The purpose of this post is to give you an outline and blueprint for producing essential Digital Marketing ingredients and getting the most out of those efforts that you spend your time on, and that was hard-earned. I assume that you already have some basic knowledge of websites, social media and maybe even have your individual idea of what the definition of Digital Marketing is.
Creating your Digital Marketing plan should be one of the first things you do, right now, before you do anything else. It doesn’t matter if you have all of your social media channels already setup, Google has indexed your site, and you’ve been online for ten years. It is never too late to start over, which is precisely what I want you to do. Start over, right now.
Some things to keep in mind when creating your Digital Marketing Plan. The first thing is to identify your target audience.
Who visits your website?
Who follows you on Social Media?
Who does the most business with you?
What market or industry do you place your focus?
Answering these questions will help you begin to identify your current customers and potential prospects. You can research your industry or competitors to get an idea of your targets. Competitor analysis is always a helpful indicator, just make sure you’re analyzing the most successful competitor or commensurate organization in your relevant industry.
One of the most important, yet often overlooked or misunderstood components of any marketing plan is your unique selling point.
– What makes you stand out from your competitors?
– What makes you the best business or organization that your potential customers want to do business with you?
– Why are you unique and more superior than any of your competitors?
Once you have this major piece of the puzzle, you can begin to visualize the blueprint for your specialized Digital Marketing strategy!
Your digital marketing game plan should start with you thinking of your customers first. Your plan should be customer-centric, and not just focused on your products or services. Your plan will no doubt change and evolve over time, so don’t worry about making it absolutely perfect straight out of the gate. This plan is an outline for your efforts and nothing will be set in stone. Not to mention that by the time you’ve perfected your incredible strategy, the Internet will have changed and grown to where you will have to make adjustments, so keep in mind that your plan is flexible and dynamic, not static.
The saying goes, Keep It Simple. Define what you want to accomplish, and then outline a few realistic goals. These could be one-time goals, or these could likewise be long-term, over a period, milestones for you to accomplish the desired results. Either way, don’t overwhelm yourself with too many details. One of the places you can start is by looking at your existing strategy, that is – if one exists.
Whether you have a defined tactic, a mental outline, or something that is ad-hoc or just thrown together, you can look at what has worked and what has not worked. Look into what is currently working, and what areas it wouldn’t hurt to improve.
Make notes of what has worked for you in the past. Measure the results and be honest with yourself about them. Keep your overall goals in mind while you look at previous achievements or attempts. You will want to make sure to note what channels seem to function the best for your organization or products or services. Focus on those channels at first, and then look for correlated channels to add to your strategy.
Remember to envision your plan as a dynamic and scalable framework for your marketing efforts and campaigns, because it is something that can and will always change and fluctuate according to your specific needs.
As with any Marketing plan, you will want measurable results to determine the success of your campaign, or you will be wasting your time, right? So determine now, what is it that you want to accomplish by launching a Digital Marketing campaign? Now write that down.
Write it in pencil, because you might decide you need to change some things later to fit the campaign better. It’s a good process to keep activities as individual entities because each campaign may require a different perspective and different channels to be successful.
It might seem old-school actually to write things down, so if you feel better typing it out, go ahead and use your favorite text editor, or email app and type out some goals. You can always use a whiteboard and sticky notes. That process has helped me on multiple occasions especially when working with a room full of various thinkers and project sponsors that all have varied ideas of what needs to be addressed.
Remember to be realistic; thinking that you’ll have 1000 all new customers in 30 days is probably a stretch unless of course your budget allows. Give yourself, and your campaign, time to grow and evolve into achieving your goals.
I always like to point out to clients that it can take a few days to see any real results from the launch of a new campaign. The web is also a massively competitive arena. However, the more unique your product or service, the better your results are going to be. The more competition for your goods and/or services, the more unique your campaign needs to be.
Think outside of the box, and what will gain the attention and admiration of prospective customers. It isn’t just all about what you want; it is all about what your client wants. The more insight you have into your customers, the more of an edge you will have for your plan of action.