Learn how to create the ideal digital marketing strategy for your company with our guide that covers audience segmentation, budgets, and more.
Learn how to choose goals, target your audience, and plan campaigns
Digital marketing requires more than a mere online presence — it demands a meticulously crafted roadmap. From defining clear objectives to navigating diverse channels, several vital components can transform a simple plan into a dynamic, results-driven digital marketing strategy.
Ready to start generating better results more reliably? Here are the essential steps, insights, and tactics that empower businesses to create a compelling narrative of success online.
Ready to learn more? Dig deeper with Digital Marketing: The Complete Guide.
Building a Digital Marketing Strategy
A digital marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how a business will use online marketing channels to achieve its business goals. A digital marketing strategy's key components include defining the campaign's purpose, identifying the target audience, selecting the appropriate online marketing channels (such as social media, email, content marketing, SEO, and CTV advertising), and setting specific goals and objectives.
Having a clear digital marketing strategy is crucial as it provides a roadmap for all online marketing efforts, ensures consistency across different channels, and helps measure campaigns' success.
A well-designed digital marketing strategy complements rather than supplants offline marketing efforts. It also supports specific product launches and everyday sales efforts. It enhances brand awareness, drives website traffic, generates leads, and ultimately increases sales and revenue. Below are some steps you can take to construct your own quality digital marketing strategy.
Develop SMART Goals
Work to create goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART), and align them with your business objectives. Ensure you are prepared to measure progress toward these goals and have the proper technologies and tools to do so.
Utilize Audience Segmentation
Audience segmentation is the process of dividing a target audience into different groups based on shared characteristics such as demographics, behaviors, and preferences. This allows for a more personalized and targeted approach to digital marketing campaigns.
After defining the segments within the target audience, the next step is to create buyer personas for each segment. Buyer personas are generalized representations of the ideal customers within each segment. These personas are based on research and real data about customers and include demographic information such as age range, income, job title, location, priorities, and goals. They also incorporate interests, industry, pain points, and desired products and features.
For example, a digital marketing campaign targeting young professionals may have segments such as entry-level employees, mid-level managers, and senior executives. Buyer personas within these segments could include details about their career goals, challenges they face in their roles, and the digital platforms they frequent.
Conduct a Competitive Analysis
Conducting a competitive analysis involves identifying audience segments, digital marketing channels, strengths, weaknesses, and positioning of your competitors. This process requires thorough research to understand the market landscape and gain insights into the strategies and messaging used by competitors.
Analyzing competitors' market share and their position within the industry is crucial to understand their overall performance and influence. By comparing market share and positioning data, you can uncover their strengths, weaknesses, and potential opportunities for your own business. This analysis can help you identify areas where you can differentiate and gain a competitive advantage.
Calculate Your Budget
Your business's revenue plays a significant role in determining the amount you can allocate to digital marketing. Also, consider your position within the industry, previous marketing results, and future goals.
Moreover, it's essential to assess the profitability of specific digital marketing strategies and allocate funds accordingly. By considering these factors, you can make informed budgeting decisions and ensure you have the necessary resources to implement your digital marketing activities effectively. This approach will help you achieve your goals while maximizing the return on investment you put into your creative and outreach.
Choose Your Channels
Identify the primary digital marketing channels you'll use to reach your target audience based on your audience, goals, and budget. Most effective digital marketing strategies utilize a mix of channels.
Social media platforms can serve engaging content and advertisements to build brand awareness. Email marketing can be used to directly reach your audience with personalized messages and promotions. Content marketing like blogs and videos can help capture top-of-funnel organic traffic by utilizing search engine optimization (SEO), while pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can provide an immediate boost in website traffic and conversions.
Thanks to its unique blend of broad access and in-depth targeting capabilities, CTV marketing can play an especially potent role in a digital marketing strategy.
Create a Marketing Calendar
To create a marketing calendar, start by mapping out 12 months in advance. Include necessary tasks such as creating promotional materials, coordinating content creation, and planning for specific marketing campaigns or events within each month.
Each deliverable should be assigned to a specific individual to create accountability and consistency. Planning and mapping out the entire year in advance ensures that important marketing tasks and campaigns are not overlooked and have a clear roadmap.
Measure the Results and KPIs
To measure the results and KPIs of your digital marketing plan, compare the outcomes to the baseline and original goals set at the beginning of the campaign. Look at metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, engagement, and sales to see how they stack up against the initial targets. Identify which KPIs are the most relevant to your brand and focus on measuring those.
After comparing the results to the baseline, adjust and optimize your digital marketing strategies as needed. This could involve reallocating your budget to the most successful channels, tweaking ad copy or creative, or refining audience targeting. Then, measure the results again to see if the changes have had a positive impact.
It's important to measure each channel separately to identify the most successful strategies for your brand. Look at the performance of social media, email marketing, search engine marketing, and any other digital channels. By measuring each channel individually in your reporting, you can pinpoint which areas are performing well and which may need further optimization.
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