In the last decade, the internet has changed the game. Now more than ever, businesses need to understand the ins and outs of digital marketing if they want to make sure they are reaching the right audience at the right time. Luckily, there are experts who have compiled a comprehensive guide to the various forms of online marketing strategy that businesses can pursue to gain the greatest possible advantage.

Why an Online Marketing Strategy?

Including digital marketing in your marketing plan is a good idea because digital marketing is an evergreen strategy that can be used to attract and retain customers. Also, because of the internet, the location of your customers is no longer restricted to a geographical area.

This means you can target consumers based on their interests, hobbies, and demographic information. Furthermore, you can use digital marketing to directly engage with your customers. Finally, a strong digital marketing strategy can help you build credibility as an industry leader and brand advocate.

The Digital Marketing Strategy Guide

This e-book is an indispensable guide for any business owner, CMO, or digital marketer who wants to develop an effective digital marketing strategy for their business.

The guide is divided into ten easy-to-follow steps that will assist you in developing a game plan for your online marketing efforts. You will learn a lot from this guide, and it is a must-read for any serious marketer.

Step One: Set a Benchmark

The first step in the planning process is to set a benchmark and review why you are where you are in terms of brand awareness and performance. To do this, you will need to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) such as brand awareness, consideration, and purchase. To set a benchmark and assess your progress, you will need to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) such as brand awareness, consideration, and purchase.

You should set a benchmark at the beginning of your digital marketing strategy process because it will act as a guide for the rest of the steps. The benchmark should be set at a time when your brand is relatively unknown and not yet established. This way you can track the progress of your marketing efforts and compare it to previous years to determine the effectiveness of particular campaigns or programs. Setting a benchmark doesn’t mean your branding will suddenly become famous overnight, but it will help you determine the true effectiveness of your campaign strategy.

Once you have set your benchmark, the next step is to analyze the situation and identify any weaknesses. From here, you can determine the next steps of your digital marketing plan. You can review your brand’s Performance in the previous year to get an idea of how effective your strategy has been and where you need to improve. 

Step Two: Identify Key Resources

Once you have set your benchmark, the next step is to identify the key resources that can help you bring your brand to the next level of performance. Your brand may already have a Website and social media pages, but without established SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing skills, you will not be able to drive traffic to your site via organic search. 

To develop these skills, you will need to seek out experienced professionals who can aid you in growing your brand online.

The same goes for Google Adwords, social media, and email marketing. Without a capable marketer, these platforms will just be a blob of text that brings no value to your business. In order to succeed with online marketing, you must have a strategic plan and be willing to learn new methods.

Step Three: Create A Game Plan

The next step is to create a game plan that will govern your strategy. For the purpose of this article, we will be using the example of a fast-food restaurant chain with outlets across the country. This chain serves burgers and other typical fast-food items. Now, if you are a regular consumer of fast food, you may be wondering why this restaurant chain decided to put their money into digital marketing instead of just adding a few more locations.

The reason is simple; this chain has decided to focus their marketing efforts on attracting millennials and other generations who grew up with mobile phones and the internet. This demographic spends a huge amount of time on mobile phones and the internet, and thus, are much more likely to be reached via digital marketing than traditional marketing.

In terms of the overall plan, the chain decided to focus on building a digital identity and rebranding themselves as a mobile-friendly restaurant chain. As part of this effort, they hired a digital marketing agency to develop a strategy for getting their message out to consumers. This agency compiled a detailed proposal that consisted of the following steps:

– SEO: This step focuses on improving the ‘search engine optimization’ of their websites. To do this, the agency will research keywords that potential customers are using to find services and products like theirs. Once they have found these keywords, the agency will write content for the purpose of ranking well in the search engines. This includes blog posts, articles, and social media posts. In one month, the agency will have the chain’s websites optimized for five keywords.

– Content Marketing: This step focuses on creating valuable content that will attract, interest, and entertain potential customers. To achieve this, the agency will look at the kinds of content that their customers value the most. 

– Social Media Marketing: This step focuses on using social media to gain recognition and to raise brand awareness. To do this, the agency will build a social media strategy and monitor and engage with their target audience via social media.

– Email Marketing: This step focuses on using emails to reach potential customers. To do this, the agency will set up email marketing campaigns and test different content such as special offers and discounts.

– Display Advertising: This step focuses on using display advertising to reach potential customers. To do this, the agency will develop an ad campaign and set bids for the different platforms (i.e. Google Adwords).

As part of their effort, the agency also researched and created an identity for the chain that would match their target audience. For example, they decided to focus on using gifs and memes to engage with millennials.

Step Four: Key Accounts And Target Audience

Once you have set your benchmark and have determined how you will achieve it, the next step is to identify the key accounts and target audience that can help you bring your brand to the next level. Your brand may already have a following on social media, but without established SEO and social media marketing skills, you will not be able to drive traffic to your site via organic search. In order to succeed with online marketing, you must have a strategic plan and be willing to learn new methods.

For example, if you are a clothing brand, you may have decided to put your money into social media to gain exposure and to follow fans on Twitter and Instagram. Without established Instagram and Twitter marketing skills, you will not be able to engage with your target audience effectively.

To further expose your brand to the right audience, you may decide to use social media to engage with users and to follow their recommendations. Your brand may also have a physical presence in your local area; however, without a strong online marketing strategy, you will be missing out on the opportunity to expand your audience and to drive traffic to your physical stores.

Step Five: Set SMART Goals

Now that you have a clear idea of how you plan to achieve your benchmark, the next step is to set specific, measurable, attainable, real, and temporal goals.

To set a measurable goal, you will need to decide how you will track the success of your strategy. You can set a goal of increasing your website traffic by X number of visitors per day, per week, or per month. Similarly, you can decide to gauge the success of your strategy by looking at the number of leads that your website gets, the amount of sales that you make online, or the number of mentions that your brand gets on social media.

To set an attainable goal, you will need to decide how much you are willing to spend on the strategy. Since this is an attainable goal, you may decide that the best way to measure it is by tracking the amount of money that you spend on Google Adwords.

Step Six: Analyze The Market

The purpose of this step is to gain insight into the market and to identify any weaknesses. To do this, you will need to look at a variety of factors including economic analysis, demographics, psychographics, and environmental scanning.