In simple terms, digital marketing is just marketing on various online platforms. However, it is more than just that! Digital marketing can come in various forms such as paid, owned, or earned media. Each of these media come with their own set of strategy and specialty.
3 reasons why you need a digital marketing strategy
1. Provides direction for your business
A clear strategy allows the business to have a goal and a plan to work towards it. The strategy will allow the business to have a clear direction towards its goal and provide a timeline for the business to execute its plan on various junctions.
2. Understand your customers/consumers better
With the various online analytics tools such as google analytics, you can find out more about your consumers and analyze that information to make better decisions.
3. Avoid resource-wastage
A clear strategy allows businesses to have effective digital marketing by using the right tools. It also reduces any duplication of purchases of tools and resources.
5 steps to create a digital marketing strategy
1. Set and identify clear goals
Establish your goals using the SMART goals method :
Specific – Be as specific as possible.
For example:
Instead of ” I want to gain more visitors on my website.”
It should be ” I want to gain a 20% increase of visitors in 1 month using this tool and method.”
Measurable – Setting measurable goals allows you to track, analyze and improve current operations so that your business can stay on track to meet deadlines.
Achievable – Setting a realistic and achievable goal allows the business to become successful. The business should have the means and capacity to achieve the goal set.
Relevant – The goal set must align with the company’s values and help with the improvements in the company in the long run. This could be in the form of sustainability, higher employment rate or even earning more revenue.
Time – Setting a timeframe allows the business to focus and achieve the desired goal.
Setting specific, and measurable goals will allow your business to succeed in the long term.
2. Define your market and target audience
Understand which market your business revolves in. This will lead your business into finding out the right segment of customers. Once the right segment of customers is found, your business can dive in deeper to find out more about the demographics and specifics of the customers. This could be:
-Gender
-Age
-Location
3. Create a digital marketing plan
With a clear goal and target audience, your business can then find and evaluate the various alternative marketing channels. Determine which of the platforms has the biggest impact on your customer and your business. This could be Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads, or even your own website. If you are a small business, focus on one or two of the mentioned above and slowly expand when you are more stable as these channels can cost a lot depending on the industry that you are in.
Come up with content that provides value. This could be in a form of educational or comedic ads. By providing value, customers will be more enticed leading to higher conversions and better reputations.
4. Execute digital marketing plan
With a clear and concise digital marketing plan, the next step would be to execute it.
5. Review results and repeat
Let your digital marketing plan run for a month or two and then evaluate the results from it. Remove the channels that are not helping you as much and focus on improving on the channels that are providing quality results. With the improvements, continue executing the improved plan and review the results. Repeat steps 4 and 5 continuously.
Conclusion
The need for digital marketing is apparent in today’s world. Through my research, I have understood the importance and the tedious process of creating a digital marketing strategy. The best way to start creating a digital marketing strategy through my studies would be using the SMART goals method. It gives us a clear overview of what needs to be done and by when. I feel that the need and use of a digital marketing strategy can really improve a business as it provides many benefits and values such as identifying key target markets and audiences which will allow the business to take further steps into acquiring them.
Terblogs 
Thank you for this informative blog post, Terance! I really like how straightforward it is & that you made some good points on how to properly execute a Digital marketing strategy! Also, great use of visuals & point forms, really easy on the eyes, Overall, it is a great post. However, maybe try balancing out the number of points, 5 for steps & 5 for strategies. Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing your next post!
LikeLike
Hi Shaynn, thank you for taking your time to read my post! I appreciate your feedback and I will implement further improvements and changes on my next blog!
LikeLike
Great post Terance! It felt as though I had a step-by-step walk through on how to create a digital marketing strategy. Indeed, digital marketing is inevitable in today’s business with more and more customers going online. With the help of technology, it allows companies to understand their target customers rather than traditional marketing which could be really difficult and tedious to track where your customers are coming from. While there are many advantages with digital marketing, is there are any cases where an online presence could bring negative impact(s) to a business? Let me know your thoughts! 🙂
LikeLike
Hi Jing Yi, thank you for taking your time to read my post! Regarding your question, I wouldn’t say having an online presence will bring any form of negative impact to a business. In my opinion, I feel that having an online presence is great for the majority of the businesses out there as social media is so widely used now. Having an online presence might not have any negative impact on a business, however, the content posted online by a business could be one of many reasons that a company is affected negatively. The content posted must be tailored and appropriate to the consumers. If the content post has any badly hidden agenda, it will definitely affect the business negatively. I hope my opinion can clarify some of your doubts!
LikeLike
Great work done there! I like how you state how important a digital marketing strategy is in a business! However, I believe you can put some of the shareholders’s point of view in terms of the different steps 🙂 Hope to see your next post soon! 🙂
LikeLike
Awesome post Terance! I love how your content is structured in a short and concise manner, which makes it very fun and informative to read. I noticed that your references for images are slightly inconsistent. Example “Photo was taken from jobstreet” and “Photo taken from internetmarketingschool”. Small detail but perhaps you could standardize it to maintain consistency. Overall a great read, looking forward to your next post!
LikeLike
Very systematic and well organised blog! Good job Terance! if someone who knew nothing about digital marketing strategy they will be able to quickly grasp the technique and skills to execute any marketing strategy. This step by step running through of the whole process is very informative and detailed, for example to bothered to talk about small businesses which are trying to grow should talk their time to explore one method at a time as the budget of a startup is usually not that fantastic. really enjoyed reading your blog and will look forward to your upcoming blog.
LikeLike
Hi Terance, i really like how you brought forward and presented your points in a very straight forward manner which was easily understood. With the advancement of tech and the internet, im guessing its safe to assume digital marketing will only be of greater significance moving forward. Do you think the rise of digital marketing will make other older forms of marketing such as Tv or Radio marketing less relevant ?
LikeLike
Hi kelvin, thanks for taking your time to read my blog.
In my opinion, TV and Radio will definitely become less relevant as people around the world use their phones to surf social media instead of watching TV or listening to radios. Furthermore, the usage of the radio is mostly used when people are driving around, and nowadays, people would rather connect their Spotify to their cars and listen to songs instead. As for TV, there are many other digital platforms to seek entertainment and they are more accessible than a TV such as Netflix, Disney plus, and many more which can be used anywhere, any time on a tablet or phone.
Therefore, there might be a chance that advertising on TV and Radio will become obsolete due to the improvement of technology.
Thank you once again for taking time to read my blog and I hope to see you around in the future blogs as well!
LikeLike
Hi Terrance!
This blog was very detailed into how to create a digital marketing strategy. It’s great that you mentioned about the reasons why we need a digital marketing strategy, but I feel that we should be transparent about it. Would be great if you could input some disadvantages of social media marketing too! An example would be that the technology allows companies to understand their target customers, but you could also mention that it is also very hard to track the results of the marketing strategy.
LikeLike
Hi Terance,
Glad to have come across your post and learn more about creating a digital marketing strategy!
I think for the Smart Goals it would be great if you can continue giving examples for the rest of the four points instead of 1 or just mention that the examples can be found in the link you attached for Smart Goals.
Am really glad you have a conclusion for your post to summarise the points you mentioned above
LikeLike