Digital Marketing Strategy Guide: Boost Your Startup's Growth

Overview

In today's world, where consumers and businesses are almost always online and on the go, it is crucial for businesses to have a digital marketing strategy to reach their target audience and observe their behavior where they spend their time. A marketing strategy is a plan for reaching a specific marketing-related goal (or goals) in a focused and achievable way. It takes into consideration what your business is currently doing well and what you're missing in regards to the objective you set, then developing tactics to help you meet your goal.

A marketing strategy is different from marketing tactics in terms of their scope, level of detail, and time frame. A strategy is a high-level plan that guides your direction and long-term goals and how you plan on accomplishing them. Tactics, however, are specific actions and methods used to implement your strategy and achieve short-term objectives.

A digital marketing strategy is a plan for using online channels to establish an internet presence and achieve specific marketing objectives. These channels can include organic search, social media, paid ads, and other web-based mediums such as your website. Ultimately, the goal is to boost your business's visibility and attract new customers.

Creating a digital marketing strategy can be overwhelming, but it is essential for businesses to have an agile digital marketing strategy. In this guide, we will cover the steps to create a digital marketing strategy.

How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy

1. Build your buyer personas.

2. Identify your goals and the digital marketing tools you'll need.

3. Evaluate your existing digital channels and assets.

4. Audit and plan your owned media campaigns.

5. Audit and plan your earned media campaigns.

6. Audit and plan your paid media campaigns.

7. Bring your digital marketing campaigns together.

1. Build your buyer personas.

For any marketing strategy – digital or not – you need to know who you're marketing to. The best digital marketing strategies are built upon detailed buyer personas, and your first step is to create them.

Buyer personas represent your ideal customer(s) and can be created by researching, surveying, and interviewing your business's target audience. It's important to note that this information should be based upon real data whenever possible, as making assumptions about your audience can cause your marketing strategy to move in the wrong direction.

To get a rounded picture of your persona, your research pool should include a mixture of customers, prospects, and people outside your contacts database who align with your target audience.

Here are some starting points that you can fine-tune and tailor to your particular business.

Quantitative and Demographic Information

• Location: Use web analytics tools to easily identify what location your website traffic is coming from.

• Age: Depending on your business, this may or may not be relevant information. But if it is, it's best to gather this data by identifying trends in your existing prospect and contact database.

• Income: It's best to gather sensitive information like personal income through persona research interviews, as people might be unwilling to share these details via online forms.

• Job Title: This is something you can get a rough idea of from your existing customer base and is most relevant for B2B companies.

Qualitative and Psychographic Information

• Goals: Depending on what challenge your product or service solves, you may already have a good idea of the goals of your buyer persona. Cement your assumptions by speaking to real customers and internal sales and customer service reps.

• Challenges: Speak to customers, sales and customer service reps, and any other customer-facing employees to get an idea of the common challenges your audience members face.

• Hobbies/Interests: Ask customers and those who align with your target audience about their hobbies and interests. If you're a fashion brand, for example, it’s helpful to know if large segments of your audience are also interested in fitness and well-being to inform future content and partnerships.

• Priorities: Talk to customers and target audience members to find out what's most important to them in relation to your business. For example, if you’re a B2B software company, knowing your audience values customer support over a competitive price point is very valuable information.

2. Identify your goals and the digital marketing tools you'll need.

Once you have a clear understanding of your buyer personas, it's time to identify your goals and the digital marketing tools you'll need to achieve them. Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Examples of goals include increasing website traffic, generating leads, and improving brand awareness.

The digital marketing tools you'll need will depend on your goals. For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, you might use search engine optimization (SEO), social media, and content marketing. If your goal is to generate leads, you might use email marketing, landing pages, and lead magnets.

3. Evaluate your existing digital channels and assets.

Before you start creating new digital marketing campaigns