Building a digital marketing plan is a lot like building an airplane: every component depends on the others, and if one fails, it’s all over.
6 Steps for Creating a Perfect Digital Marketing Plan
You can avoid this catastrophe by taking the time to build a solid plan right from the start. The following steps will help you get started.
Know your audience
Whether it’s crafting the perfect online presence or crafting the perfect guitar chord, all great craftsmen take time to create a plan. If you’re creating a marketing plan for your company, you should start with who it’s for and what it’s about.
Just like a person has a personality, so does your business. Maybe your personality is creative and artsy. Or maybe it’s more on the practical side of things.
Whatever your personality is, get to know it and use it in your digital marketing plan.
Start with research
Once you decide what kind of business you are, spend some time getting to know your audience by doing some research.
For example, if you are a manufacturing business, go on social media and start following people who might be your potential customers. Pay attention to what they post about their interests and how they talk about certain topics. This will help you create better content that resonates with them.
Define your goals
The next step in your digital marketing plan is to define your goals for the initiative. What do you hope to achieve once the plan has been completed? This should include both short-term and long-term goals.
Whether you want to increase sales or simply attract more customers, the first step is to have a solid digital marketing strategy template and understand what you want as the end result.
Determine how much to spend on digital media
There is no exact formula or rule of thumb when determining how much to spend on digital media.
But, it would be advisable to allocate more resources to channels that have generated the greatest numbers of leads or conversions.
Tell your brand’s story through a content calendar
A content calendar is a plan for releasing content that combines data, research, and your company’s goals. For example, a business might decide to create five blog posts per month on building a website, offering DIY tutorials on YouTube, and publishing an eBook covering all the steps in the process.
The key to a great content calendar is that it’s flexible and scalable. It should be easy for you to add content throughout the year while also allowing for ample time to promote those posts.
This way, you can spread out the workload, so you’re not creating ten blog posts at once while still making sure your online presence is strong and consistent.
Keep a watchful eye on the analytics
Keeping a watchful eye on the analytics will give you important insight into the behaviors and actions of your customers.
Analytics will give you insight into what is and isn’t working about your social media posts, what topics people respond to and react to the most, what kind of content you should be showcasing on your website, and how many people are engaging with your brand.
Conclusion
A digital marketing plan is only as solid as its weakest link. Like any strategic planning session or meeting, the digital marketing plan is only as good as the information presented in it.
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