How to create a digital marketing strategy

Build an overview and structure for your digital marketing plan

The first step in creating your digital marketing plan is to produce a framework of what you want to achieve from your online presence. To do this, we create a digital marketing strategy.

A digital marketing strategy is different from the campaign itself.

• The digital marketing strategy is an overview of what you want to achieve from your online presence and acts as a guiding roadmap for how you are going to achieve it.
• The digital marketing campaign is the collection of actions, tactics, and activities you will use to achieve what is outlined in your strategy.

If you haven't yet done so, don't forget to visit the Web Rocket and download your FREE Digital Marketing Plan Template >>

What is a digital marketing strategy?

Your strategy is the first part of your digital marketing plan. It is a written set of strategic decisions designed to guide your digital marketing campaign and promotional activities.

Through research and collaboration with your team, you will identify your goals, produce market research and an assessment of your current digital presence. Each of these elements contribute to creating an informed strategy for your digital marketing.

The individual tactics of your digital marketing campaign (your website, SEO, social media etc) will have their own goals, metrics, and activities detailed relevant to those areas.

Your digital marketing strategy provides you with a directed overview of your campaign and how it is being managed.

What is included in a digital marketing strategy?

There are 4 key components to your digital marketing strategy. In this guide, we will work through;

• Digital Marketing Goals
• Market Research
• Digital Marketing Audit
• Digital Marketing Campaign Tactics

Digital Marketing Goals

You should first consider what you want to achieve from your Digital Marketing. Refer to the goals identified in your Business Plan and produce a set of objectives specific to your digital marketing.

Also consider how you will measure the success of your activities. For each activity such as social media and SEO, we will identify a subset of goals, however, for your overall digital marketing goals we will be looking at some top level data.

An example goal of digital marketing might be to get more website traffic from social media.

For each goal, you should think about the outcome, the action, the metric, and the timescale.

• The outcome: More website traffic
• The action: Social Media Campaign
• The metric: 10%
• The timescale: 2 months

You should create a table or spreadsheet with your goals listed;

For each goal, add in a row for your targets, then a second row to monitor your progress each month. Start with a baseline for your current status. We recommend doing this over the course of a full year.

Here, you can find out more about setting Business & Digital Market Goals >>

Market Research

As part of your business plan, you will have conducted extensive research to give you insights into your target audience, competitors, and industry landscape. Be sure to translate this information into your digital marketing plan.

You should be clear on key information regarding;

• Your target audience >>

  Identify who your marketing efforts will be geared towards. Before you launch any sort of marketing campaign, it is crucial to establish who you are communicating with.

  Understand your demographic, where and how to reach them, their buying habits, challenges and what is important to them. You should build a profile for each of your target audience segments to inform your marketing decisions.

  Here is a quick example of a target audience segment for a high-end women's clothing store based in London.

  	Audience Segment 1
  Age Group	25 - 50
  Gender	Female
  Location	London
  Average Income	£30,000 p/a
  Disposable Income	£500 p/m
  Priorities	Customer Service, quality of goods, competitive pricing.
  Goals & Challenges	Finding unique items.
  Hobbies & Interests	Theatre and events. Dining out.

  Once we have a profile of each of our audience segments, we can use the information to direct our marketing decisions.

  For example, in this instance, we may use imagery on our website and social media posts that depict the target profile wearing items from our clothing range, dining out or at a London Theatre. Our tag lines and posts may focus on customer service and the buying experience.

  We can make significant decisions from this information at every step of our campaign.

  Here you can learn more about how to conduct target audience research >>

• Competitor Research >>

  Research your competitors and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their online presence. It's essential to know what your competitors are doing and what kind of “threat” they present to your company's success.

  You should understand what kinds of digital marketing activities they are engaged in, how effective their presence is, and how you can exceed their success. You should assess their overall business and each of their digital channels and compile a list of positive and negative points to inform your own decisions.

  Here is a brief look at an example competitive analysis;

  	Competitor 1
  Market Share	35%
  Price Points	10% more expensive
  Customer Service	Positive
  Product / Service Quality	Average
  Customer Feedback	3/5 average
  Website	Positive - Easy to navigate, simple design, user-friendly, mobile-friendly. Negative - Slow load speed, not much content, low quality images
  Search Engine Rankings	Keyphrase 1 - Page 1, Position 6 Keyphrase 2 - Page 2, Position 4 Keyphrase 3 - Page 1, Position 8
  Social Media	Strong regular presence on Facebook (500 followers) Repetitive sales only posts - little engagement No Instagram profile

  You should complete a competitive analysis for at least 3 of your key competitors, producing a cross-section of all of their company and digital assets.

  Check out our article to learn how to do a full competitive analysis >>

• Industry trends, status, and direction >>

  Understanding the dynamics of your industry is critical to a successful digital marketing strategy. You should extend your competitive analysis to the broader spectrum of your industry and identify key trends and activities which may be of use to your campaign, and be aware of any factors that may hinder your efforts.

  Here is a quick example of an Industry Analysis for a baby clothes ecommerce website.

  	Industry Analysis
  Competitive rivalry	Highly competitive across all social platforms. Up to 4 pages of search results of different competitors
  Barrier to entry	Easy access to social platforms Cost of PPC high.
  Market alternatives	Alternative products to our newborn niche is low
  Trending Topics	Lots of content relating to newborn clothing guides. Sustainibility - process of production is important to buyers
  Social Media	Activity is high in facebook groups Low presence on Twitter (low audience) Instagram potential is high but very diluted
  Collaborations	High number of influencers for collaboration opportunities. 5 key websites for article publications and guest blogging New mums podcast, possible interview and cross promotion

  Getting a feel for the industry as a whole is a great way to add another layer of information to your digital marketing strategy.

  For example, in this instance, we see that there are some great opportunities with influencers and existing marketeers in our niche. So we may decide to invest more time into our content marketing to produce articles or videos with which we can collaborate. The high competition in search engines means we will need to dedicate more time to keyword research and SEO.

  Here you can learn more about how to conduct Industry Research >>

Digital Marketing Audit

You should conduct a complete audit and assessment of your current online presence. Explore the strengths and weaknesses of each of your existing digital marketing assets. Understand how you are performing in each area and what improvements need to be made.

Evaluate each of these in brief to get an overview of what is working and which areas require development to enhance and progress with your online presence.

Let's take a look at some examples of the factors you will want to consider;

Digital Marketing Campaign Tactics

Now that you have all of the information, you should look at all areas from the online marketing world that you would like to incorporate into your campaign.

For example, if one of your goals is to generate more sales through your website, you may want to consider a redesign or new features to improve conversions. If an objective is to gain more traffic to your website, you will need to think about SEO, content marketing and social media. All of these aspects should be considered at this stage. Bring together your key team members and discuss the benefits and requirements of each factor.

Once your team has agreed the relevant areas, you will need to think about how to move each aspect forward.

• Decide what key actions need to be taken
• Assign team members to key roles - refer to your digital marketing team plan
• Decide what budget you can apply to each area
• Consider what internal and external time and resources will be needed to plan and execute each task set
• Establish timescales where applicable for the planning and implementation

Some avenues to consider include;

This overview of digital marketing tactics provides you with an insight into what time, money and resources are involved in executing your digital marketing strategy.