The world continues to operate more and more in the digital, online space, which means having a digital, online presence is becoming less and less of an option, and more and more of a necessity. Companies that continue to hold out on entering the Digital Age will fall behind and fail to compete with competitors that have already stepped into the digital and mobile-centric future.
That said, this digital environment is also evolving. It’s no longer enough to have a website. Digital marketing is now all-encompassing and includes many different channels and opportunities that require a comprehensive strategy to manage.
Without such a strategy, it’s easy to miss out on digital channels that have the potential to increase revenue, or adopt a flawed plan for approaching these new areas of interest. A great digital marketing strategy is designed to navigate the dynamic online environment and effectively respond to trends, changing markets and evolving customer needs.
If you’re in the process of creating a digital marketing strategy, or about to begin developing your approach to the online environment, then you’re in the right place. This guide and case study are designed to help new and struggling digital marketers make an effective digital marketing strategy that will serve them through both present and future hurdles.
In the first part of this two-part guide, you’ll learn about digital marketing basics. This section defines digital marketing tactics, as well as traditional ones and explains the advantages that digital marketing has over its traditional marketing counterpart. You’ll also learn the basic fundamentals on how to create a digital marketing strategy that works.
Before getting into the specifics on how to create a digital marketing strategy, it’s important to first look at the differences between traditional and digital marketing and define both terms.
Traditional marketing means any marketing effort that is not done online or digitally. Typically, the concept of “traditional” marketing means print media, TV, radio, billboards, brochures, mailers and any other physical materials. Even putting your company name on coffee mugs and pens is a form of traditional marketing!
Digital marketing means marketing activities that take place over the internet – online or on digital channels. Social media, blogs, websites, apps, email newsletters, digital press releases, online ads and many other tactics fall under the digital marketing category.
The most obvious reason why digital marketing has replaced traditional marketing is that the Internet is now a vital resource used throughout the day by billions of people. People aren’t watching television; they are streaming online. They aren’t listening to radio stations; they are listening to podcasts. They aren’t interested in mailed brochures and materials; they want emails.
For many, adapting to a digital marketing strategy is a simple fact of keeping up with changing times. However, there are a few benefits that digital marketing has over traditional forms of marketing that are worth mentioning.
Interactivity: Many digital marketing channels have an interactive element where audiences can respond, comment, or otherwise engage with the company. These interactions are valuable for several reasons. First, it’s incredibly valuable feedback that your company can use to improve strategies. Second, one positive interaction with a brand can make a customer a fan for life!
Targeted: In traditional marketing, the idea was to cast a very wide net and hope that you catch a few fish. Thousands of people may drive past a billboard and only a handful actually call or visit the business. That’s because the billboard isn’t relevant to the vast majority of people that see it. It will only resonate with a few people and only a small minority of those people will actually follow through.
With digital marketing strategies, targeting is much more specific. In some cases, you can segment your audience into very specific groups and then target those groups with offers custom-tailored to their needs and attitudes. Thus, digital marketing is more focused on casting lots of small nets and placing them in the perfect locations.
Affordable: The wide nets cast by traditional marketing means two things: budgets need to be high and ROI is difficult to measure. Unless you ask customers directly, it is very difficult to know which customers found your business through your traditional marketing efforts.
Digital marketing, on the other hand, resolves both issues. You can effectively market yourself online with a shoestring budget. Plus, every activity can be tracked and measured, which makes it much easier to identify which marketing tactics are contributing and by how much.
Your digital marketing strategy is essentially an organized plan that details the actions you will take across different online marketing channels in order to achieve your overall goals and objectives.
The first thing that any strategist needs to do is look at where the organization is now and where it should be, or where the strategist wants it to be in the near future. This is the foundation of a digital marketing strategy. It can be broken down into four key phases or steps.
One of the best ways to learn is by example. The following case study was developed to help you better understand how to create a digital marketing strategy. You should use this case study to further your own understanding of digital marketing and strategizing.
The case study showcases a lot of important examples that answers key questions such as:
Let’s take a look.
The top management of a prestigious manufacturing organization decides that it is time to revamp the company’s marketing processes to incorporate digital marketing channels and strategies. In order to handle this digital transformation, they hire Amanda, a Senior Marketing Strategist specializing in improving traffic and lead generation for websites. They give her the task of streamlining the marketing process to attract more customers.
The top management of the company hopes that Amanda will be able to achieve exceptional gains by the end of this transformation. This is actually a very multifaceted role with a lot of responsibilities. It is not just a simple transition, but a foundational change that may require the company’s entire business model to be reviewed and adjusted.
Amanda will be involved in the hands-on implementation of many of the changes, as well as take on a supervisory role in the marketing department. This means she will communicate with other departments and leads to make the transition as efficient and hassle-free as possible.
Not only does she need to oversee the whole revamping process, but she also needs to analyze how the marketing department is currently operating and what the new changes will mean for this department and other areas of the company. After all, making this major shift will impact the entire organization from top to bottom!
She will need to collaborate and plan with the entire company in order to ensure a successful transition that achieves the organization’s goals. Amanda has a lofty job ahead of her!
With Amanda’s experience in improving website traffic and lead generation, she knows that the first step in this lengthy and involved process is to make an initial assessment. There are a few objectives for this step in the process:
When she first meets with top management again after the hiring process, the conversations raise some alarm bells in her head. While the decision-makers are excited about making the jump into the Digital Age and they talk emphatically about the technology and infrastructure they’ve invested in already, they seem to lack focus.
In other words, management is making moves towards a digital-focused future, but these moves aren’t all in the same direction. There is little-to-no planning or thought put into the investments they’ve made.
For instance, after learning about the importance of data in digital marketing, the management team invested in sophisticated data collection and analysis tools. Unfortunately, what Amanda notes is that there are no processes or standards put in place for what data is collected and how it is actually used and by whom. There is no holistic planning for how the new technology and infrastructure fit into the existing organization.
Amanda leaves this meeting a little worried, but not ready to panic yet. Her next move is to have some conversations with people farther down the chain to see what preparations they are making for the transition and how they are handling the digital side of the marketing. Unfortunately, these conversations reaffirm Amanda’s fear that the organization lacks direction and purpose with their digital marketing.
What Amanda discovers is that digital marketing is happening in the organization. There are people creating blogs, developing videos, and posting to social media accounts. Even the website has undergone some semblance of optimization. However, the tactics are random and disconnected. There is no overarching plan or strategy that determines what content or posts are being made when they are being shared and what the purpose behind these tactics is.
It is clear that Amanda needs to make significant changes to how this organization approaches digital marketing. She needs to put in place some bonafide structures to ensure that these digital efforts are focused and valuable to the company.
After Amanda’s initial assessment, she wants to dig deeper. She has already uncovered a massive organizational flaw in the company, but now it is time to look at the specifics and see what else needs to be changed. Specifically, she needs to find instances where the lack of marketing focus is hurting the organization.
Not only will this information add to her collective understanding of where the organization’s digital marketing strategy (or lack thereof) is currently situated and where it still needs to go, but it will also help her demonstrate to her new managers and colleagues why poor planning and lack of focus are hurting the organization.
In particular, Amanda wants to:
Since the organization does not have a flourishing digital marketing presence, the bulk of Amanda’s investigation hinders on the company’s website. Again, Amanda runs into some alarm bells. The website is far from SEO friendly and its design leaves something to be desired. Amanda also explores the website on her mobile device and finds that the lack of responsive design means the site functions very poorly on the smaller screen.
To make matters worse, Amanda visits the main competitor’s website and finds that it works wonderfully and does everything right. She digs deeper into this competitor’s digital marketing strategy and finds that this company also holds a strong presence on search results pages using both organic and paid means.
This discovery means that the organization’s transition into the digital environment is already an uphill battle! This is a common problem facing companies that are late to creating a digital marketing strategy. The competition already has a head start and has established a foothold across the digital channels. Trying to usurp these existing entities is a challenge in itself.
Amanda calls a meeting with top management and the heads of the marketing department. She starts the meeting on a good note by highlighting that the organization has a sound, hardworking and smart workforce supported by quality products. She also commends the top management for investing in technology and infrastructure to support a data-driven future.
Amanda explains that this data will become vital and its first job will be to help the company to understand the business now. After all, you have to know where you are now to know where you can go next! By asking tough questions and relying on data for the answers, the company will be able to be driven by facts, instead of the old and traditional ways of doing business.
By analyzing the data, the organization will be able to plot a successful course for the future!
Then, Amanda transitions into what her own analysis and assessment revealed. She presents 7 points that need to be changed or addressed in order for the digital marketing strategy to work.
Amanda concludes that in order to remedy these issues, fill the gaps, and create an engaging and effective content strategy, the company needs a holistic plan that is governed by a dynamic, always-evolving strategy.
Pleased with her findings, management tasks her to prepare and enact a plan that will become the organization’s path to developing, implementing, and launching a successful digital marketing strategy.
Amanda makes a smart move by dividing the task into two phases. The first phase will focus on providing an immediate boost to the marketing strategy by patching the major holes and problems that are severely bringing down performance.
Once they can figuratively right the ship with the first phase of the plan, then they can turn their attention towards developing and implementing the more extensive plan that will serve as the organization’s dynamic digital marketing strategy.
Amanda’s goal for the short-term marketing boost is to fill the big gaps in the current strategy. There is still a lot of work, but these critical factors need to be fixed right away! Otherwise, the competitor will keep edging further and further out of reach and continue to grab more and more share of the digital audiences.
Based on the 7 points that Amanda raised in her meeting, she decides that the items towards the top of the list are the most crucial to work on first. These points include keywords and the website. The website needs an obvious overhaul and the keyword research will serve all areas of the company’s digital marketing strategy, including the website’s redesign. Getting a head start on keyword research will only establish a more rock-solid foundation for the long-term strategy.
For the website, Amanda focuses on good website with updating the layout and modernizing the design to be mobile-friendly and responsive. This will help the website function properly on mobile devices and allow users on smartphones and tablets to properly interact with the site and its content.
Before getting any new content on the website, Amanda and the team want to make sure that every new piece of copy has a distinct purpose. This was an issue with the old design; even if a customer was interested in the marketing content, they didn’t have a pathway to get to a product page or reach out for more information. Amanda creates several landing pages specifically to bridge the gap between the site’s content and end-of-funnel pages.
Next, the team works to incorporate the new keywords. They start with the pages that are already somewhat optimized. This generates the quickest results and allows the team to begin compiling data from the very beginning.
Amanda also puts an emphasis on keywords and site pages that relate to the organization’s leading products and landing page should have dynamic keywords. These are the company’s “greatest hits” and they’ll produce the best results in the online environment. Again, the goal here is to begin creating data that the team will use to inform the long-term strategy in phase two.
Almost immediately Amanda’s team sees that the site is beginning to rank on the Google search results pages and there is a clear spike in website traffic.
Before getting into the content management issues, Amanda needs to create some audience segmentation. In the past, the organization was creating general content that didn’t appeal to any specific type of audience. This made it difficult for site visitors to find content that aligned with their direct needs. It also meant that marketing messages were general and lacked the compelling punch that drives high clicks and conversions.
With the data already available, the team creates some primary audience groups based on demographics (age, income, location, etc.). Amanda notes that the long-term strategy will have to touch on the lack of customer segmentation policy and develop some standards for how data will be used to create smaller, more targeted audience groups.
The final step in Amanda’s short-term marketing plan is to begin working with the marketing department to start producing content for the website that is properly equipped with keywords and following the new direction of the organization’s digital marketing strategy. She also needs to change some old habits which resulted in creators working independently and not discussing their efforts with other team members.
With the website redesign finished, Amanda has a list of content that is needed immediately, which gives the marketing department plenty of work during this short-term push. The work is divided into two sections. The first section is to work for almost a full week on developing new content that will follow the focused plan.
Fewer content assets are created than the organization normally puts out, but the quality and targeting of these pieces lead to better results. In phase 2, Amanda will create a style guide and editorial calendar. These steps will guarantee that every piece of content fits into the strategy and that the voice remains fresh and engaging for each audience segment.
Once the content is in place, Amanda’s team creates an initial advertising campaign. Amanda has a number of intentions for this first ad campaign. First, it generates buzz for the organization and its products. Second, it will help generate some data that will aid in the long-term digital marketing strategy and test the new selection of keywords. Finally, it will be a nice “soft-open” for the website’s redesign.
The easy part is now done. Amanda and her team have fixed the major gaps in the organization’s digital marketing strategy and it is in a much better place now. However, these immediate fixes will only provide short-term results. Amanda’s real responsibility is to create a digital marketing strategy that will serve this company for years to come.
Amanda and the top management have already laid out the objectives and goals for the transition and development of a digital marketing strategy. Amanda holds a meeting with her team to restate those goals and objectives once more. This is a helpful way to get everyone on the same page and ensure that the goals are completely understood.
Amanda reiterates that the goal is not just to develop a working digital marketing strategy, but to create a plan that is sustainable and will handle any changes to the market or customer needs that may emerge down the road.
To achieve this, Amanda adds the goal of developing processes in the strategy that will capture audience feedback and input and share those sentiments across the organization. By creating this feedback loop and developing a holistic view of how to respond to the input, Amanda hopes that the organization will improve its internal communication and departments will help one another take advantage of emerging trends, instead of working independently.
With the short-term strategy already in effect, it is important for Amanda’s team to briefly check in and see what progress has already been made. Fixing those big gaps is going to provide some significant returns.
This quick glimpse will allow Amanda to see if the keywords and content that her team has developed are working. There may be some small changes that need to be made to these new strategies.
Amanda also knows that when her team and the organization see the results from that initial boost, it will excite them and generate the energy and enthusiasm that she needs from the staff to put the second phase into action.
This is a stage in the process that Amanda is not looking forward to. While it is a promising sign that top management has already invested in some marketing tools and infrastructure, as it suggests that they are motivated to spend more on their marketing, there is almost always a gap between what the marketing department needs and what management is willing to spend
This gap has widened significantly in the Digital Age. Even though data gathered by the Digital Marketing Institute suggests that companies are increasing their marketing budgets each year, there is still a big divide. One of the primary reasons behind this gap is the increasing expectation for companies to have an omnichannel marketing approach.
Omnichannel marketing means businesses are present across every major digital marketing channel. This creates budget problems because the number of channels is always increasing. More channels means more investment is required.
Luckily, Amanda has very clear objectives for her digital marketing strategy. She knows that her team will only invest time and money into channels that will help in attracting new customers and leads. That said, Amanda does ask the organization to invest in a content publishing automation tool. She explains that this will free up time that can be spent on researching new content and keyword ideas.
Amanda also requests that the organization invests in some simple video equipment and editing software. Amanda cites that video will be an important element to the strategy and being able to create high-quality, visual content will produce good returns for the company.
Management and Amanda ultimately settle on a budget that Amanda and her team can work with and get the tools and services they need to make the magic happen and continue happening for months to come.
With the budget decided, Amanda and the team need to begin deciding what activities they are going to perform to achieve the goals and build out this sustainable and competitive digital marketing strategy.
During the first phase and the short-term boost, some strategies were already set on the track, including keyword research and analysis, content management and customer segmentation. Yet, only initial efforts were made.
Keyword research is always ongoing – a point that Amanda drives into the minds of everyone involved in the process. The customer segmentation that the team performed was only basic demographics. In terms of content, only pieces to support the website’s redesign and initial keyword research was designed, which means this too needs more work.
Amanda will also take this time to decide on other content types, social media, PPC advertising and more.
The website redesign was a great success, but the job isn’t over. Updates to the site need to happen continuously and consistently. Not only will this include adding content, but also reworking onsite optimization for keywords and adding fresh landing pages for new audience segments.
Amana works with the web developer to create a test site where new changes will be loaded and worked on in between site updates. This gives the website less downtime. Plus, the developer now has the opportunity to work on updates for upcoming products, events, and sales in advance. This is another tactic aimed at creating a holistic plan and ensuring that every change is made with a purpose.
The website redesign created a lot of work for the content team. Now that the new site is launched, they can relax –a little bit. Now, the attention shifts to the long-term. Amanda works with the content team to flush out an editorial calendar for the upcoming months.
This schedules each blog post ahead of time, which gives the team plenty of time to prepare and develop content in advance. It also means that content is being created regularly for every type of customer segment. This drives significant improvement to customer engagement metrics and the blog starts to see more traffic than ever before.
By helping the team develop this important resource, she gives them the tools and experience to create future editorial calendars on their own. Amanda also gets the ball rolling on developing a plan to start a video blog series in the near future.
Part of the conversation related to blogging and content touches on SEO and how to develop copy and content assets that are SEO-friendly. Remember, this was a big problem in the past. Content creators weren’t taking advantage of SEO best practices to improve the organic search ranking of the organization’s website.
Amanda shows the team what a difference just a few keywords and meta descriptions made for their content’s performance. This galvanizes the team and gets them on board by incorporating short and long-tail keywords and paying attention to meta descriptions and image optimization.
During Phase 1, Amanda’s group conducted some preliminary keyword research and found some useful initial targets for the content and web development teams to begin using. Now, Amanda wants to dig deep and conduct a more detailed keyword analysis.
In this analysis, Amanda and the team focus on more criteria than just popularity and search volume. They look at clickthrough rates, cost per click amounts, cost per acquisition, and more. This allows them to measure the potential value of the keywords, instead of just the popularity.
The team also looks at what keywords competitors are using and investing in. By adding these different data sets to the existing keyword search, the team is able to find keywords with high value and low competition. This is an especially useful strategy for identifying long-tail keywords that will help the organization win some visibility on the search engine results pages.
So far, Amanda has only elaborated on the strategies that were put in place during the first phase of implementation. Now, it is time to broaden the strategy to include some new platforms. Amanda needs to assess the best platforms for the organization. Specifically, she needs to look at the nature of the business and its customer base.
For example, if the business was catering to upper management and executives in other companies, then Amanda would try and focus on LinkedIn and business websites (Forbes, Bloomberg, etc.). However, the company is more focused on consumer and public sales. Amanda chooses social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to try and push content and marketing messages towards mobile users that frequent these platforms.
One platform that Amanda is excited about utilizing is email. One of the few things that the old website did right was having a “Contact Us” page where visitors could ask questions and receive an answer via email. These site visitors were asked if they would like to subscribe to receive emails from the company.
While nothing was done with this email list in the past, it will be a springboard for new email campaigns. Amanda knows that email is a great way to keep past customers in the loop and deliver targeted messages that may lead to future conversions.
Amanda is starting to get the content team ready to begin producing videos. As mentioned, one part of the organization’s video strategy will be a video blog series. The other element to Amanda’s video generation plan is to bolster landing pages with engaging videos that will help lead to more conversions. In one report, a video on the landing page was found to increase conversions by 80%!
As the company’s social media pages grow and email newsletter attracts some more sign ups, Amanda will expand the video generation strategy to also include making clips for these platforms. Emails with videos are also reportedly very effective and experience 2-3 times higher clickthrough rates.
This is another example of Amanda’s plan of creating a holistic and cohesive marketing strategy. Every content element is weaved into the approach for each channel. This allows the organization to take full advantage of each channel’s unique benefits.
Amanda wants to capitalize on the growing audience being created through social media platforms, email and other tactics. She wants to develop a monthly webinar that will touch on industry issues, customer challenges and other topics that the target audience is interested in. Then, follow up each webinar with podcasts further discussing some of the topics and addressing questions and comments that the audience raises.
Amanda’s hope is that this will create a community within the customer base. By stimulating conversations with customers, the team will receive that essential feedback that it will need to adjust strategies in the future, especially when opinions, needs and markets start to change.
So far, the team has worked primarily on enhancing owned media (website, blogs, webinars, podcasts, etc.). Amanda knows that paid media is an important element when discussing how to create a digital marketing strategy. The organization has used Google Ads in the past, but with not much success. Amanda also implemented a small PPC campaign in the first phase of the plan.
The paid element of online advertising means that Amanda and the team need to be careful with how they approach this element of the digital marketing strategy. There is more at stake if the strategies don’t perform well! Thus, Amanda develops a 5 part plan for adding paid media to the digital marketing plan.
Phase 1: Amanda and the team start by analyzing the PPC campaigns from the past. Even though these efforts weren’t very successful, they are still a valuable resource that let’s Amanda’s team get some insight into how their target audience reacts to paid marketing messages.
The analysis uncovers things like best time slots and days of the week to advertise, as well as what products were most profitable on these paid channels. Amanda also looks at the search terms report to get an idea of what kinds of queries customers and prospects make. These kinds of customer base insights will help the team better align campaigns with customer segments.
Phase 2: To add to their understanding of the PPC market, Amanda’s team also conducts a competitor analysis. The insights provided by this analysis project allows the team to see what keywords and audience segment the competition is targeting with their paid media. It also gives the team the opportunity to see what sort of ad messages the competition is using. What benefits are they targeting? What offers do they showcase?
Amanda knows she can use this data to counter what competitors are putting out and achieve greater results for the organization. By combining the in-house data with this competitor analysis, the team is able to begin developing PPC campaigns based on data, instead of assumptions, about how the market is functioning and what target customers are interested in.
Phase 3: Based on the data, the team concludes that Facebook Advertising and Google Ads via the Search Network are the two most valuable options for the company. This decision is reached after weighing the pros and cons of each potential ad platform and also considering the current content strategy that Amanda has put in place. Amanda feels that the content assets will best suit audiences on Facebook and Google search results pages.
The team also relies on data and the keyword research insights to choose the most valuable audience segments. Amanda says that they can always adjust these audiences based on the results from the ad campaigns in a month or two. Once satisfied with the ads the team creates, the PPC campaigns go live on Facebook and Google.
Phase 4: As the campaign starts to attract impressions, clicks, and conversions, the team pays close attention and makes a few small changes not long out of the gate. For instance, Amanda adjusts bid amounts on some keywords that were underperforming. She also funnels some additional ad spend into a few geo-locations that produce surprising and unexpected results for the campaign.
The first few days of the campaigns already produce great results. The coordinated efforts of content, social media, and the PPC campaigns create significant boosts in website traffic and lead to some increases in revenue. An awesome initial sign of success!
Phase 5: Amanda lets the team know that there are other changes that could be made, but she wants to wait for the data to mature. That said, this early stage is a perfect time for the team to get into the habit of monitoring and analyzing the PPC campaigns on a daily basis. Amanda wants to start this activity early so her teams understand the importance of ongoing, consistent campaign monitoring.
By paying attention to the results of the current campaigns, the team can better prepare for the frequent changes in audience behaviors and the dynamic nature of PPC marketing trends and competitor activities. When the right systems are in place to properly analyze PPC data and continuous improvements are being made, success soon follows.
With a string of new customers coming in and the organization’s past customers becoming re-engaged by the digital makeover, it is apparent to Amanda that the company needs a loyalty and referral program.
The referral program will reward past customers that give the organization word-of-mouth business by sharing the company’s brands and products with friends and connections. Meanwhile, the loyalty system would reward repeat business and encourage stronger customer lifetime values.
New and old customers alike respond very positively to these new programs and it helps the organization build a stronger foundation. Even though they don’t have the large size of market share yet, this loyal customer base is what the organization needs to gain an edge on the competition!
This is another strategy that Amanda knows will continue to pay off and help keep the feedback loop ongoing. The organization will always have insight into how to best interact with its customers!
Amanda’s long-term digital marketing plan creates a strategy that is full of checks and balances. Rather than relying on guesswork and assumptions, data and feedback are used at every step. Instead of each content creator and marketer working independently, tactics are layered and blended together to encourage collaboration and move the organization closer to its goals.
Creating a successful digital marketing strategy is not just about a website, social media accounts and other programs. It’s about developing a sustainable strategy that is designed to be flexible and accommodating to the frequent changes that affect your marketing tactics and business.
With Amanda’s work, the company is set to predict potential problems and bounce back from any fallouts. The holistic approach to marketing creates a strong cohesion where every team member utilizes and adds to the pool of customer insights and marketing feedback.
Understanding the customer is at the heart of how to create a successful digital marketing strategy. After all, the goal of your digital marketing strategy is ultimately to attract more customers. If you don’t understand your customer, then it becomes nearly impossible to approach them. You’d have better luck tossing a paper airplane off of the roof of a skyscraper and hitting a small target on the ground.
Thus, the most essential part of your digital marketing strategy, as demonstrated by Amanda’s case study, is really communication. This includes feedback coming from your customers as well as collaboration and sharing of insights and planning between departments on how best to approach these customers.
Once you can identify your customers and really get to know their needs (not just surface-level!), better results are a guarantee. You’ll know what strategies to implement, how to respond to market changes, and when to shift your efforts to accommodate new customer needs and challenges.
In essence, before you can really know how to create a digital marketing strategy for your business, you first need to know how to listen to your customers!
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