The development and accessibility of the internet paved the way for changes in how we market our business. In this modern era, Digital Marketing is the new trend and will probably continue for years. If you want to stay relevant and make your business a success, then you need to adapt to this marketing trend. But before taking any actions, you need to have a clear digital marketing plan.
What is a digital marketing plan?
By definition, a digital marketing plan includes all the details to carry out digital marketing campaigns or projects. From attracting potential buyers, strategizing to reach customers, pushing a sale, and providing value for a brand, all these are included when creating digital marketing plans.
Here’s a guide for marketers on how to create a digital marketing plan to increase the success rate of marketing campaigns.
I. Goal Setting
This stage is vital and crucial for digital marketing campaigns. Your goals will guide you every step of the way and will keep you on track until you reach the desired result. The rule of thumb is to use the SMART framework or Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely goals. Your goals will also help you determine if the marketing campaign is successful or not.
II. Create Buyer's Persona
Knowing who your ideal customers are sums up this step. To come up with a buyer’s persona, you need to collect personal information like age, location, job title, interest, and goals. Every step you make including product features, taglines, and brand clarity should appeal to your buyer’s persona. After all, these products and services are for them so it’s wise to know who they are and what they are looking in for brands. A concrete example is a clothes shop that offers maternity dress. From there, you’ll know that your potential buyers are pregnant women.
III. Content planning
Developing effective and interesting content for your website is important for various reasons. A website with high-quality content can easily drive more traffic to your site. Update your blog regularly and publish useful articles. Sharing your articles on different social media platforms will also give your brand a wider reach.
IV. Identify Digital Marketing Tools
Now that you have successfully mapped your goals and identified your potential buyers, the next step is to choose which marketing method to use. Some of the digital channels to choose from are Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-per-click (PPC), email marketing, social media marketing, and influencer marketing. Once you have shaped up your digital plan, it will be easier to choose which methods to use to have better customer reach.
1 ) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of optimizing your online content so that it ranks well with different search engines. This means increasing the quality and quantity of traffic generated from your website. Here are some SEO practices you can use to drive more traffic to your site:
a) Keyword Research
Before jumping into content creation, you have to do thorough research to find out the list of keywords that your target audience is using when they are looking for products or services online.
b ) Compelling Content
Know that you have enough knowledge about the frequently used keywords relevant to your products or services, you are now ready to craft compelling content. Contents can be in the form of web content, regular blog posts, infographics, social media posts, brochures, and Ebooks.
c ) Optimize Your Content
When crafting content, aside from creating content with substance and relevance, it is important that you optimize your content.
For every article, it should contain a title tag which is the unique description of what this article is all about, and a meta description tag or the summary of your content.
d ) Interlinking
To help reduce a website’s bounce rate, interlinking is important. Interlinking also serves as a guide to your readers for articles that might be of interest to them or might be useful to them. It benefits your site by helping search engines to understand your content better. It is done by linking one article to other articles that show relevance to certain keywords or topics.
2 ) Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click or PPC is a paid type of internet marketing
Wherein the advertisers pay a fee for every click on their ads. It’s a way of generating website visits through paid or inorganic ways.
3 ) Email Marketing
Email marketing is a proven digital marketing strategy where emails are sent out to potential customers.
This email may contain a new product list, additional services, and promotional offers or discounts.
4 ) Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the process of utilizing the different social media platforms to promote products, services, and to make your brand known in the digital world.
V. Competitor Analysis
Being ahead of the competitors is the goal of all businesses. With that, monitoring your competitors is important to know what they are up to, gain insight into the strategy they are using, what’s trending in the industry, and how you can create a marketing plan either to overtake them or maintain your lead. Here are some ways to do a competitor analysis.
1 ) Identify your competitors
You need to know who your strongest competitor is and also take note of the newcomers in the industry. From the strongest competitors, you can learn proven and effective strategies that made their mark in the business. On the other hand, the new competitors can offer a fresh idea that can trigger the interest of your target audience.
2 ) Check out their website
Take time to stalk on your competitors’ website to know if they have a new promotion, check for new products, and also take note of the pricing. Since you are in the same business, it’s likely that you have the same products or services so you need to understand how they do business with their customers.
3 ) Follow them on social media
Don’t miss the chance to know how your competitors are building their social media presence. Visit their social media accounts and check what they are posting and what value they are giving to their audience through these social media platforms.
4 ) Read reviews from their customers
What could be a better indicator of the performance of a business than the authentic reviews from customers? Take time to read the reviews either on your competitors’ website or their social media handles. This will give you a clue on how effective their products or services are and how great their customer service is. From here, you can improve your brand offerings by taking this feedback into consideration.
VI. Budget Setting
Just like any other campaign whether digital or not, your budget plays a vital role. Know how much you can spend on the digital campaigns before even starting to roll out the projects. Use the different channels as a reference to allocate your digital marketing budget. It’s easier to plan your budget when you know how much to spend for every digital marketing channel that you plan to use.
VII. Evaluating Pre-Existing Channels
To know if you have a successful digital marketing plan, you need to evaluate all the digital channels that you have. We have discussed earlier the SMART goal setting and this will also be the basis when it’s time to evaluate the outcome. Did you get the number of likes, shares, and engagements for the social media posts? Did you get the desired number of video views? Did you generate enough leads for email marketing? If you were able to achieve the desired result then you can continue with the existing plan. If not, it’s time to make changes in your marketing plan and start by realigning your marketing goals.
VIII. Marketing Hook
To make your brand outshine your competitors, you need to include a marketing hook in your strategy. A marketing hook is all about your brand story. It can be a tagline or a jingle that is powerful enough to entice your customers to try your brand. To market your brand effectively, you need to use baits or power words to entice your audience. Here are some marketing hooks that you can use either for content or ads to make them more appealing to your target market.
1 ) Use Numbers
If you are writing content for your website regularly, you can use numbers in your title like 5 Tips…, 7 Ways… or 10 Things… to arouse the curiosity of your readers.
2 ) Trigger an Emotion
When an emotion is triggered, either it’s fear or excitement, people are more likely to take action. Words like warning, unbelievable, secret, and hidden are trigger words that would make readers click and read more about your brand.
3 ) Use Superlative Words
Anything extreme like the biggest, highest, or shortest will make readers more excited simply because it is beyond the usual. In return, they would want to try your products because it’s not the usual things that they are being talked about.
4 ) Introduce Something New
We all want something new. People want to try something new. That’s why it’s best to incorporate new ideas when you market your product and brand. Adding phrases in your content like New formula, New packaging, or New technology will make your audience more engaged and make them excited to try the new offerings.
IX. Analytics
With everything being done online, it makes tracking of results easier by using analytics. Digital marketing analytics is important because these data give business owners insights regarding the performance of the different marketing tools that are being used. From the data obtained, you will see which ads are doing better, what posts are appealing to your audience, and what type of content is getting more engagements.
If you don’t have a digital marketing business plan yet, now is the time to set up one for your business. Don’t know where to start? DM Media will guide you with your digital marketing plans to make your business grow continuously!
