So you’ve decided to take the plunge and developed a digital marketing strategy. Congrats! Now, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. What seems like a daunting task at first can be a lot less complicated than you think once you break it down. It can be a little overwhelming to think about doing all of this “in house”, but don’t worry – you can use a tool to make it a lot less chaotic.

In this article, we will go over how you can use digital marketing to grow your business and increase online sales.

Set A Budget

One of the first things you’ll want to do is set a budget for your digital marketing efforts. Nowadays, there are so many tactics you can use to grow your business online, and it can be hard to know where to start without blowing your budget. Before you begin your digital marketing journey, it is essential that you set a financial target in mind. Otherwise, it will be difficult to know when you’ve spent too much money on ineffective channels and tactics and need to drop some of them to switch to more practical ones. Setting a budget also helps keep you focused on what is important – growing your business and increasing sales.

Determine Your Goals And Objectives

Now that you’ve set a budget, it’s time to set some goals and objectives for your marketing efforts. What does that mean? Simply put, your marketing goals and objectives will be what you’re aiming for after you complete your digital marketing plan. They should be measurable, realistic, and clearly communicated to everyone involved in the process – from the marketers to the marketing analysts.

For example, maybe you want to raise your SEO rankings for the keywords “SEO services Chicago”. Or maybe you’re looking to double your traffic from organic searches on Google within a month. Setting measurable goals and objectives will make this goal much more achievable and give you a clear indication of how you’re doing relative to reaching your target audience.

Choose Your Target Audience

Next, you’ll want to choose your target audience, which is the group of people you intend to reach with your marketing efforts. Let’s say you want to grow your business and increase sales to individuals in the United States between the ages of 18 and 34. You can target this audience with an ad on Facebook, for example, or even create a coupon code that is only good for individuals in that age range. When you choose an audience, you’ll want to think about the type of person you’re targeting. What are their interests? What are their buying behaviors?

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can begin to determine the right marketing tactic or approach for this particular audience. You want to choose a platform that reaches the audience you’ve chosen, and doesn’t hurt your wallet too much. Depending on your budget, you may decide between paid ads on Facebook or Instagram, or even organic posts on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.

Determine The Components Of Your Plan

Once you’ve chosen your target audience, you can begin to determine the components of your plan. This is the part where you’ll lay out the different channels you’ll use to reach your audience, as well as the tactics you’ll deploy to grow your business. To keep things simple, you can use an Excel sheet to keep all of this organized – just plug in your chosen demographics and you’ll have a clear picture of everything you need to do to reach your goals.

Develop Your Strategy

Strategy is very important when it comes to marketing. While you don’t need to have a strategy for every aspect of your marketing plan, you do need one for the big-picture goals and objectives you’ve set. Your overall strategy should include the following:

• The objectives you’ve set for your company
• The objectives you’ve set for this marketing campaign
• The platforms you’ll use to reach your audience
• The messages you’ll use to talk to your audience
• The budget you’ve set for this campaign
• The timeframe you’re working within
• A detailed description of how you’ll evaluate whether or not this campaign is successful

You can also use a tool like HubSpot to create a strategy outline that breaks down your company’s objectives and the specific marketing activities you’ll undertake to achieve these goals. This will make the process extremely transparent – no more guessing games!

Devise A Measurement And Analysis Plan

Now that you’ve got your strategy in place, it’s time to devise a measurement and analysis plan. What does that mean? Simply put, you’ll want to devise a plan to track the success of your marketing efforts. Think of this as your route map. This is the part where you’ll lay out how you’ll track the results of your plan – and it should be something you can actually measure. For example, let’s say you want to measure the number of sales you’ve got from the online marketer you’ve employed to promote your product. You could create a customized Google Analytics property for this campaign and track the metrics there. This will give you a clear picture of how your campaign is performing – and if you want to alter your strategy based on the results, you can do so with confidence.

Launch Your Campaign

When you’ve got your strategy in place and your measurement and analysis plan, it’s time to launch your marketing campaign. Start by engaging with your audience on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn – start a conversation and share valuable information. Once you’ve established yourself as an expert in your industry, you can begin to grow your network and attract potential customers to your cause. Start by sharing useful content that is tied to a call to action – like a download link, for example. This will encourage visitors to take action and achieve your goals.

If you’re looking for inspiration, you can check out HubSpot’s own SEO strategy. Not only does it include everything you need to know, but it’s also broken down into an easy-to-follow, step-by-step formula that will let you easily put into practice what you learn.