The internet has changed the way we do business. In today’s world, digital marketing is considered to be just as important (if not more so) than traditional marketing. After all, if you want to reach your target audience, you’re going to have to go where they are – online!
The good thing is that you can use the digital revolution to your advantage. With a little bit of planning and strategizing, you can put in place a strong online marketing campaign that will help you capture the attention of your audience and encourage them to take action – whether that’s to buy your product or service, subscribe to your blog, or visit your website.
Defining Your Audience: Who Is Your Target Audience?
Before you can begin to build an effective online marketing strategy, you need to understand who your target audience is and what they want. More importantly, you need to find out what attributes your product or service has that will make it more appealing to this specific audience. This will form the backbone of your entire strategy and help you determine the type of content you’re going to produce, the social media platforms you’re going to use, and the target markets you’re going to focus on.
Building Your Product Or Service
You can’t effectively market yourself online if you don’t have a product or service to market. That being said, your product or service doesn’t have to be ready to launch to begin with. Instead, you can begin by defining the features that make your product different from the rest. What do you offer that your competitors don’t?
Along with the features, you need to consider the pricing for the product or service. Are you selling a free trial or do you have to pay for each product or service that customer buys? Consider making a rough estimate of how much money you’ll make or lose from each individual purchase. This way, you can determine how much (if any) profit you’ll need to justify the time and effort spent on this product or service. The pricing for your product or service will also dictate how much you can afford to spend on marketing.
Determining The Type Of Content
The type of content you produce can have a profound impact on your audience. For example, did you know that investors prefer to read content that’s rooted in fact rather than fiction?
According to HubSpot Blogs’ research, 97% of consumers trust content that’s been verified by a reputable source. Additionally, 70% of consumers would rather read a detailed how-to-guide than a list of product benefits (trade secrets, popular products, etc).
Creating A Roadmap
An essential part of any strong marketing plan is a roadmap. This roadmap should detail the order of the various steps you’ll take to achieve your goal. As you move forward with your strategy, you should revisit this plan and add or subtract things from it as needed. Having a plan makes things a lot easier. You’ll be able to track your progress and see how much you’ve accomplished (or still need to accomplish) towards your goal. This plan should also include both short-term and long-term goals. Being able to see how your strategy is growing, and being able to identify areas for improvement and make adjustments as you go is very important. This will help you fine-tune your plan and ensure you hit your target audience the right way the first time around.
Setting Up Your Social Media Channels
Your product or service may exist solely in digital form – but that doesn’t mean you can’t maximize its growth potential by establishing a presence in non-digital platforms like social media.
According to HubSpot Blogs’ research, consumers trust brands and businesses they see as “authentic” and “reliable.”
If you want to appear authentic and reliable to your audience, you need to establish a presence on social media channels. To achieve this, you’ll need to determine the types of content your audience finds most engaging and compelling, and then find ways to provide this content via social media. Consider looking at other brands and seeing what types of content they’re providing on social media. You can use this as a reference point to determine what content format will be most effective for your business.
Determining The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
You can’t effectively measure the success of your online marketing campaign if you don’t have a clear idea of what these are. A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurement that will help you determine the effectiveness of your campaign. These are typically numerical, concrete measurements that can be tracked against pre-agreed upon goals. For instance, you might want to track the number of leads generated through your website and the conversion rate of these leads into customers.
The better your KPIs, the better your strategy. Knowing that these are the specific metrics you’ll use to determine its success will give you a clear idea of what to measure and what to work towards. This will, in turn, allow you to determine the effectiveness (and, ultimately, the success) of your campaign.
Pricing
Your pricing strategy will determine how much you’re willing to spend on marketing campaigns. Your pricing strategy determines how much you should charge for your product or service, considering your cost of living and the amount of work you’re doing. Before you begin, it’s important to figure out what you need to make to cover your costs. Once you know this, you can begin to set a price range that you feel comfortable with.
If you’re looking to generate more revenue, you might want to consider raising your price. However, if you’re looking to cut costs, you might want to consider lowering your price. It’s always important to consider your pricing strategy as a whole rather than simply focusing on whether you should raise or lower your price. You want to make sure that regardless of the direction you choose, your customers are still able to benefit from your product or service.
Product Demo
If your product or service is somewhat complex and requires some technical input to use, you may want to consider providing a product demo. A product demo is when you provide a customer with a brief overview of your product (or service), along with any supporting materials (such as printed manuals, videos, webinars, etc) to give them an idea of what it is and how it works. With a product demo, you’ll give your potential customers the chance to try your product out and, hopefully, become a customer. If they like what they see, great! On the other hand, if they don’t seem to be impressed, then maybe it’s time to find a new product (or service) to offer.
Launch
Finally, you need to set a date for your product or service’s launch. Your product or service may have various regulatory requirements that need to be met before it can officially be sold. This is why you need to consider what date you’re going to set for the launch.
The launch date for your product or service will be crucial in creating the proper climate for customers to learn more about it and, hopefully, become customers. The sooner you can set a date, the better – at least, from a business standpoint.
Setting up a strong marketing campaign isn’t as difficult as you might think. By taking the time to plan out some basic steps, you’ll be able to effectively reach your target audience and ensure they become interested in your product or service.