Digital + Marketing + Strategy = big scary secrets that are difficult to unlock. At least, that's the perception. The reality is you can create a digital marketing strategy for your organization in 5 steps, it's really that easy. But you're going to have to make a few difficult decisions and look at stacks of data about your company. It's easy and difficult all at the same time. But it's not a secret.
Step 1 - Look At Your Audience
Who are you selling to, and what are their ages, income, gender, education and buying habits? B2B businesses will be very different from B2C, and younger customers look to different technology like mobile to make purchases.
Fill in these demographics:
age
income
gender
education
buying habits
Don't even think about skipping this step. Every piece of information is important. Take age for example. Let's say you find your customers are under 35, and you're a B2C company selling a product. Your strategy will need to look to Twitter, Instagram and even SnapChat for social media. Your website and email campaigns must look stellar on a mobile device. Google My Business is imperative, and you will want to consider using an Influence Marketer to get your product out.
And this is just based on age. Income, gender, education and buying habits will further hone your digital marketing strategy.
Additional resources on collecting demographics:
Step 2 - Identify 10-20 Keywords
Find your top 20 keywords, and organize them by top 5, top 10 and top 20.
This is pivotal for content management. Targeting words that are not only related to you, but are dominating the search engines means you will be found by more potential customers.
Different ways to use keywords to get the information to your audience that they actually want:
Search Engine Optimization
Blog articles
Social Media Posts
Content Management
Generally you know what your market keywords are, which means you can plug them into an online keyword tool and generate related keywords. Based on the results of how many people are looking for those keywords, you can sort them by most popular. Then eliminate words that don't relate to you.
If you are a service based industry that works in a local area, be sure to check on local keywords, too. For example, do most people search by your city name, city and state, neighborhood name, the name of the metropolitan area surrounding you? Keep a list of the top 10 local keywords in addition to your list of industry keywords.
Additional resources on identifying keywords:
Step 3 - Choose Your Objectives
What are you working to obtain? Do you want to drive more traffic to your website, sell more products online, grow your email list, generate phone call leads?
Choose between 3-5 objectives and quantify them in terms of numbers. How much traffic to want to drive to your website? How many sales do you want to make online? How many subscribers do you want to add to your list each month?
Don't stop there. Once you have your goals, add growth goals. A good benchmark is 10-15% growth monthly.
Step 4 - Choose Your Channels & Create a Content Calendar
This is where things start to get more difficult, and you'll need to do your homework. Based on your customer demographics and keywords, what online marketing channels you be implementing? It's time to become crystal clear, and write down not only the channels, but the steps, action items and content to get there.
Goals are best when they have measurable results and implementation dates. Add the dates to your strategy in the form of a content calendar. We'll talk about how to measure results next.
Step 5 - Choose Tracking Metrics
The reason you're seeing the words "choose" with tracking metrics isn't because you should choose whether to track your metrics or not, it's because you want to find the right metrics to track. If you're not using Facebook, then those numbers aren't important to you. Here's a quick list of metrics you should be tracking, depending on the strategies you're implementing.
Website Metrics
Total visits
Time on page
Bounce rate
Traffic aquisition
Abandoned carts
Total conversions
Social Media Metrics
Facebook Insights: page likes, post reach, engagement rate percentage
Twitter Analytics: tweet impressions, profile visits, followers, engagement rate
Google+ Insights: total views, engagement, overview of followers
LinkedIn: impressions, clicks, interactions, engagement
Pinterest: impressions, repins, demographic engagement
Blog Metrics
Visitors
Leads
Subscribers
Inbound Links
Social Shares
Newsletter Metrics
Clickthroughs
Conversions
List growth
Foward rate
Deliver Rate
SEO Metrics
Search Engine share of referring visits
Search Engine referrals
Visits by terms and phrases
Conversion rate by search query
Pages receiving at least one visit from Search Engines
Pay-per-Click Metrics
Impressions
Click thru rate
Conversion rate
Cost per lead
ROI
Additional resources on identifying metrics to track:
Now that you have all four steps, you're ready to amplify your digital marketing! If you're stuck, or want to talk strategy with us, reach out! We're always happy to have a conversation and get you on the right track.
See you in the social sphere!
