an exhaustive list of the tools you may need to execute and manage your digital marketing program. Because every company’s strategy and complexity is unique, your tool stack will be as well.

Track and Measure

As mentioned as a part of both your foundations and marketing stack, tracking and measuring  your marketing progress and performance is of utmost importance. The keys to successfully tracking and measuring are:

1. Knowing what you are measuring
2. Measuring correctly
3. Implementing codes correctly
4. Reporting on key performance indicators (KPIs)

If any one of these is not done correctly, you run the risk of throwing off all of your marketing metrics, making it very difficult to fix later, and virtually impossible to gather data you missed.

Create Useful Content

You may have expected this step in your digital marketing process to have been at the top. It should now be apparent to you how much is involved before you even get to the “meat” of your digital marketing campaign, which is content.

By the time you get to this step, if you have properly completed all of the prior steps, you will now be able to:

1. Create content that speaks to your target audience
2. Cohesively guide your audience through their information and buying journey
3. Progressively and strategically guide your audience down your marketing funnel
4. Track and measure marketing results

Promote Your Content

Promoting your content is a key component to your overall marketing strategy. If you create great content, but no one is able to see it, all of this work will be for naught.

When outlining your content marketing strategy, promotion tactics and channels should be included. Again, because every digital marketing plan is unique, your promotion techniques and strategies will be a unique combination based on your business needs.

Content marketing promotion tactics and strategies will include some or all of the following:

1. Paid/Organic promotion
2. Social media channels
3. Email strategies
4. Frequency and velocity of promotions

Analyze and Improve

Once you complete the required processes, and have executed your digital marketing strategy, it is now time to analyze your performance and make adjustments accordingly. There is always room for improvement, and this is precisely what you should do with the data you collect.

Digital marketing is not meant to set and forget. Marketing should evolve, and be adjusted according to what works well, and what does not. Opportunities will become clear when you analyze the data correctly, and in time, you will be able to meet and exceed your digital marketing goals.

Now that you are aware of what you are in for, it should be abundantly clear why you must not only know what is involved creating a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, but also clearly see why skipping any key components will eventually come back to haunt you.

We would love to help you devise and implement an effective digital marketing strategy. We are happy to collaborate with your marketing team, or to do it all for you – whichever you prefer.

We offer a free digital marketing consultation to discuss your digital marketing needs and goals. Take advantage and book a no obligation consult today!

Please note: DBC Digital is a full-service digital marketing agency in the Denver metro area that provides everything you need to run successful online marketing campaigns. We’re conveniently located just south of the Denver Tech Center, near I-25 and Dry Creek Road. We work with businesses and organizations throughout Colorado and the U.S.