Marketing in its most basic form is the creation and
satisfaction of demand for your product or service (Stokes, 2008). The end game of any marketing strategy is to
see an increase in sales. If marketing
creates demand then digital marketing drives the creation of demand with tools
like the Internet (Stokes, 2008). A
business on the Internet can gain value in the form of time, attention and
consumer support and in return the consumer gains value in the form of entertainment,
information and usefulness from a business (Stokes, 2008). Check out Smart
Insights infographic
on the importance of digital marketing to businesses today.
So, why do Digital Marketing? The simplest answer is because
40 percent or 3 billion of the world’s population use the Internet. For a
business to succeed in today’s world it is important to have a strong digital
footprint. Today’s blog is going to focus on the basic elements of a successful
Digital Marketing Strategy.
By incorporating the following five elements you have the
beginning of a great Digital Marketing Strategy:
Context: A good Digital Marketing strategy starts by examining the context of the organization. Ask yourself: Who are you? What makes your brand useful? Who are your customers and what needs do they have? Who are your competitors? Tip: To determine the context in which your business is operating on construct a PESTLE analysis.
Value Exchange: Examine what value your organization can add to the market. Tip: Try incorporating Content Marketing into your strategy. Content marketing is the process of conceptualizing and creating content that you want to share with stakeholders. An example of this could be using infographics to show your value to a target audience. (Stokes, 2008)
Context: A good Digital Marketing strategy starts by examining the context of the organization. Ask yourself: Who are you? What makes your brand useful? Who are your customers and what needs do they have? Who are your competitors? Tip: To determine the context in which your business is operating on construct a PESTLE analysis.
Value Exchange: Examine what value your organization can add to the market. Tip: Try incorporating Content Marketing into your strategy. Content marketing is the process of conceptualizing and creating content that you want to share with stakeholders. An example of this could be using infographics to show your value to a target audience. (Stokes, 2008)
Objectives: When you’re setting your objectives there are four key aspects to consider: objectives, tactics, key performance indicators and targets.
- Objectives – Ask yourself: Why are you doing this? What goal, purpose or outcome are you looking for? Your objectives need to be SMART.
- Tactics – Tactics are tools or approaches you will use to meet your objectives. An example of a tactic could be implementing a Facebook page for your business. As your strategy develops you may need to include multiple tactics.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – Specific metrics you will look at to determine whether you are performing well and meeting your objectives. If a tactic was to implement a Facebook page your KPI could be to look at user engagement.
- Targets – Targets are specific values that are set for your KPIs to reach within a specific time period (Stokes, 2008). Going back to the Facebook page example, your target could be 50 comments and 10 shares on a campaign specific post per week.
Ongoing Optimization: There will always be new
tactics and platforms that emerge. Digital marketing needs to be innovative and
open to change. You must be open to trying new things in order to stay
relevant. A successful strategy should always be analyzing data in order for a
business to remain flexible with consumer behaviour (Stokes, 2008).
Old marketing tactics just aren’t enough anymore. In
order for businesses to stay relevant they need to adopt Digital Marketing
techniques. Benefits to digital marketing include affordability, measurability
and access to target audiences from almost anywhere in the world.
With that, I’m going to leave you with a four-minute
introduction to BBC’s Virtual Revolution, a documentary about how the Virtual
World is taking our world by storm. A link to the full documentary is below. As
the video highlights, a majority of your customers are actively using the
Internet and other digital channels on a daily basis. The potential to reach
new consumers is endless through effective digital marketing!
- Marianne
- Marianne
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteriaw
