06 Feb The Most Important Steps for Efficient Digital Marketing Strategy

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop”. We love the words of Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) and follow them in our everyday activities as marketers. We believe in consistency as one of the main pillars of marketing success. But, as the toughest part is always the beginning, we will give you an extra push by dropping some knowledge on how to be successful online. Below, you’ll find the basics for developing and implementing an efficient digital marketing strategy.

Define your Positioning, Objectives and Target groups.

The digital world is enormous and complicated. Thus, being well-grounded in your brand and defining your exact positioning will optimize your marketing and communication efforts. What are the benefits and the added value that your brand offers to your customers? Which is your target market? What do you want to achieve? Answering these questions might be either easy or difficult, but it would definitely simplify the whole process of defining the right social media mix and your key messages to the potential clients. Describing your objectives will also help you achieve the set indicators and efficiently allocate all available resources.

The Internet is offering immediate communication, broad personalization opportunities and exact relevance of the content that the user is looking for. In order to be efficient, you need to plan your steps in advance and seize the right moment for action. Thus, a well-thought marketing strategy not only will help but is mandatory in the case.

Turn Strategy into a working Action Plan. Create and execute the plan.

Even the most brilliant strategy would be useless if it’s not well implemented into practice. Develop a plan and think of all digital media that you would use. Define your messages, plan the exact dates, delegate the activities to the responsible people and allow a budget. Then, update your action plan weekly by taking into consideration the analysis of the efficiency and the feedback from your customers. Change the online marketing strategy if needed and do it quickly. A single day on Internet is equal to a year in real life. Millions of decisions are taken within a blink of the eye and the adjustment of the whole strategy is possible in a day. That is exactly what generals do in order to win the war, so don’t take it as a failure or disaster…

Be Creative, Interesting and Different, but Honest.

Due to the fact that the Internet requires immediate reaction your brand needs to attract the customers quickly. Make attractive offerings, relevant to your potential clients, which they cannot reject. You have limited time to impress the users and make them your clients. Thus, you should not only be creative, different and interesting but also honest. Immediate reaction means also immediate reference or complaint. And remember – once published, content can never be wiped out. Do not put your reputation at risk since it’s irreversible. Always keep your promises as the Internet is the most transparent environment ever existed. Respect your clients, keep your word and they will trust you. By doing so, they will also recommend you and will be loyal for long. High ethical code of your internet business is a must, no matter the sector you are operating in.

Your resources are important. Be consistent.

You have to utilize your financial and human resources efficiently. Plan them well and you’ll gain immediate results that will draw you near the objectives you have set. Usually, ad-hoc activities are not helping in this environment. On the contrary, they can create noise that will confuse the clients and take them away from the main message. Be sure that you’re providing enough people and sufficient budget to implement what you have planned. Being consistent in your messages is vital for being alive on the Internet. Be aware that in the moment you pause or stop attracting the attention of your customers, some other brand will fill in the gap immediately.

Analyse it!

Without analyzing all gained data, you are wasting valuable resources and miss the opportunity of taking in consideration your customers’ opinion. Measure and analyze your success and always be focused on adding value for the customers. First, set your KPIs and connect them with your communication objectives. Make a comparison to all previous marketing activities that took place at your company. Be realistic in setting the target KPIs. Make the analysis accessible to your dedicated team, because a fresh point of view is always of help.