All your digital marketing efforts should be guided by a powerful online marketing game plan because it can be the difference between a successful and a failed business. Therefore, while embracing all facets of your online existence, from visibility to branding, customer acquisition to SEO strategy, your plan for growing your business through the Internet has to be all-encompassing and methodical.
Here are 3 vital components to build into an effective online marketing strategy.
- A Solid Online Marketing Plan
Before you think about making any moves or investing any money in online marketing, you have to take some time to design a clear-cut plan. It doesn’t have to be intricate, but having a plan you have written down will help your long term focus. It can also be useful as a guide for making critical decisions about budget and priorities.
It’s advisable to work with a digital marketing company; starting with your target in mind and writing down your goals. Your digital marketers should present you a series of questions which you will need to answer.
Your plan should be largely based on in-depth research about your competitors, your customers, your own business, and your industry. It should feature clear answers to crucial questions like:
- How many sales per week or per month do you need to make to break even?
- What percentage of sales growth do you want to record in the next year or the next five years?
- Do you have a particular type of ideal consumer you want to attract?
- How big is your share of the market, and how big do you want it to be?
- Are you planning on being dominant within a particular area, or do you want to expand nationally? Or on a global scale?
- Who are your target market, and how will you get through to them?
- Who are your main rivals and what can you give to customers that they can’t?
- What are your rivals’ marketing channels and how much are they investing into each of these channels?
After you have been able to define these goals, you can work towards defining the steps that are required to be taken for them to come to fruition.
- Partners You Have Confidence In
Your online marketing will usually comprise of various components. Ideally, all of the different activities will not be handled in-house. It’s always a huge benefit when each cog in the complex wheel of online marketing is supported by a network of brilliant people. These experts can provide specialist skills and experience to your business leaving your staff to concentrate on sales and customer service.
The areas of your digital marketing and how much of digital marketing you outsource is entirely up to you, however, for the areas listed below, you might want to think about working with experts:
- Web development
- SEO
- Content marketing and distribution
- PPC advertising campaign management
- PR and media outreach
- Branding
- Social media management
- Email marketing
The support and expertise you can get from experts in each of these areas can make a huge difference when it comes to marketing projects. Their wealth of knowledge could be useful at all stages of the process, from planning to training, execution to reporting, and optimization.
- Dedicated Budget for Online Marketing
Having a plan is fantastic, but having enough budget is a whole new ball game. A sufficient budget is required for vital online marketing initiatives and not having one is a general barrier that a lot of businesses face. You should have a rough estimate of the amount of money you would need to invest to be able to compete effectively, and also meet your short-term and long-term targets.
A lot of business owners get discouraged by the initial failures and decide to put a halt to funding future marketing initiatives. However, if you give up too soon, you will never experience the long term success that you desire. It’s best to view your marketing budget as an investment for the long term.
Lastly, make sure you carry out regular reviews of your strategy. Online marketing is dynamic, so it’s important that you adopt a strategy that is adaptable to best practices and new channels while evolving to meet the ever-changing realities of your business.