With the explosion of digital marketing, it’s become clear that there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to developing an effective strategy. The role of a digital marketer is evolving, with more emphasis placed on the development of marketing assessments as a strategic tool.
Why Do You Need a Marketing Assessment?
The role of a digital marketer has changed significantly over the past ten years. When you compare that to the role of a traditional ad marketer – it’s clear to see that the world of digital marketing is very different now.
Back in 2018, ad agency heads predicted that the year of digital marketing would see the death of traditional marketing. While somewhat dramatic, it’s an interesting point to illustrate how significantly the role of digital marketing has changed over the decade that followed.
The emergence of platforms like Google Ads and Facebook ads have enabled simpler and more affordable ways to connect with audiences – and allowed marketers to spend more time on what’s really important – building strong relationships with customers.
Key Takeaways For Digital Marketers
Google Ads and Facebook ads are just two of the largest and most popular digital marketing platforms. This is significant because it means that even marketers who don’t have a huge budget or experience can jump in and start building their own digital marketing strategy with limited effort – or even no effort at all.
If you’re looking to create a digital marketing strategy, it’s important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. What works for one company may not work for another. It’s also important to remember that a digital marketing strategy is a living document. You are constantly analyzing and revising your strategy as new insights and technologies emerge.
This may mean that you have a completely different strategy in place five years from now. The thing about digital marketing is that it is evolving just as fast as the technology is changing. Just because something worked well for you does not mean that it will work well for your competitors.
The biggest takeaway for digital marketers is that the world of digital marketing is so large that it can potentially fit everyone. This presents endless opportunities for marketers who are open to new ideas and new ways of thinking. What may have worked for your competitors a decade ago may not be relevant today. The same is true of what may have worked for you. Don’t be afraid to rethink your strategy and try new things. You never know what will work best for your company or brand in the future.
How To Design the Perfect Marketing Plan
If you’re looking to create a marketing plan, it’s important to remember that you are designing a blueprint for your company. It’s not a done deal once you’ve put pen to paper. You are constantly reevaluating and revising your plan as new insights and technologies emerge. This is why we recommend designing your perfect marketing plan – rather than just going with the first plan you came up with.
When you design your perfect marketing plan, you want to start by taking into account everything that you already know about your company – its products, services, values, and more. You can also include key performance indicators and metrics that you’ll use to measure the success of your plan. Finally, you want to include people who are responsible for its implementation.
Once you’ve got all of this in place, it’s time to start strategizing. You want to break down your overall marketing plan into specific, measurable steps that you can use to achieve specific results.
“The Perfect Marketing Plan lays out a clear framework for defining objectives and reviewing progress over time,” said Amanda Hough, Head of Marketing at Simpli.fi. “The plan also sets a solid foundation for establishing key performance indicators and for measuring the success of your marketing activities. This is invaluable when motivating teams and measuring results.”
In the next section, we’ll walk you through an example of a perfect marketing plan for a real estate company.
Example: A Perfect Marketing Plan For a Real Estate Agency
Let’s assume that you are a real estate agency with 20 offices nationwide. You’ve decided to take the digital route and have set up a website with an inbound marketing approach. You’ve also invested in a new set of digital marketing tools, including:
- An email list of around 12,000 contacts
- A digital marketing automation platform
- A single Google Ads campaign with 12 webpages and three videos
- And you’re just getting started.
You’ve also hired a digital marketer who has experience in marketing and communications for real estate agencies and has agreed to work on your behalf. Together, you’ve put everything in place and are ready to dive in and start generating leads. You’ve even done some initial outreach to connect with potential customers – sending out a few emails to see what kind of interest you’ve generated.
Now, it’s time to put the brakes on and take a step back. Looking at your entire marketing strategy in this way – with a fresh pair of eyes – you realize that there are some things that you could’ve done better. Most notably, you lack a clear idea of how you intend to convert these leads into paying customers. This brings us to the importance of a clear marketing analysis.
Marketing Analysis Can Help You Identify Your Niche
If you’ve been following along, you know that we believe that every business is in sales. However, we also believe that every business is in marketing – and therefore have adopted an inbound marketing approach.
One of the first steps towards designing the perfect marketing plan is to perform a marketing analysis. A marketing analysis will give you a much clearer picture of how effective your current strategy is and where you can improve. For our example, let’s use the HubSpot Marketing analysis tool. Once you’ve launched your Google Ads campaign and had some initial success, it’s important to take a step back and examine how effective your strategy is.
As part of the analysis, you can determine the:
- Performance of your ads
- Demographics of your audience
- Competitive analysis (including marketing platforms used)
- Website analytics (including conversion tracking and optimization)
- Social media analytics
- Operative metrics for your digital marketing efforts (e.g. website traffic, email open rates, etc)
- Branding (including content strategy and marketing communications)
- Technology used (e.g. website platforms, marketing automation, etc)
- Financial analysis (e.g. cost-per-acquisition, return on investment, etc)
- Analysis of previous campaigns (including benchmarks, best practices, and lessons learned)
With this information, you can effectively design your next campaign. You’ll have a much better idea of what is working and what isn’t – and can focus on what’s most important – increasing revenue and brand awareness.
Developing a Marketing Plan vs. Just Doing Marketing
When we talk about a marketing plan, many of us think about a formal document – something that you’d put together with the help of a designer. What we actually mean when we say that we need a marketing plan is something quite different.
A marketing plan is a living document – it is continuously being revised and improved as new information comes in. A marketing plan is not a one-shot deal – it is something that you are developing over time.
A marketing plan sets out the strategy that you’ll use to reach your audience. It is also the foundation for all of your marketing efforts. Once you have a clear idea of your target audience, you can determine the tactics that you’ll use to communicate with them – including the use of digital marketing channels. This includes everything from email marketing to social media marketing to advertising.
In a nutshell, the role of a digital marketer has changed significantly over the past ten years. While the role has evolved, the responsibilities have not. A good digital marketer is still responsible for creating and implementing a marketing strategy – which makes them responsible for everything from designing effective marketing materials to tracking the success of those campaigns.