Essential guide to creating a digital strategy
Digital marketing moves quickly. That’s why it’s essential that you regularly review what you’re doing – keeping up with the latest developments is a challenge. The mid point of a year is a good time to be reviewing – or indeed, even starting from afresh and creating a digital strategy. It offers the opportunity to step back, review what’s working and improve things for Q3 and Q4 in terms of how your marketing contributes to overall business objectives.
A good place to start is by analysing your existing website. What are your goals? I don’t mean woolly and fluffy concepts around volume of traffic or number of visitors – I mean, what is a conversion that matters to your marketing funnels? What is the goal of each page of your website – and what works well and what could be better? The team here at Saucy Horse would be happy to kick you off with one of our free website reviews. We’ll look at your website and suggest improvements that will bring in more visits and, crucially, conversions. Best of all, it’s completely free and there’s no obligation.
Click here to request your free website review.
Don’t fall for fads
Digital marketing seems to cover a very broad spectrum of activities. Not everything works for every company and not everything works for ever. It’s easy to get caught up in the latest digital marketing fad without considering whether it will deliver results for you.
This happened a few years ago with mobile apps. Every business wanted to have an app. It didn’t matter whether it did anything useful or not – the boss wanted an app.
Apps are great in certain circumstances and from a customer access point of view – but if there’s no need for one then it’s just a hole that you’ll pour lots of money into. When you’re creating a digital marketing strategy it’s important not to be blinded by these fads. Take time to actually think about what will deliver results in terms of the objectives you set. Don’t forget the fact that it’s nice when your marketing objectives deliver meaningful benefits in terms of the overall company objectives! You’d be surprised how often that has not been front-of-mind when we first start talking to clients. The strategy that works may not be the most exciting one.
Stop what doesn’t work
An effective digital marketer is data driven and, when needed, ruthless. Things move quickly and the strategy you spent ages crafting last month can become ineffective overnight. However, reviewing every one of your tactics against strategy, and most importantly, outcomes, and using tools like your Analytics software to track everything that’s happening is a good place to be. At the very least you’ll know when it’s not effective – and that’s the point at which you can check whether you’re asking the right questions.
New strategies won’t start to work overnight but there comes a point where you need to stop flogging a dead horse. Every hour you spend working on a failing strategy is an hour you could spend on something that actually works. If you want a little guidance on the strategies that might work for your business sector then talk to our marketing strategy experts.
Creating a digital strategy that works takes time and effort from the bottom up. It’s key you understand your MARKET by creating specific client personas, and then crafting a MESSAGE that resonates with them. Only then can you decide on the best MEDIA by which to deliver that message, and the content that you’ll need for your online presence. Add in tracking and measuring and you’ll never again be ‘blind’ – you’ll be in a position of power with your marketing strategy because you’ll know which bit is driving your lead generation and ultimately, sales.
