Digital Marketing Strategy Built Around Your Business
A strong digital marketing strategy starts with where your business is now, who you want to reach and what you need marketing to achieve. From there, the right mix of SEO, paid advertising, social media, content and website activity can be prioritised around budget and measurable goals. For a more detailed framework, read our UK small-business digital marketing strategy guide.
Without a clear plan it is easy to spend time and budget on channels that do not match your customers, goals or capacity. A practical strategy helps you set priorities and measure what works.
No Business plan?
We have seen many businesses succeed without a business plan but not many without a marketing strategy.
After all, if people don’t know you are there, eventually you will be forgotten about. Or you chase good money after bad, wrongly placing your priorities.
So here are some top tips to get those marketing strategies right before you take your first steps.
Who’s your audience?
The first thing you need to be thinking about is who you are aiming these goods towards.
Some companies are greedy and think they can catch as many people as they can, but trust me, spread yourself too thin and the consumer will become confused about who this “item” is designed for.
I’ll give you some examples –
- Targeting people who are unlikely to need your product can waste budget
- Promoting an offer without understanding the interests and needs of your audience can miss potential customers
- Choosing advertising imagery based on stereotypes rather than audience research can weaken your message
All these examples are clear as day.
Although I don’t want to teach you to suck eggs, you will be surprised to see how many people don’t think of these things while laying out their marketing plans.
So once you have your audience, a theme including colours, images, styles and messages needs to be created with them in mind.
Take the developed theme and apply it to your branding. Don’t forget your website of course.
This step is a huge part of website marketing.
It can make the difference between visitors staying on your website becoming customers or leaving within seconds.
Style it out, again let’s just say you are selling surf equipment, your audience will tend to like the same style and been drawn to pretty much the same thing time and time again.
Face to face networking
Nothing beats face to face networking.
Get yourself out and meet similar-minded people in the same business as you.
You will find favours get passed as quickly as names.
The more people you know in the business the quicker your offline presence will grow.
This also goes a long way into turning word of mouth customers into long term customers.
You may even find that bigger companies that have similar businesses come to you for support or goods.
Be an influence
Using social platforms can allow you to become a big influence on other people’s lives.
Blogging and storytelling are big right now.
If you can’t be an influencer then find one.
Trading goods and services to people who already have a big online influence can give you plenty of “air time”.
You can build beneficial relationships and grow your online presence quickly and organically by connecting brands with online sensations.
A big example out there at the moment is makeup tutorials.
Lots of startup companies are giving free makeup to bloggers and influencers, in turn, these online personalities showcase the products to their followers who basically take everything they say as gospel and buy whatever the influencer says they use.
It can be a cheap and effective way to get your name out there and lead customers to your website.
This is what we call social B2B sales.
Build awareness through relevant engagement
Genuine engagement takes time. Answering relevant questions, sharing useful content and building professional relationships can gradually strengthen your online presence.
All you have to do is simply reply to others, encourage people to like, share and post to your social media pages.
It seems very small and slow as an approach but with the domineering effect that social media plays on our online movements, it’s the only way to keep your business fresh in the face of thousands of people per day.
Once you have this set up you can use marketing campaigns and blogging to further your reach.
Over time, useful content, search visibility and well-managed campaigns can build momentum. Automation may help with routine tasks, but your goals, campaigns and results still need ongoing review.
Five practical drivers of stronger marketing performance
- Better content can improve visibility, engagement and conversion when it is built around clear customer needs.
- Ongoing measurement and adjustment help marketing activity respond to changes in customer behaviour and performance.
- Useful, regularly reviewed content can help customers understand your expertise and take the next step.
- Choosing the right channels and targeting helps your messages reach people who are more likely to need your services.
- Clearer campaign goals, tracking and follow-up make it easier to learn which marketing activities produce enquiries.
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