MENU
Business.com aims to help business owners make informed decisions to support and grow their companies. We research and recommend products and services suitable for various business types, investing thousands of hours each year in this process.
As a business, we need to generate revenue to sustain our content. We have financial relationships with some companies we cover, earning commissions when readers purchase from our partners or share information about their needs. These relationships do not dictate our advice and recommendations. Our editorial team independently evaluates and recommends products and services based on their research and expertise. Learn more about our process and partners here.
Determine your goals, find your channels and incorporate the best tools for your business.
Online marketing has become a crucial strategy for creating a successful, competitive business. However, the vast array of digital marketing options and channels can feel overwhelming. What works for one company or industry may not work for your business.
The secret to choosing the right digital marketing strategy is to understand your offerings and customers and develop a customized plan to achieve specific marketing goals. We’ll explore the steps you should take to choose the right digital marketing strategy for your company and share more online marketing insights.
A successful digital marketing strategy isn’t about trying the newest digital marketing trends or guessing what your customers want. Instead, it requires data-backed insights.
“The most successful marketers understand truly scalable digital marketing has transformed into people-based advertising, or knowing the exact message to give at the right time, on the right platform, to the right person,” said Jess Reilly, former chief marketing officer at the Rebellion Group.
Choosing a digital marketing strategy includes building buyer personas, identifying your goals, selecting the right digital marketing tools, and assessing your strategy to ensure it’s working.
Buyer personas are fictional characters representing archetypal consumers who might be attracted to your brand. These personas help you market your products and services to this demographic.
“Creating buyer personas will help you determine your marketing strategy by illuminating who your buyers are, the situations they are faced with and, most important, what goals the audience [is] attempting to accomplish to inform your messaging strategy,” Reilly said.
To build customer personas, consider the following information about your target customer:
Then, customize your strategy based on these details.
One way to get a handle on your target customer is by looking closely at your competitors and their attempts to reach these buyers. Brett Prentiss, co-founder of Instinct Marketing, said his team looks at competitors’ landing pages, ad title tags, website structure and more.
“Once we understand [these elements], we reverse-engineer their strategy, along with the business owners’ vision and our expertise, [and] something truly magical is created,” Prentiss explained. “That magic simply works because it delivers results.”
What are your marketing strategy goals? For example, you may want to build brand awareness, increase product sales or attract a larger social following. Be intentional about your goals to direct your efforts effectively. We’ll explore some specific examples.
If your goal is to raise brand awareness
Does your target customer buy only from reputable brands? Are they aware of your brand? Do they trust or have enough familiarity with it to make a purchase?
If cultivating brand awareness and strengthening your company’s reputation are top priorities, concentrate on the following:
Aside from using and monitoring hashtags and social media promotion engagement, a brand awareness campaign’s return on investment (ROI) is challenging to measure. Although you won’t be able to pinpoint every person who learned about your brand due to your efforts, building awareness is the first step in laying the foundation for a more extensive customer base.
If your goal is to demonstrate how your product or service is useful
Sometimes, consumers don’t seek out your company because they don’t understand how your product or service can improve their lives. If this is the case, you may see low search volumes for your target keywords.
If you don’t have a problem with your sales process or website traffic, you may be experiencing a general lack of consumer awareness. If so, your digital marketing strategy goal would be to educate potential customers about a specific problem they encounter and then offer your solution. Here are some ways to do this:
Sometimes, faith in the brand isn’t enough. You must educate customers about what you do, how your offerings will benefit them and why your solution is better than their current one.
If your goal is to increase traffic
Traffic is a highly sought-after key performance indicator. Higher-quality traffic usually generates more sales leads and actual sales, so it makes sense that most business owners prioritize it.
If your primary goal is traffic, the best areas of focus include pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, a successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, and email marketing.
If your goal is to increase leads
If you have an expensive or complex product, it’s unreasonable to expect customers to buy it for the first time online. Instead, focus your efforts on generating leads for your sales team to pursue.
Here are some tips for increasing leads:
If your goal is to increase sales
If you want to increase sales, you likely need to utilize email marketing strategically and boost traffic to your website’s landing page.
Various marketing tools exist, including content marketing calendar templates, social networks, and email marketing software. Each has specific advantages and purposes, so the right tools for you will depend on your goals.
“Every business has a different need or something they are lacking in,” Prentiss said. “That could be a lack of reviews, they’re ranking poorly on Google, or their website just really needs a redesign. Whatever the business needs are, they always require a different tool.”
Prioritize your goals, and comb through your budget to determine your best investments. If you’re far away from a sale, use less-expensive tools (such as email and social media posts) because there will be a good amount of leakage in your sales funnel. You can always revisit and experiment with other available tools.
Auditing your digital marketing strategy involves determining what worked in the past, testing current strategies and evaluating what needs to be changed.
We touched on a few digital marketing channels above. Below, we’ll explain more about some of the most popular options:
In addition to your business goals, factors such as your budget, resources and time will dictate your digital marketing strategy.
Creating a strategy to guide your digital marketing efforts is crucial. “In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, a well-crafted digital marketing strategy is an absolute necessity for any business looking to stay competitive and reach a global audience,” Concklin said. “The continued evolution of commerce demands a proactive approach to digital marketing in order to keep pace with the ever-changing consumer preferences and behaviors.”
Consider the following reasons a digital marketing strategy is essential for today’s businesses: