Step-by-step Guide to structure a digital marketing plan

Step-by-step Guide to structure a digital marketing plan

In this step-by-step how-to guide, we are going to share everything that you need to know to successfully set up your very own digital marketing plan. 

Digital marketing has in recent years slowly become one of the dominant types of advertising.

Unlike other forms of advertising, you don’t have to pay out for expensive marketing materials, and if you have everything in place, you can quite easily manage it on your own.

For those interested in digital marketing, having a specific plan in place is of utmost importance. Without a plan, you can quite easily lose track of your progress and your goals, leaving your marketing vulnerable to failure.

Creating your plan is quite simple once you know the ins and the outs of this type of marketing, and once you get going with your planning, you will find that implementing your plan, while it will take time, is far less daunting than you might think.

What is a digital marketing plan?

A digital marketing plan is a plan documenting how you will be approaching your online marketing. It includes all of the finer details, such as:

• Your business goals. You need to create a list of your short, medium, and long-term plans, and you can include the dates by which you’d like to achieve your goals.
• Your strategies. To achieve your goals you will need to have a few helpful and actionable strategies in place. Keep in mind that since this is a digital strategy, all of your strategies will need to be implemented in the digital sphere.
• The channels you will be using. Marketing channels for digital advertising might be limited but they are powerful.
• Your action and development plans. No strategy needs to be static. Some of the best plans are those that can grow and evolve as your company does.
• Your budget. One of the great things about any digital marketing is that your budget does not necessarily have to be big. This allows companies of all sizes to take on this type of marketing.
• Your timing. Every plan is going to have a schedule. There will be certain dates by which you want to achieve your goals. Having a timetable of sorts will keep you on track to achieve great outcomes.

If you are at this point wondering if you need a marketing plan, the answer is most definitely yes. Companies with such a plan in place are generally more organised with their advertising approach and they are also more than likely to reach their goals; both business goals and marketing goals.

Before you jump into creating your plan, you need to make sure that you have some information close at hand. This information includes:

• Defining your audience so that you can attract them, convince them to buy from you, and make that sale. These customers need to become loyal to your brand.
• Have an idea about which actions you will be taking to reach your customers.
• Consider how the strategy is going to add value to your existing marketing.

Step 1: The SWOT Analysis (otherwise known as a Situational Analysis)

A SWOT analysis is one of the oldest marketing techniques in the book. This type of analysis is at the foundation of all marketing techniques.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. When you are working on your SWOT analysis, you will be breaking down each of these so that you know where your company stands in comparison to the rest of the market.

This type of analysis is fundamentally the foundation of everything that you do. It is not only your marketing plan but also your business plan. By doing the analysis you will be familiarising yourself with the world in which your business is operating.

You will also be in a better position to gain a unique understanding of what it is that your customer is really looking for and you will also be able to help your customers fix their problems by using your products and your services.

When you are doing your SWOT analysis you will be able to identify a few common practices that others have used successfully in the past. This is hugely helpful because oftentimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to be successful with your digital marketing, you just need to mold successful techniques to match your requirements.

Finally, you will need to do an internal study of your company’s situation in the digital world. You can do this by viewing your current website, looking at where it can be improved and whether or not it is useful to your customer, look at your website blog and determine if it needs more work, and you can analyse your social media accounts.

Basically, at this point, you need to go through all of your current digital marketing with a fine toothcomb, breaking down every little detail and seeing where you can make improvements.

Step 2: Establishing your Marketing Goals

Digital marketing is a wonderfully creative and versatile advertising avenue. And there are many ways to structure your marketing so that it meets your goals.

Now that you have your SWOT analysis out of the way, you should know where your strengths lie and you should also know where your weak points, which will need your attention, are. The plan that you are going to be creating, will include everything that you will need to do, to set the goals that you will be established in this step.

Since this plan is entirely digital it is so important that you make sure that whatever goals you are setting are to the point specific, measurable in nature, actually attainable, relevant to your company, and that they have a timeframe.

When you approach it from this angle, you will be using the SMART method, and it is one that marketers around the world have used to their great advantage.

When you have your marketing goals in mind, and you know exactly what you hope to achieve with your upcoming campaign, you can move onto step 3.

Step 3: Define your strategy

Marketing is simply not what it used to be. In the era of traditional marketing, it was all too easy to launch a campaign and then simply let it run. Most often this approach would rely on one-way communication with the company running the campaign not ever hearing back from the people it sought to contact.

This style of marketing was effective in the past, but in these modern times, clients not only want to see what you are selling and know why buying it would be of benefit to them, but they also want an easy channel via which they can talk to the company. Being able to speak directly to someone not only builds trust but it helps to ensure that the customer gets the answers they are looking for.

When you are defining your strategy, you need to make sure that the strategy has that personal touch. The personalisation of your campaign should be at the forefront of everything that you do.

1. Start by defining your audience and then dividing them into segments. You should make sure that you know what it is that you are trying to address, what the audience’s needs and tastes are, and how you can meet their expectations. At this point, you will want to create your ultimate buyer persona.
2. Your brand positioning. At this point, you need to be sure that you have identified your brand’s value proposition and what it entails. And once you have identified your proposition, you should then make sure that it can be easily funnelled through a digital channel. When you are working on this point, the best thing to do is to identify why your customers should choose you. You should also take the time to figure out through which channels your audience is best reached. And don’t forget that your website is also a helpful channel.
3. Create your content strategy. At this point, you need to make sure that your content strategy is perfect. You need to be in a position where you can consistently create original content which can be distributed and managed in such a way that you can attract new clients and position your brand at the forefront of your client’s mind. You also need to come up with a reliable and easy-to-use communication plan. The strategy that you create needs to be in line with your buyer persona or else it will not reach the right people. So, again, be sure to study who it is that you want to buy from you so that you don’t end up missing something really important.

Under the definition of the strategy, you need to consider the best methods and tools to use to put your content strategy together. Again, keeping in mind that this is a digital marketing strategy, most of the tools that you will need are going to be found online. These are the tools you need:

A Keyword Research Tool Google’s Keyword Planner, which is a free tool provided to all signed-up Google users, is one of the easiest tools to use.

You need to know what keywords you want to target so that your website SEO can be correctly done. When you are using SEO, you can reach your clients organically and you can be sure that you will reach your ideal buyer.

A Content Planner (otherwise known as an Editorial Calendar)

You can use a simple Google Calendar to plot your content plan.

Having a calendar of this kind is so important because it will help you stay on track with your content marketing strategy. It will allow you to plan your ideas, make notes of when the content should be posted and it will help you implement your keywords. Such a plan will put you in the driver’s seat for your marketing.

Social Media Planning 

All popular social media platforms have the option to schedule posts and they have the option to boost your posts so that you reach the right people.

From writing blogs and sharing them on social media so that people see them, to sharing your latest products and boosting the post, social media is a powerful tool. The best way to use it is to make sure that you don’t post the same thing again and again and to be sure that you only post what is valuable.

Step 4: Implementing the Strategy

Having everything set up and ready to go, now is the time to launch your campaign.

You should consider email marketing (think newsletters), social media posting, SEO, and paid media advertising, and when doing so, you must make use of a marketing tool that will allow you to automate the process to a certain degree.

Step 5: Measure your Results

When your campaigns are on the go, you must monitor them and measure them. By analysing the results, you will instantly be able to see which campaigns and posts are working and which are not. This will then allow you to either improve on the campaign or remove those elements that are simply not giving you the results you want.

To measure your results accurately, these are some of the things you should keep an eye on:

·        SEO

To measure your SEO campaign, have a look at how many site visitors you get, have a look at your bounce rate, and, the easiest way of all to see how your campaign is doing, is to check how many leads you get through your website and which products or services get the most requests.

·        Social Media

This one is easy! Just check your engagements, your responses to ads, and have a look at how your page grows.

·        Blog Posts

While it could be nice to think that a view count alone is a good indication of the blog’s popularity, what you want is comments, shares, and backlinks.

In our digital world, traditional marketing needs to be merged with online marketing, to ensure a powerful punch. So make sure your digital strategy is in place and working like a well-oiled machine. Because if you don’t, you are missing out on a huge opportunity.

Get in touch with one of our consultants to find out which of our digital marketing agency services could help to grow your business.