Key Takeaways:
Familiarize yourself with the different pieces that make up the “puzzle” of digital marketing strategy.
Equip yourself with the knowledge and tools you need to start crafting your business’s marketing strategy.
Diving into digital marketing strategy for the first time can feel like deciphering a complex code with multiple layers. You may find yourself faced with concepts like SEO strategy, content calendars, and conversion metrics — enough to make anyone pause.
Breaking down these concepts into manageable parts can transform the daunting into the doable. Follow these steps to ditch your “strategy paralysis” and begin building a solid foundation for your marketing strategy.
Establish Your Business Identity
Understanding and defining your business identity is crucial in the digital space. This includes your visual identity — logo, colors, fonts, and image/video guidelines. These elements ensure your brand is consistently represented across all digital channels, from social media to email blasts.
Your brand personality should resonate through your tone, core values, and the overall customer experience. Whether your brand provides a sense of calm or energizes your audience (think Peloton), it’s about making customers feel a certain way when they interact with your brand.
Define Your Core Message
Your core message should clearly articulate what you offer and the problems you solve, making it immediately apparent to anyone encountering your brand. This message should be evident in all communications so that potential customers understand what you do, the problem you solve, and the action you want them to take upon visiting your website or social platforms. Ask yourself these three questions to clarify your core message:
- Is it clear what products or services you sell?
- Is your message simple, short, and repeatable?
- Can customers easily recall your slogan or core message?
Clarify Your Target Customers
Knowing your customer is key. You cannot effectively reach everyone, so focus on the specific persona of your target buyer. Creating personas for your brand can help you understand your target buyers’ personalities, interests, unmet needs, values, and buying behaviors. This understanding helps tailor your marketing strategies to speak directly to those most likely to engage with your brand.
Identify Your Goals
Set SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Clear goal setting guides your marketing strategy and measures its effectiveness, providing a roadmap for what you aim to achieve through your digital efforts.
We really want to emphasize the importance of the “specific” and “relevant” aspects of your business goal. Instead of “we want to increase our sales this year,” set an exact dollar amount or percentage by which you want to increase sales.That sets a better benchmark to measure yourself by and see if you’ve hit that goal. You also want to ensure your goal is relevant for you and your team, not something that outside pressures are telling you to have as your goal. For instance, if TikTok isn’t the best platform for your business, setting a goal to reach 100,000 followers on the platform doesn’t make sense.
“Instead of having “we want to increase our sales this year” as a business goal, set an exact dollar amount or percentage by which you want to increase sales. That sets a better benchmark to measure yourself by and see if you’ve hit that goal at the end of the day.”
– Courtney Dumont, Senior Marketing Strategist & Analyst, TTG
Picking Your Platforms & Tools
Once you’ve defined your business’s identity, core message, customers, and goals, the next step is to choose the right digital channels and tools to support your strategy.
The Basic Channels Every Small Business Should Leverage:
- Website: Treat your website as the central hub of your digital presence, where all other marketing channels converge to guide customers to your products and services.
- SEO: Enhance your website’s visibility by optimizing it for search engines; use traditional SEO techniques for broad reach and incorporate social SEO to engage younger audiences on social media platforms.
- Social Media and Email Marketing: Use social media and email marketing as vital tools for engaging directly with your customers, driving both interaction and conversion.
- Local Listings: Boost your visibility in local searches by maintaining robust profiles on platforms like Google My Business and Apple Maps, essential for attracting nearby customers.
Tools to Use for Different Marketing Budgets:
- Foundational Tools: Regardless of your marketing budget, we recommend starting with free tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and email marketing platforms like Mailchimp.
- Next-Level Tools: Later, if your budget allows, invest in graphic design tools like Canva and social scheduling tools like Buffer as your budget allows.
- Advanced Tools: If you have the financial bandwidth down the road, you can add more advanced tools to fine-tune your marketing as your business grows. We’re big fans of SEMrush for SEO and Clipchamp for video editing.
Creating a Content Calendar
A well-structured content calendar acts as the strategic backbone of your marketing efforts so that you consistently deliver relevant and impactful messages to your audience. Here’s how to develop an effective content calendar that aligns with your digital marketing strategy:
1. Brainstorm Themes
Start by identifying key themes that resonate with your target audience. Consider integrating holidays, seasonal trends, and the introduction of new products or services. This thematic planning helps guarantee that your content is timely, relevant, and engaging, providing a continuous flow of material that aligns with your audience’s current interests and needs.
2. Choose a Platform for Your Calendar
Selecting the right tool to manage your content calendar is crucial. Options range from simple spreadsheets like Excel and Google Sheets to more dynamic project management tools such as Trello and Monday.com. If you prefer a visual organization style, tools like Trello and Monday.com offer boards and timelines that make it easier to visualize your content schedule, track progress, and see who is responsible for each task.
3. Determine Order of Operations
Outline the sequence of tasks required to produce and publish your content. For instance, you might need to complete product photography and video shoots before you can write accompanying blog posts or social media updates. Establishing this order helps streamline production processes, so you have all necessary elements ready for content creation.
4. Delegate Tasks
Efficiently manage resources by delegating tasks to team members based on their skills and workload capacities. Clear assignment of responsibilities ensures that each piece of content is given adequate attention and is completed on time. Utilizing a tool that allows you to assign tasks and track progress is invaluable in keeping your team on track and accountable.
Reviewing Your Metrics
Your strategy is only as good as the results that you’re getting. We recommend checking all your metrics either on a monthly or bi-weekly basis to make sure your strategy is serving you and your goals. This data review helps pivot your strategy as needed to keep your efforts productive and goal-oriented.
“Your strategy is only as good as the results that you’re getting. Check all your metrics either on a monthly or bi-weekly basis to make sure your strategy is serving you and your goals.”
– Courtney Dumont, Senior Marketing Strategist & Analyst, TTG
Small Steps Toward a Stronger Strategy
Creating and fine-tuning your digital marketing strategy might seem intimidating at first, but you’re already taking the first step. By getting to know the unique personality of your business, homing in on what you truly want to say, understanding who you’re talking to, embracing the right tools, and keeping an eye on how it’s all going, you’re laying down the foundation for a robust strategy that will elevate your success.
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