The world today has gone overwhelmingly digital. In a 2021 survey, 79% of people reported spending at least three hours per day on their smartphone, and 82% of US adults have at least one social media account. Incorporating digital into your organization’s overall marketing strategy not only meets your audience where it’s at, but it also helps focus your initiatives and provides opportunity to measure how well you’re reaching them.
Digital marketing is more than just putting your existing content online and hoping for the best. A solid digital marketing strategy should include evaluation and goal setting, market analysis and careful review of channels.
Evaluation and Goals
The first step in creating a digital marketing strategy is to take stock of current initiatives. This could include your website, email and social media content. What’s working and how do you know? Where are your opportunities for improvement?
Next, look to define your target audience. One place to start is by reviewing your website’s Google Analytics and Facebook data. This will not only tell you what pages users visit on your website, but also where users are located, what their interests are, what type of device they’re using and so much more.
Now you can use the information you’ve collected to create goals. Ideally, digital marketing goals are things that can be measured like an increase in revenue, social media engagement, market share, or improved search engine presence. It’s also helpful to attach a timeline to your digital marketing goals.
Analyze Your Market
It’s important to understand your current digital initiatives, but it’s also crucial to understand others in your market. Join their email lists. Follow them on social media. Review their website. Chances are you’ll learn a lot and be able to take that knowledge and use it to refine your own strategies.
Digital Marketing Channels
Now that you’ve evaluated your current initiatives, set goals, and reviewed the competition, you can review which digital media channels are a best fit for your organization. Here’s a breakdown of a few channels to consider.
Email marketing is a cost-effective way to communicate with your audience. You don’t need to be an expert designer to start using email marketing. Third-party email marketing services offer easy-to-use templates and also track which emails resonate best with your audience.
PPC
Pay per click, or PPC, is an advertising model where you create an ad that is displayed in search engines whenever a user searches for a particular keyword. You set the budget, create the ads, target them to whatever audience you choose, and track results. Google AdWords and Bing are two popular PPC programs.
SEO
Have you ever wondered why your website shows up at the top of the search results in Google? And if not, how do you get your site to show up there? That’s search engine optimization. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of making website enhancements to both the seen and unseen portions of your website. These updates could be adding keywords, website copy, URL structure, image sizes, and more. Google uses these and many other factors to determine where your site will show in search results.
Social Media
Social media marketing is another way to reach your target audience through a mix of paid and unpaid advertising opportunities. Social media marketing provides an opportunity to create a conversation with your audience and meets them where they already are.
Website
Email, search engines, social media — they ultimately work together to bring users to your website with the hopes of accomplishing your digital marketing goals. It’s important that your users have a consistent experience when they visit your website. Your website should include helpful content, be extremely user friendly and use a mobile-first layout.
From analysis and goal setting to website optimization and social media, your digital marketing strategy needs to evolve and meet people where they’re at today. Our team of marketing experts can help your organization create a digital marketing strategy that lasts. Email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call us at (608) 240-9611.