If you are a small business owner, having a digital marketing strategy in place can boost your brand name and recognition not just locally, but to a global audience in different parts of the world. Your digital marketing plan should be integrated with your business’s goals and vision. It also needs to be updated to incorporate the latest trends in the digital landscape. As this is constantly evolving, it can be difficult to create an effective and successful strategy. Luckily, here is a comprehensive and step-by-step guide that you can use for devising your strategy for digital marketing:
Settling on an objective
First things first, you need to decide the purpose of your digital marketing strategy. Are you looking for new clients? Do you want to provide information to existing customers? Is your aim to sell your products and services or you wish to educate your target market about them? Having a goal in mind will help you in establishing a budget, which is essential before you move ahead to the next step.
Think about your marketing funnel
Even the most successful businesses have a marketing funnel. This is basically an upside down triangle via which you ‘funnel’ customers. The top of the funnel is wide and that’s where the process begins. It represents free-giveaways and low-cost products and services. You move the customers gradually to the narrower levels that represent the gradually increasing investments and you can take them onto your higher-priced products and services. You need to create your own funnel for designing your marketing strategy.
Consider the competition
You can strengthen your marketing message when you know where you stand amongst your rivals. Think about the keywords your potential customers may use for search purposes and do a search with them. Note down the top 5 competitors who show up and then go check their websites. How relevant are they? You can also check their backlinks and traffic ranking. Do they offer anything unique? Are there any gaps in their strategy that you can fill with your own?
Define your target market
Rather than trying to market to everyone, which is only going to waste your efforts and resources, you should find a clearly defined target market for your business. Which industry do they belong to? What is the age group and gender? Which social media channels do they frequent? What are their interests and hobbies? What are their associations and groups? Knowing your target audience can help you in refining and customizing an effective digital marketing strategy for your clients to have the most impact.
Solve a problem
How can you convince your customers that they need your product or service? You can accomplish this goal by showing them how your product can solve a problem. Consider the issues and problems that plague your target audience and figure out how your product can solve any of them. Make sure your product is uniquely qualified and not the same as your competitors.
Branding your business
Your domain name can either help you stand out or make you just another fish in the sea. It is recommended that you buy the .com version of your brand name to become easily accessible. If not possible, you can also opt for the .com version of the product or service you provide. For instance, if your produce reduces obesity, you can get loseweight.com or something similar as it can be a compelling solution.
Focus on your website
A visually appealing website is crucial because it takes only a few seconds for an impression to form on the visitors. Your color scheme, font, identifiable buttons and the easy-to-navigate layout all contribute to your website’s appeal. Your content should focus on providing value and solving your customers problems rather than having a promotional tone. Every website page should also have a clear call to action and you should also obtain your visitors’ names and email addresses to use them later for email marketing. You can ask them this information in exchange of e-books, a special report, an audio recording or a free sample. Apart from that, make sure your website is worth visiting by providing access to lots of information and resources.
Give some thought to technology
Do you have access to the necessary technology and services needed for selling your products and services? You have to be able to receive online payments via credit card and you also need to have a full-feature shopping cart. Depending on your marketing plan, you also need to have blogging software, website content management services, online press release distribution services, stand-alone autoresponders, article submission sites, links exchange management services and software, email newsletter distribution services, and online appointment setting services.
Select a combination of digital marketing methods
How will you generate the traffic for your website? There are a multitude of methods at your disposal and you need to choose one according to your budget and needs. For instance, there is pay-per-click where a keyword is placed in a search engine and you pay each time a visitor clicks on it to get to your website. There is organic search engine listing ranking where your website will show up at the top of non-sponsored listings on a search engine, article marketing where articles on topics concerning your target market are regularly published in directories, well-written email newsletter that’s regularly published, submission of online press releases with new tips and other information amongst others.
Create a team
Bear in mind that doing all this alone is next to impossible. Sure, you can try, but you will only end up being adequate in most tasks and not get the desired outcome. You can either hire expert consultants who can provide you with digital marketing services or you can create your own in-house team that comprises of individuals with the skills and knowledge you need for devising and implementing your digital marketing strategy effectively. Your business will be able to thrive if digital marketing is done right.
You must be logged in to post a comment.