What is a digital marketing strategy?

There’s no question about it. In the word that we’re living in today, a big part of your marketing strategy is digital. We’d like to argue that your marketing strategy needs to go from a traditional marketing-based one to a digital marketing one. Consumers and businesses are almost always online. This means that you want to be able to reach them, as well as observe their behaviour, where they are spending most of their time. But when you’re growing and developing your business, it seems like this ever-evolving digital marketing landscape can quickly become overpowering.

Your ‘digital marketing strategy’ consists of a series of actions that assist you with achieving your company’s goals. It does this through carefully selected online marketing channels which include paid, earned as well as owned media. These three mediums can all support a common campaign around a specific line of business.

What is a strategy?

A strategy is an act that managers make in order to reach one or more of the organisation’s goals. The term ‘strategy’ can also be defined as the following: “A general course that is set for the organisation as well as its various elements in order to achieve a desired state in the future. Strategy results from the comprehensive strategic planning process.”

It’s about assimilating organisational activities, utilising and allocating the scarce resources within the company environment to meet the current objectives. While developing a strategy it is essential to take into consideration that decisions are not taken in a vacuum. In addition, any action taken by a firm is expected to be greeted with a reaction from:

• Those affected,
• Competitors,
• Customers,
• Employees, or
• Suppliers

A strategy can also be looked at as:

• Knowledge of the goals,
• The uncertainty of events, as well as
• The need to take into consideration the probable or actual behaviour of others.

Strategy is the blueprint of decisions that will be taken in an organisation. This document:

• Shows the company’s objectives and goals,
• Reduces the key policies – and plans for achieving these goals – to writing,
• Defines the business the company is to conduct as well as the type of economic and human organisation it wants to be.

There are so many varied digital marketing strategies out there. Sometimes the choice can be overwhelming when you’re trying to decide which one needs to be prioritised. Digital marketers who are looking for the best digital marketing strategy need to have a crystal clear understanding of their business, product as well as demographics. This is before they choose a strategy that will be effective for their requirements.  When it comes down to the digital marketing campaigns that you conduct in your organisation, don’t waste your time by choosing the one that isn’t right for you. Stay on top of your lead generation pursuits.

How to structure a digital marketing plan for your business

A digital strategy that is integrated will give you a foundation for all the key online marketing activities. The RACE digital marketing planning framework integrates 25 essential multichannel marketing activities which cover covering all parts of the customer life cycle. These are broken down into the following sections:

• Plan – Make use of a data-driven approach in order to review your current digital marketing effectiveness. This type of approach will also help you to customise analytics and set up KPI dashboards. SMART objectives create a strategy of prioritised improvements to show you how to deploy digital marketing media, technology and data in order to increase leads and sales.
• Reach – Build awareness by using these key online marketing techniques which will drive visitors to your website.
• Act – Encourage interactions on your site or social media channels in order to help you with generating leads for the future.
• Convert – Make use of retargeting, nurturing as well as conversion rate optimisation to remind as well as persuade your audience to buy online or offline on phone and face-to-face channels if these are significant to you.
• Engage – Increase sales from customers that you already have by improving personalised communications using the web, email and social media marketing.

There are several different digital marketing strategies out there. Sometimes it can be overpowering when you’re trying to decide which needs to be prioritised for the business. Digital marketers who are looking for the ultimate strategy need to have a clear understanding of their business, choosing a strategy that will be effective for their needs.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

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