Some ten years back, a new business can be expected to be
successful without any efforts on digital marketing. But, now that competition
is everywhere and audiences are spending huge time on the internet, without
digital marketing new businesses or even the old existing ones would suffer to
stay profitable. That is why, every business owner, marketer, or digital
marketing aspirant needs to understand what is a digital marketing strategy.
In the guide, we'll cover how to build a digital marketing
strategy in detail so that one understands the concept fully. Read along the
blog as we start it by understating the basics of digital marketing.
What Are The Basics In Digital Marketing?
A key strategy for online product, service, or brand
promotion is digital marketing. It includess a variety of approaches and methods
intended to establish a connection with target consumers via digital media.
Search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing,
email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, analytics and data analysis,
affiliate marketing, and website optimization are important elements. All of
these elements work together to build a powerful online presence, interact with
potential clients, and increase conversion rates.
When successfully implemented, these core components serve
as the foundation for an effective digital marketing plan, as we'll see in the
latter sections of this guide.
Is Digital Marketing Easy?
Now that you understand what is digital marketing, you might
question, is digital marketing is or difficult. Well, the truth is certain
elements of digital marketing are very easy like creating and uploading social
media content, framing emails, etc. But, planning and implementing digital
marketing strategies are difficult.
Sticking to digital marketing strategies and getting results
for efforts requires concept knowledge as well as strategic thinking. As a
manager, one needs to do everything from SEO, and content creation, to managing
and analyzing analytics. Not to mention, the digital world is constantly
evolving, there's an introduction of new platforms, trends, and algorithms
happening now and then.
All in all, the entry-level tasks in digital marketing might
seem easy at first. But making professional-level efforts and expecting the
same level of results for the business requires advanced level knowledge, that
is held by experienced digital marketers.
What Are The 6 Types of Digital Marketing?
The term digital marketing consists of multiple elements and
channels. The popular and SEtrending top six types of digital marketing are:
SEO - Search engine optimization
SEO is the process of making efforts that'll lead to an increase in the website rank in the search engine result pages like Google. The ultimate aim is to rank for a bunch of keywords which when searched by the audience leads to higher traffic and increased conversions.
Content marketing
As the term shows content marketing is the process of
planning, creating, showing, targeting, and finally distributing the valuable
content to the target audience. It includes multiple formats like blogs,
videos, ebooks, etc.
Email marketing
Unlike some people believe, email marketing is a very essential form of digital marketing that still is successful and gives great ROI. This marketing is used to nurture the leads and maintain the consumer and brand relationship regularly via email inbox.
Affiliate marketing
A comparatively new concept, affiliate marketing is paying
commissions to bloggers to increase and promote the sales of a brand's product.
It is a cost-effective way for brands to reach the target audience without much
effort.
Social media marketing
Among the trending fields, social media marketing is promoting the product and service on multiple platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Marketers often plan and run campaigns to drive conversion for products and services.
Influencer marketing
Last but not least is influencer marketing where brands
collaborate with individuals with strong online presence to promote the
product. Influencers or celebrities can encourage their huge list of followers
to generate leads for a brand.
These are just the top six types of digital marketing that
we've discussed. Several other types are PPC, SEM, and more which are equally
lucrative career options.
What Are The 5 Ps of Digital Marketing?
Before we see the guide on how to create a digital marketing
strategy, you must be clear with the basic concepts of digital marketing like
the popular and essential 5Ps of digital marketing.
People
The first P represents people which describes your target
audience. Your company or brand exists due to your customer, so you need to
define the target audience. Multiple factors make up a perfect target audience
group like geographical location, age, gender, occupation, and many more.
Product
The second P stands for product which is what you're selling
to your target audience. It can be a literal physical product or a service that
you're selling to satisfy the needs or wants of your consumer.
Price
Now comes the third P that affects your business directly which is the price factor. The amount that you're selling your product/service is the price that your consumer is paying you. Think of it as an amount that your consumer is ready to lose to get your product/service in return.
Place
The next P is the place or location of your business where you're operating. Earlier when online business was limited, the physical place held so much value as consumers would come to that location to avail of your product. But, now digital place holds equally great value like on which platform consumers can contact you and so on.
Promotion
The last P for the 5Ps of digital marketing is promotion
which simply implies how you reach your audience and convince them to try out
your product/service. Even the best product ever made in the history requires
right type of promotion to get the wheels of sales going.
These are the five Ps of digital marketing. Now, since we
mentioned so much about the pre and post-digital era, it is important that we
quickly see the difference between digital marketing versus traditional marketing.
Digital Marketing versus Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing unlike it sounds is still a very
effective form of marketing for multiple brands. Let's see the basic diff b/w
the two.
Digital marketing makes use of online platforms to get hold
of the target audience. It has multiple benefits like the option of precise
targeting, real-time insights, freedom to select own's campaign budget,
cost-effectiveness, and more. Digital marketing comes with the option to make
changes in the campaign on a real-time basis and most importantly it is highly
favorable for small or newly launched businesses.
Speaking of traditional marketing, it covers all the offline mediums to promote a business like hoardings, TV advertisements, radio, newspaper ads, and more. The method works very well to reach a huge audience but doesn't offer the option of targeting the audience. Also, the cost of these traditional mediums is very high when compared to digital mediums. Lastly, getting insights from traditional marketing isn't possible due to a lack of options.
Traditional marketing is not absolute in the market, but it
is majorly preferred by big brands due to higher costs. The choice of marketing
depends upon the type of brand and marketing resources available to the
business.
Now, this brings us to the most essential topic of the guide
which is to understand everything about digital marketing strategies.
What is a digital marketing strategy?
A digital marketing strategy is a well-organized and
detailed plan that describes how a company will use digital platforms and
tactics to reach its target market and accomplish its marketing objectives. It
uses a variety of online tools and platforms, such as search engines, social
media, email marketing, websites, and more, to build a unified strategy for
interacting with consumers online.
Not to mention there are multiple types of this concept like
e-commerce digital marketing strategy, b2b digital marketing strategies,
digital marketing strategy for startups, and many more. Every business either
small or big, either offline or online needs a proper well-frame digital
marketing strategy. And, if you're wondering why, then continue reading the
guide.
Having a well-designed digital marketing strategy guarantees
that marketing initiatives are in line with the overarching business
objectives. It offers an exact plan for accomplishing particular goals, like
raising sales, improving brand awareness, or reaching a wider audience.
A digital marketing plan makes it possible to allocate
resources like money, time, and labor in an effective manner. It reduces waste
and increases ROI by concentrating resources on the most productive digital
platforms and strategies.
The digital environment is ever-changing due to the
introduction of new technology and shifting consumer habits. In an
ever-evolving digital economy, a strategy offers a framework for responding to
these changes and guarantees that a company stays relevant and flexible.
Let's see how you can also build a successful digital
marketing strategy.
How to build a digital marketing strategy?
The process of creating and planning a digital marketing
strategy involves lots of decision-making and teamwork where what is better for
the organization is decided and is gathered in the form of a process. Let's see
the steps involved.
Lay out a clear objective
Before setting up standards and targets, one must know what is needed to be achieved in XYZ years. One must think to use the "SMART" method to select goals that stand for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. An example of setting a goal can be increasing the conversion rate via social media platforms or websites by 20%.
Analyze and make note of your current position
A brand already has a digital presence on multiple mediums,
so it's good to understand where the brand is standing at the moment. Maybe,
start by creating a list of platforms that help you with a larger number of
leads to the lower one. By this, you can decide which platform needs more of
your digital resources.
Make use of the marketing funnel
A marketing funnel will help you to understand where the
huge section of your audience falls. This way, you can proactively strategize
your digital marketing process. The most basic type of marketing funnel is AIDA
which shows different stages of audience. These stages are awareness, interest,
desire, and action. Without a doubt, the goal of every digital marketing
strategy is to make the audience reach the last part of the funnel where they
successfully take action like placing an order.
Build content strategy
You're aware of what your audience thinks of your
product/service. With this awareness, now plan and brainstorm on what type of
content should go on which platform to get the maximum engagement from the
audience. Create a calendar, shoot and prepare the content, and upload it on
the desired channels with adequate CTAs that'll indirectly push the audience to
take action.
Evaluation of results
The last step in the process of creating a successful
digital marketing strategy is analyzing the whole process. Notice your
progress, and your engagement, are these in alignment with your selected goal?
If yes, keep following the strategy but make sure to make the necessary changes
as and when required.
Lastly, don't forget to follow the latest trends of digital
marketing that are going on in the market to grab the opportunities as early as
possible and get the first mover's advantage.
With this, we've reached the end of the guide on digital
marketing strategy. Let's proceed to conclude it and look into certain
takeaways.
Takeaways
In today's dynamic and competitive market, creating a digital marketing strategy is a mandatory step for every marketer. We hope our step-by-step guide on creating the perfect strategy will help you. Please make sure you stay updated and include the current trends of the market in your digital marketing strategy to the utmost benefit.
