No matter what industry you’re in, you’re constantly bombarded with new marketing ideas and approaches. To stay relevant and competitive, you need to be equipped with the right knowledge and skills to be able to critically analyze marketing methods and identify the ones that work and the ones that don’t.
This is where a skillful blend of marketing and digital strategy comes in. At its heart, online marketing is simply marketing that takes place online. However, just because marketing happens online doesn’t mean that it’s purely digital. Just as there’s traditional offline marketing and guerrilla marketing, so too there is online marketing and digital marketing. The main difference is that while traditional offline marketing involves distributing leaflets, placing ads in traditional newspapers, and driving traffic to websites, online marketing can involve a variety of techniques that specifically target digital audiences. Using digital tools to market a product or service is typically referred to as digital marketing, whilst doing any type of marketing using only digital channels is considered online marketing.
Since the start of this year, the importance of digital marketing has been reinforced by many bodies, including the European Commission, which stated that “[i]digital marketing is increasingly becoming an important part of a company’s marketing mix. It is designed to provide value to digital consumers and create lifelong brand loyalty by consistently delivering relevant content that stimulates interest, encourages interaction and builds trust.”
What is Digital Strategy?
DIGITAL STRATEGY is the analysis and planning of online marketing and social media strategies. Typically, these are long-term plans that cover digital marketing across various platforms such as websites, social media, and emails, amongst others. This strategy is developed to ensure that the digital marketing efforts of your business are being used to their full potential to drive revenue and growth.
The success of your business depends on many factors, but one of the most important is your digital marketing strategy. Before you put in place any digital marketing efforts, it is crucial that you develop a clear picture of how each and every aspect of your strategy is going to contribute to your objectives. This includes everything from email marketing campaigns to PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising. The key is to make sure that everything is linked to clearly defined goals and metrics to show whether or not your strategy is effective.
Many businesses get so bogged down in the day-to-day workings of their businesses that they forget to put in place effective digital marketing strategies. It is important to remember that a business in which you have an interest will almost certainly have a digital marketing strategy in place, whether you know it or not. The question is: are you going to be involved in creating or implementing that strategy?
Why Should You Get Involved?
If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you’ve already heard of the importance of digital marketing to a business, or you’ve at least heard of the term. This means that you’re either involved in its creation or implementation, or you know someone who is. In any case, it’s safe to assume that you’re already reading blogs and listening to podcasts about digital marketing, so you’re clearly already somewhat familiar with what it is.
There are a few main reasons why you might want to get involved with digital strategy and online marketing.
- To increase revenues
- To boost brand awareness
- To reduce marketing costs
- To get more out of your marketing activities
What Will you Learn from Getting Involved?
One of the main benefits of getting involved in digital strategy is that you’ll constantly be learning. Just like any other field that you specialize in, you’ll learn new things everyday. You’ll also have the opportunity to bounce ideas off others, which will help solidify your thinking and give you a new perspective on marketing processes and strategies.
One of the first things that you’ll learn is how to use various tools and platforms that are specifically designed for digital marketing. Since the strategy involves working with various platforms, you’ll learn how to use tools that integrate with those platforms. For example, if you’re using MailChimp to send out your email newsletters, you’ll learn how to use their templates for blogs, social media posts, and email marketing.
Another important thing that you’ll learn is how to effectively target the right audience for your product or service. Just because your product is digital in nature doesn’t mean that it’s only consumed online. There are many tools and platforms that you can use to segment your audience and reach out to them based on their interests. For example, if you sell garden tools, you might want to target male gardeners or landscapers. Or if you’re a real estate agency, you might want to target people searching for houses in or around a certain area.
What Will your Day-to-day Involvements be Like?
Depending on your particular path, your day-to-day involvement with digital strategy may look different. If you’re a marketing manager, for example, you might do a bit of everything. You’ll likely be responsible for coming up with new ideas for campaigns as well as monitoring and reviewing the performance of past campaigns to see how they performed and what you can do to improve on them. This involves using tools such as Google Analytics to see what elements of your strategy are working and which ones need to be changed or refined.
As a marketer or business owner, you may be focusing on specific campaigns or tasks such as coming up with concepts for ads, writing blog posts, or analyzing social media to see what’s working and what needs to be done to improve.
Regardless of your specific job responsibilities, you’ll always have the opportunity to learn new things. Since every company and brand has a digital strategy, you’ll have the chance to improve your skills and become a more in-demand worker. And the more in-demand you are, the more you’re worth.
How much time will this take?
It really depends on you. Some people can go at a fast pace and put in a full day’s work. Others may need more time. It’s important to be realistic about how much time you’ll need to spend on this. If you have a full-time job and other responsibilities in your life, you’ll have to find the time to fit this in. Once you do, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this earlier. Having a clear vision of the end result will help you get the most out of yourtime.