Do you have a digital marketing strategy in place? If no, why not? Digital marketing strategy planning and implementation is essential to your business' survival. Statistics show that 25% of businesses who do not have a strategic plan will fold the first 2 years.
With a little bit of research and planning, you can create a digital marketing strategy that will help your small business stay competitive, reach your audience, increase brand awareness, and ultimately drive more sales. These 10 digital marketing strategy planning ideas will help your small business get organized and ready to tackle the digital world.
1. Know Your Audience
One of the most important steps in digital marketing strategy planning is to know your audience. As a small business, you can’t be all things to all people. Creating a ideal customer profile will also help you create a digital marketing strategy that resonates with your ideal customers and help you achieve your business goals.
Consider these questions when conducting your digital marketing planning:
Who is your target audience?
What are their needs and wants?
What are their pain points?
What are their purchase behaviors?
What are their interests?
What are their demographics?
How can you solve their problems?
However, there are many more questions you could ask while doing your digital marketing strategy planning. Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, you can start creating content that appeals to them.
2. Emphasize Your Value Proposition
The next step in digital marketing strategy planning is creating a strong value proposition. Your value proposition is what makes you unique and different from your competition. It’s what sets you apart and tells your target audience why they should choose you over anyone else.
A strong value proposition should be clear, concise, and easy for your audience to understand. It should be memorable and make a strong case for why your products or services are the best option. This can be done by highlighting your unique selling points or by offering special deals or discounts that your competition doesn’t have.
3. Stay Focused on Singular Objectives
You can't afford to spread yourself too thin when it comes to your digital marketing strategy planning efforts. It's best to stay focused on singular goals and objectives in order to make the most of your resources.
What's your top priorities? What do you want to achieve with your digital marketing strategy? Once you've identified goals, you can start planning the tactics and strategies that will help you achieve them.
Use SMART objectives to define your digital marketing goals, and align with your business goals as well. If you want to increase brand awareness, consider using social media and content marketing to get your name out there. If you're looking to drive more traffic to your website, invest in search engine optimization or paid search advertising.
Make sure goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, hence SMART. This will help create a focused plan that will get results and make it easier to measure.
4. Create a Budget While Doing Your Digital Marketing Strategy Planning
Consider creating a realistic budget while conducting digital marketing strategy planning. When it comes to digital marketing, small businesses need to be strategic to get the most out of their limited budgets.
Here's a few tips for creating a realistic budget for your digital marketing strategy planning:
Know Your Goals. The first step in creating a realistic budget is to know what you want to achieve with your digital marketing efforts. Do you want to increase brand awareness? Generate leads? Drive sales? Once you know your goals, you can allocate your budget accordingly.
Research Your Options. There are endless options when it comes to digital marketing, so it's important to do your research before deciding to budget. There's no one-size-fits-all solution, so look into a variety of options and choose the ones that work best for your business and budget.
Set a Realistic Budget. Once you've considered all of the above factors, you can start setting a realistic budget for your digital marketing efforts.
Keep in mind that results take time and there's no guarantee of success, so don't expect miracles overnight.
5. Create a Website to Increase Your Online Presence
When doing your initial digital marketing strategy planning, be sure to include a website in your plans. Having a website is essential for small businesses and gives you a place to showcase products and services. It also helps increase your online presence and reach more customers. Once your website is up and running, be sure to promote it through social media and other online channels.
Here's some tips to consider when conducting digital marketing strategy planning for a website:
Choose a web hosting provider that offers easy-to-use tools and templates.
Select a domain name that is short, memorable, and relevant to your business.
Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions to help improve your site’s search engine optimization (SEO).
Create fresh content regularly to keep visitors coming back to your site.
Include calls to action on your website to encourage visitors to take the next step (e.g., contact you, sign up for your newsletter, etc.).
Creating a website for your business is a must when doing your initial digital marketing strategy planning.
6. Optimize Your Website for Mobile
Another important task when doing your digital marketing strategy planning is to make your website mobile-friendly and ensure it is accessible and easy to view on mobile devices. Websites not optimized for mobile can suffer increased bounce rates, and worse yet, Google will knock you for a poorly structured mobile version.
Make Sure Your Website is Responsive. You can use a tool like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or Google’s Page Speed Insights to test your website and see if it’s optimized for mobile devices.
Optimize Images and Videos for Mobile. Ensure all images, videos, and other visuals are properly sized for your site’s mobile layout. Use compressed file types, such as JPEG or PNG, to reduce page load times on mobile browsers.
Simplify Navigation. Keep the navigation menu simple and user-friendly with easily clickable links that are accessible from any page of your site. Remove any unnecessary clutter that can slow down page loading time on mobile devices.
Create Separate Landing Pages for Each Device. Create unique landing pages specifically tailored to the type of device each user is using when they visit your website (desktop vs. tablet vs. smartphone). This will help ensure that all users have an optimized experience when visiting your site from any type of device.
Improve Page Loading Speed. Mobile users expect their websites to load quickly, so make sure you optimize your content by compressing files, reducing redirects, and leveraging browser.
Use Mobile-Friendly CTAs. Make sure your call-to-action buttons are visible, easy to click on mobile devices and clearly direct users to the next step.
Including these tactics in your digital marketing strategy planning will ensure your mobile version doesn't get overlooked and you miss out on potential prospects.
7. Consider a Blog to Attract Prospects to Your Website
Another consideration during your digital marketing strategy planning is adding a blog. A blog is a great way to attract prospects to your website and get them interested in what you have to offer. Plus, it’s a platform where you can share your knowledge and build credibility with potential customers.
Not sure where to start when doing this part of your digital marketing strategy planning? Here are some ideas for topics you could write about on your small business blog:
Benefits of your products or services.
How to use your products or services.
Case studies of customers who have used your product or service successfully.
Industry news and trends (if relevant to your business).
Tips and advice for small businesses.
By providing helpful, informative content on your blog, you’ll show potential customers you know what you’re talking about and build credibility in your niche market – and help them solve their problem. Good digital marketing strategy planning for this marketing strategy can certainly pay off in the long run.
8. Consider Digital Advertising
Digital advertising is a key part of any digital marketing strategy planning phase. By using online platforms to promote your product or service, you can reach a wide audience with minimal effort. There are many different types of digital advertising, from banner ads and sponsored posts to pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.
When conducting your digital marketing strategy planning it's important to consider your budget, target market, and desired outcomes and objectives. With careful planning, you can use digital advertising to effectively reach your target audience and achieve your business goals.
9. Implement an Email Marketing Strategy
Another strategy to include in digital marketing strategy planning is email marketing. Email marketing is a great way to connect with customers and promote your business. Email marketing has an average 3500% return on your investment. Meaning, for every $1 spent you can make $35. Email is still one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for businesses.
To create a successful email marketing strategy, you need to set clear goals, identify your target audience, and create content that compels a person to subscribe or read your emails and act.
Here's a few tips for creating an email marketing strategy:
Define Your Goals. Email marketing goals should be aligned with your business goals. Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Drive traffic to your website? Generate more leads? Whatever your goal may be, make sure email campaigns are designed to help you achieve it.
Segment Your List. Not all of your subscribers are the same, so don't treat them as such. Segmenting your list allows you to send more targeted, relevant emails that will resonate with each group.
Personalize Your Emails. Generic emails are less likely to get opened and read than ones that feel personalized. Use the subscriber's name in the subject line and throughout the email whenever possible.
Write Compelling Copy. Email subject lines and content need to be strong enough to get people to open and read your email. Write catchy headlines, use images, videos, or other engaging elements to further draw reader's attention.
Create a Sense of Urgency. Include a call-to-action (CTA) in every email and make sure it's clear what you want recipients to do next - visit your website, buy a product, etc. Creating a sense of urgency can encourage people to take action now rather than wait until later.
Test, Test, Test. Always test different aspects of your email campaign - from the subject line to the CTA - to see what works best with your audience.
Track Your Results. Use email marketing tools to track your open and click-through rates, so you can see what's working and where you need to improve.
Because email is an effective way to sell products and services, make sure you include this in your digital marketing strategy planning.
10. Use Analytics to Monitor and Adjust Your Strategy
The use of analytics should be considered in your digital marketing strategy planning. Small businesses can no longer afford to ignore the importance of an online presence, and a solid digital marketing strategy is the foundation for success.
When writing out your digital marketing strategy planning details on analytics, consider the benefits of tracking metrics and collecting useful data. There are a number of things to consider when developing your digital marketing strategy, but one of the most important is analytics. You need to be able to track your progress and adjust your strategy as needed based on the data you collect.
There are a number of free and paid analytics tools available, like Google Analytics, to get started tracking your results. Without data, it will be difficult to know if your digital marketing efforts are paying off. So, it will be necessary to include this in your initial digital marketing strategy planning.
Conclusion
As a small business, it's important to conduct digital marketing strategy planning. The ideas listed above are just some of the many options available for you to consider when creating your own plan. From honing your SEO skills and optimizing for local searches, to engaging customers on social media and utilizing influencer partnerships, there is no shortage of strategies that can help get your message out there.
With careful digital marketing strategy planning and research, you'll be able to create an effective digital marketing strategy that gets results!
As a small business, it's important to conduct digital marketing strategy planning. The ideas listed above are just some of the many options available for you to consider when creating your own plan. From honing your SEO skills and optimizing for local searches, to engaging customers on social media and utilizing influencer partnerships, there is no shortage of strategies that can help get your message out there.
With careful digital marketing strategy planning and research, you'll be able to create an effective digital marketing strategy that gets results!
LDZ Digital
LDZ Digital provides Florida SEO and digital marketing services, education and consulting for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking for assistance with their digital marketing strategy.
Contact us today to request a quote!