How to develop a digital marketing strategy

Your digital marketing strategy tells you how you’ll reach success, no matter how that success has been defined. The process is just as crucial as the outcome. Identify your unique capabilities. Have a good understanding of how to use these to your advantage while minimising threats. The process and tools available will help you identify a variety of potential strategies for success so that you can ultimately choose the one which is right for you.

When should strategic digital marketing planning be done?

The scheduling of the strategic digital marketing planning process depends on the nature and needs of the organisation as well as the current external environment. For example, this type of planning should be carried out frequently in an organisation whose products as well as services are in an industry which is changing rapidly.

In this environment, digital marketing planning might be carried out once or even twice a year and carried out in a very comprehensive as well as detailed fashion. In other words, with attention to:

• Mission
• Vision
• Values
• Environmental Scanning Issues
• Goals
• Strategies
• Objectives
• Responsibilities
• Timelines
• Budgets

On the other hand, if the organisation has been around for many years and is in a fairly stable marketplace, then digital marketing planning may be carried out once a year and only specific parts of the planning process, for example, actions planning (objectives, responsibilities, timelines, budgets, etc.) are updated every year.

Consider the following guidelines:

• Strategic digital marketing planning should be done when an organisation is just getting started. (The strategic digital marketing plan is often part of an overall business plan, along with a financial plan and operational/management plan.)
• Strategic planning should also be done at least once a year to be ready for the next fiscal year (the financial management of an organisation is frequently based on a yearly, or fiscal year, basis).

If this is the case, strategic planning should be conducted in time to identify the digital marketing goals to be attained at least over the coming fiscal year, resources required to achieve those goals as well as funding needed to obtain the resources. These funds are inserted in budget planning for the coming financial year.

However, not all aspects of strategic planning need to be fully completed each year. The entire strategic planning process should be performed at least once every three years. As noted above, these activities should be done every year if the organisation is experiencing tremendous change.

Each year, action plans should be updated.

Note that, during the implementation phase of the plan, the development of the implementation should be reviewed as a minimum on a quarterly basis by the board. Again, the rate of review depends on the degree to which the environment is changing in and around the organisation.

It’s almost certainly safe to make the assumption that a major part of your marketing strategy today is digital. Consumers, as well as businesses alike, are almost always online and on-the-go — and you want to have the ability to reach them and observe their behaviour where they spend their time. However, when you’re establishing a business, it may seem as if this ever-evolving digital landscape can very rapidly become an overwhelming one. With several other responsibilities and tasks that need to get done, you need to effectively create, fine-tune as well as maintain an agile digital marketing strategy.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

If you want to learn how to create a digital marketing strategy that is right for your business then you need to do our Advanced Digital Marketing Course. For more information, please follow this link.