Digital marketing is growing rapidly in the current marketing playing field. Furthermore, it’s possible that digital marketing could soon supplant most traditional forms of marketing altogether.
If you haven’t yet integrated digital marketing into your marketing mix for your business, it’s time to adapt, and fast. Not only is digital marketing more affordable than traditional forms of marketing, but it’s also more accountable, with specific tracking and monitoring options at your disposal.
Although developing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy is a complex and time-consuming task, the three following steps are key in creating an impactful digital marketing campaign for your business and will get you started and aiming in the direction for success.
1. Clarify Objectives and Strategy
No digital marketing campaign can be successful without clear objectives and a strategy to make it happen. Read up on a few case studies to inform and create your best strategy, consider what some measurable results are that you’d like to see as a result of your efforts.
Outlining your campaign goals will determine the direction for your entire campaign, and should be specific, measurable, realistic, and should also be purposeful and align with real business objectives.
For example, getting more “likes” is great, but how does that improve your bottom line or deliver more meaningful results?
This step also includes the most frequently overlooked, yet most important aspect of a digital marketing campaign – identifying your target audience. Be sure to study your target market and use your findings to inform your strategy to meet your objectives.
2. Create Brand Consistency
Consumers want a consistent, personalized, and on-brand experience on all platforms, including your website, social media platforms, e-mail marketing communications, and any other platforms you may be including in your digital marketing campaign strategy.
Create brand consistency on all platforms by using the same fonts, colors, taglines, images, features, and copy. Feel free to mix it up and create variety, while adhering to the respective platform’s dimensions and layouts.
This level of consistency in your campaign will not only increase your credibility and authority as a company, but it will also ensure that your audience actually receives your message, instead of just seeing it and failing to take action.
3. Build Your Digital Marketplace
Think of your website in your digital marketing campaign to be as important as your storefront.
Your website is your virtual home, and can greatly influence your audience’s perception of your company, whether your brand resonates with them, your level of professionalism, and whether or not you can help them solve the problem they’re coming to you to solve.
Ensure that your website is responsive and engaging, updated, and mobile-friendly. To test your site’s mobile-friendliness, check out Google’s free test. Many business owners believe they need to add a mobile app to their digital media strategy, but if your site’s mobile-friendly, it creates much more ease in the user experience and improves your SEO.
A successful digital media marketing strategy should provide the opportunity for customers to lead the way. This means brands should be focused on providing experiences for their consumers, rather than simply delivering messages. It’s not enough in the digital age to tell consumers what you do and don’t do; instead, focus on action and delivering an exceptional experience. Be painfully obvious and clear with your call-to-action, and make sure that signing up or otherwise completing the call-to-action is effortless for your consumer.
Don’t make them jump through hoops or visit multiple social media platforms to get where you want them to do. Keep it simple, and you’ll be successful.