Do you know that consistency is a must for success in digital marketing? One way to foster consistency is to use a digital marketing plan. If you are yet to create one, the time to do it is now.
If you find yourself at a loss trying to create a digital marketing plan, you are not alone. However, we are here to inform you about the steps to follow when creating one.
So, let’s explore more about a digital marketing plan and how to create it.
What is a Digital Marketing Plan?
A digital marketing plan seeks to explore specific goals you can achieve using online channels. Given that the use of internet-enabled devices is on the rise, your business success in utilizing online channels depends on the effectiveness of your digital marketing plan.
Are you wondering about the difference between digital marketing and digital planning? Well, here is what you need to know. Digital marketing entails creating an online presence to achieve your business objectives. On the other hand, a digital plan helps you identify and reach out to your target audience, in addition to achieving short-term or long-term benchmark goals.
So, a digital marketing plan seeks to create value and attract customers. Also, it identifies the media that your customers hang out in frequently.
The Need for a Digital Marketing Plan
In the current competitive world, you must strive to keep your business afloat. In other words, you must stand out from your competitors and remain relevant in the market.
So, what makes digital marketing different from conventional marketing media, including radio and television? The answer is that digital marketing makes you reach out to a global audience, unlike conventional marketing media.
Remember, digital marketing exposes your business to an international audience. On the other hand, a digital marketing plan helps you reach and convert an international audience into customers by organizing your workflow.
What Do You Organize Using a Digital Marketing Plan?
If you intend to use a digital marketing plan effectively, you must understand its inputs. In other words, you must understand the tactics you organize to attract and retain your international target audience.
The following are some of the tactics to consider for your digital marketing plan:
- A/B website design testing
- Automated marketing
- Building/earning links
- Call-to-action campaign
- Designing infographics
- Email promotion
- Landing page planning
- Lead nurturing Strategy
- Marketing using social media
- Marketing using content (blogging and article writing)
- Offerings downloadable content (whitepapers, ebooks, webinars)
- Pay-per-click (PPC) webinar-production marketing
- Public affairs (PR)
- SEO
- Video production
Key Features of a Digital Marketing Plan
Inclusion of the Acronym SMART
Your digital marketing objectives must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely). When using SMART, your digital marketing plan will have organized metrics that will shape your future strategies. For example, SMART can help you come up with strategies for increasing your ROI and KPIs.
Create an Accredited Team
You must engage marketers with a credible digital portfolio. Afterward, advance the talent of your team members by enrolling them in various digital marketing training courses.
The training empowers your marketing team to gather more insights into the digital marketing arena. In return, your team will acquire the appropriate skills to develop successful digital marketing plans over time.
Acquire Target Audience Awareness
The use of digital analytics and other resources can help you identify who is viewing your business online. Using Google Analytics, Hubspot, and other digital analytics tools helps you know your target audience’s age, education, location, interest, and other characteristics. In return, it is easy to identify the taste and preferences of your target audience.
Consider Buyer Experience
You can identify your buyer experience by referring to your marketing funnel. The move will help you find answers to the following questions:
- How did your buyers learn about your brand?
- Where did your buyers come from when learning about your brand?
- What are your buyers interested in?
- How are your buyers evaluating your brand?
Design Your Digital Marketing Plan
Now that you understand the features and inputs of a successful digital marketing plan, it is time to design one. However, it would help if you did not rely on a single plan. Always have several plans depending on the business objectives you want to meet. In return, you will run a successful digital marketing activity.
According to a credible marketing agency Riyadh has, the following tips can help you create a successful digital marketing plan:
Create Your Digital Marketing Plans Consistently
Always remain active in creating informational content for your target audience. You can achieve this objective by writing blogs, how-to content, and articles. You can also consider creating videos and charts, among other visual content.
Content enables your target audience to identify itself with your products, services, and brand. If you increase your content distribution, you can generate more leads and get closer to making a sale.
Generate Leads Using Search Engines
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) seeks to improve the ranking of your website on Google and other search engines. However, the quality of your online content enables you to appear on search engine results pages (SERPs).
If your business is small or a start-up, organic marketing, and direct B2B or B2C interactions can improve your business performance significantly. On the other hand, well-established businesses can consider using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) to have their content sitting on top of search engine organic results.
Choose Your Social Media
Marketing on social media sounds easy. However, a lot needs to take place before you effectively market your business on social media. So, before investing in social media marketing, you must understand how various social media platforms operate. Also, you must know about your presence on these platforms.
After identifying the social media platforms that are a favorite to your target audience, create a profile that features your brand values. Next, post and market your products and services using videos, pictures, or written content. Lastly, always engage your target audience by responding to their comments, queries, and feedback.
Notably, engaging your target audience improves the reputation of your brand. Also, the move lures new customers into your business.
Combine Your Campaigns
If you combine your digital marketing plans, you can reach out to a large audience. So, always ensure you roll out your digital marketing plans on different online channels. However, ensure that the plans interact with each other.
One way of linking your digital marketing plans is to link them. For example, you can place a website link on one of your blog posts. Such a link can direct your target audience to several products you offer. In return, you can increase your ROI.
7 Steps of Creating Your Digital Marketing Plan
Organize
The first step of creating a digital marketing plan is to organize its inputs. So, gather your market data, assess the current marketing plans’ effectiveness, and develop an improved digital marketing plan. You should also evaluate your current metrics and come up with a KPIs dashboard.
Reach
Always keep tabs on the changes that happen to SERPs and structured data. Afterward, adopt any vital online marketing techniques to increase your website traffic.
If you want to improve your reach, always track core changes, including expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EAT). Also, localize your online content to match your target audience’s cultural values and characteristics.
Act
Always interact with your target audience to generate future leads. So, make efforts to influence the following stages of your target audience in the sales funnel.
Create Marketing Content
When creating your marketing content, ensure that it can entertain, educate, inspire, and persuade your target audience at all times.
Improve User Experience (UX/CX)
Always be on the lookout for any changes in website trends and interaction designs. If you adopt such changes continually, you can enhance user engagement and impact customer behavior on your preferred online platforms.
Convert
The ultimate goal of your digital marketing efforts is to convert more clients. You can retarget, nurture, and optimize your conversion rate to urge and remind your target audience to buy your products online and offline.
Engage
Always develop hyper-personalized online marketing campaigns for your target audience. To achieve this objective, tailor-make your online communications at all times. However, you must align your personalization with the following means and inputs:
- A/B comparisons
- Analyze the customer paths
- Customer feedback surveys
- Web-based customer intent surveys
- Digital-experience usability studies
- Mapping the customer content and path
- Multivariate analysis
- Personas of customers
Tracking the Progress
After creating your digital marketing plan or plans and implementing them, you must track their progress. Remember, you have invested resources in the plans. So, you must get a return from them. How do you track whether your digital marketing plans are successful?
The following are some of the methods you can employ to track the progress of your digital marketing plans:
- Using website analytics: Using analytic tools, such as Google Analytics, can help you assess the performance of your digital marketing plans. The tools collect data and format it to help you see the outcomes of your marketing plans.
- Ad networks conversion tracking: Conversion monitoring helps you to identify the success of your digital marketing plans in website transactions, phone calls, and app downloads, among others.
- CRM monitoring: CRM enables marketers to create profiles of their prospects during a sales process.
- KPI monitoring: KPIs provide data about the success of your marketing plan. They can also help you assess the efficacy of your digital marketing plans.
The Bottom Line
Yaddly, a revenue-focused marketing agency, emphasizes that a digital marketing plan is a must-to-have for all online businesses. Not only does it help your business remain relevant in the market, but it also helps you increase your conversion rate. In return, your business flourishes sustainably.
So, if you are yet to create a digital marketing plan, the time to do it is now.