Performing Digital Marketing may seem complicated, but you need to understand how to create and maintain a digital marketing plan to help your business grow and succeed.
Whether you have a business that offers products or services, it is always important to create and maintain a good online presence. This is because more and more people are using the Internet, looking for good opportunities to buy products online.
One of the best ways to take advantage of this trend is to turn these online users and buyers into leads, and for this purpose, developing a digital marketing plan is extremely important.
This practice has evolved greatly over the years, which has made it more difficult and confusing for some companies to understand the best practices to perform to develop a plan that works for their company and achieves results.
But, there are several methods you can put in place to help manage your customers, generate leads, and keep up with the most important trends, through your digital marketing plan.
Here are 5 tips:
1. Develop a SWOT analysis;
2. Establish SMART objectives;
3. Identify your target audience;
4. Discover the ways forward;
5. Develop a budget for your plan.
1. Develop a SWOT analysis
Conducting a SWOT analysis is one of the best ways to start your plan, as it allows you to get a better sense of how your business is doing and where you stand in the market.
“SWOT” stands for:
– Strengths;
– Weaknesses;
– Opportunities;
– Threats.
Strengths and weaknesses refer to the internal analysis of your company, i.e. what the company is doing and can and should keep doing and what it should change in its strategy.
The opportunities and threats correspond to the external analysis, that is, they are related to the external factors that the company can take advantage of or that it should be careful with, respectively.
Looking at each of these points separately:
Identify where your strengths lie
Ask: What is my company good at? Does my company already have a loyal customer base? How does my company positively differentiate itself from the competition?
Once you understand your strengths, you will understand what is that you do that makes you different and better than your competition: technology, more experience, convenience, availability, loyal customer base, etc. These are just a few examples of strengths that your company may have.
Although it is a bit complicated and laborious, there is potential for your company to organize and operate successfully with the help of certain tactics, techniques, programs, outside help, an effective digital marketing plan, etc.
Identify your company’s weaknesses
Perhaps a bit more complicated and complex, but if you can identify your company’s weaknesses, you can prioritize their improvement, which will make it possible for you to achieve success more easily.
According to “Forbes” magazine, some of the most common challenges that companies face, are:
– Create a digital marketing plan that fits modern social media trends;
– Website and cybersecurity within it;
– Change the way you act, for example, create or modify your digital presence and strategy.
Identifying your weaknesses can be difficult, but:
It helps you better understand what you might be doing wrong and why, and what you can do to become better and create effective solutions to reduce your company’s weaknesses.
Stay tuned to the opportunities that come your way
In other words, consider what opportunities external to your business may arise. This includes thinking about your employees, partnerships, customer base, market, and more, to find new opportunities external to your company.
For example: your customers start buying or needing your product or service more than you expected.
Although it is a good opportunity, if you don’t know or can’t sell to so many customers at the same time, you will let it slip away and what was once an opportunity becomes a threat.
You must keep in mind new strategies and external factors that will improve your business and boost your sales.
Be equally aware of the threats your business faces
Ask: What’s wrong? Your customers don’t choose you because there is a company that offers lower prices? Is there a company that has a more effective online or physical presence than yours?
Problems with your digital strategy and communication damage your ability to sell products or services, even if there are customers willing to buy them.
You should consider these and other questions regarding external factors when formulating the goals, strategies, and tactics to follow along with your digital marketing plan.
2. Define SMART objectives
Specific – Divide your goals into short-term and long-term objectives. Furthermore, your goals should be as specific as possible
Example: “Reach 10 more customers by the end of the month” instead of “Increase the number of customers”.
Measurable / Mensuráveis – Os seus objetivos devem ser possíveis de medir através de métricas (como KPI’s e outras relevantes para os objetivos a seguir) e análises de dados.
Attainable – They must be attainable and realistic in terms of the resources, time and budget available. “Não dê um passo maior que a perna”.
Relevant / Relevantes – Os objetivos a definir devem ir de acordo com a estratégia global e objetivos principais da sua empresa.
Time-bound / Temporais – Estabeleça um prazo para atingir os seus objetivos (tanto de curto como de longo-prazo).
Short-Term Objectives
When creating your digital marketing plan make sure you outline both short and long term goals.
An example of a short-term goal would be, “I’m going to have 40 more sales by the end of the next week.”
Long-Term Goals
Long-term goals are set for a later date, for example 1 year from now or several years from now.
Examples: I want to make my company appear in a good place in Google’s rankings by the end of next year through SEO.
I intend to expand my target audience and make young adults and children account for 35% or more of my audience by 2025.
Outlining these goals will boost employee morale, keep your company on track, and help define a vision and a good digital marketing plan for your company.
3. Identify your target audience
Without a well-defined target audience it is much harder for your digital strategy to work as intended.
Ask: Who is my business and my products or services for?
Segment your customers based on factors such as: age, gender, location, interests, social status, values, buying habits, and other demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioral factors.
Create a “buyer persona”, a kind of template that you can use to create your content and communication in the best way and for the right audience. Usually, it is necessary to have more than one “buyer persona”.
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask, “What makes me choose this company over another?”
Whatever your target audience is, it is extremely important that you focus on continuously building and improving your digital channels in order to satisfy your customers or potential customers.
Statistics indicate that 50% of consumers will not come back to your website if they don’t like what they see (content, optimization, design, etc.).
4. Discover the right paths to follow in your digital marketing strategy
There are several ways to increase your sales and the traffic to your website.
Some examples include:
– Social Media
Companies state that social media has helped increase traffic by up to 75%.
Nowadays, digital marketing on social media is very economical, effective and efficient. You could try to take advantage of the benefits of creating content for social media.
– Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay-per-click advertising is a more traditional form of advertising that brings traffic to your website, but you will have to pay advertisers for the amount of clicks you get on your site.
This form of advertising is more intrusive and harder to generate traffic to your website in the long run (although good for short-term results), unlike content marketing.
– SEO
SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” is one of the best ways to increase your online traffic.
By optimizing your website for SEO and creating useful content, search engines like Google will put your website in a better position and recommend it to more users according to what they are looking for.
This will generate more traffic to your website and will probably increase your leads and sales.
Traffic to your website will continue, as long as you keep good SEO practices.
5. Develop a budget for your plan
Depending on your budget, you may choose to implement, some, all, or even other digital marketing strategies not mentioned, to develop your plan.
Once you establish a budget, you begin to understand and acquire what is necessary to best implement your plan and achieve your goals. We recommend you to:
– Find outside help not only to improve your understanding of digital marketing, but also to leave the content creation in the hands of more experienced experts and save time for other tasks.
– Invest in the creation of digital content.
– Invest some time training your team to be increasingly competent in digital marketing.
– Hire digital agencies to help your company in all these aspects.
Creating a digital marketing plan may seem like something very new, but it is extremely necessary to increase revenue and ensure the success of your business.
We hope that, by using these 5 tips you will be able to improve your business and get closer to achieving success in the digital environment.
If you want a professional team to help you improve your digital marketing strategy or plan, contact Mixlife.
