Digital Marketing Strategy: Be Your Own Marketer in 2022

Promotion , like any other strategy, consists of mandatory steps:

1. Preparation

Studying the current situation, identifying real problems and obstacles on the way to the goal, identifying strengths.

2. Primary Digital Marketing Stratigies

Formation of an algorithm of actions to eliminate problems and rational use of resources in order to achieve the desired result.

3. Active testing of the primary strategy

Implementation of all planned actions necessary to achieve the goals.

4. Performance monitoring

Evaluation of the effectiveness of each tool and actions taken to achieve the goal

5. Retouch

Adjusting strategies, tools and actions to optimize them and maximize profits.

Each of these stages is equally important for the achievement of the goals. After all, without understanding the current state of your business and the environment in which it will work, it is impossible to adequately define goals.

The absence, or incorrect definition, of the goal excludes the possibility of forming a working strategy. Actually, the strategy itself cannot provide a result without action.

The actions themselves can lead to unexpected results: “the road appears under the feet of the walking one.” Our life and entrepreneurial journey is a useful experience that we need to gain in order to correct our actions. Lack of adjustment can distance us from the result and make our actions meaningless.

Goal Of Digital Marketing Strategy

So, the main goal of the formation of a marketing strategy is obtaining a clear and reasonable algorithm of actions to achieve the set business goals. A clear marketing strategy should be both for the owner, managers, and for each ordinary employee. That is why, each step must be logically justified and explained to each member of the team. After all, marketing does not end with the marketer, it only begins with him. If each employee understands his role in achieving a common goal, his work efficiency will be higher.

At the same time, everyone should understand not only their area of responsibility, but also the role of others. In order not to devalue someone else’s work and not to exalt one’s own – which brings unnecessary discord and imbalance. In the absence of a balance within the company, it is not possible to scale predictably, increase sales and profits, and take a leading position in the market.

Some experts believe that in order to form a content marketing strategy, it is necessary to have some experience with one or more tools or channels of attraction. But, when you planned and created a business, you hardly acted blindly. At a minimum, you selected the best place for a store, coffee shop, office. We analyzed competitors in the district, looked at what works well for them, and what makes you stand out. That is, you made a certain plan of action, even if you did it in your head.

And this means that you already then began to create your marketing strategy. Accordingly, the faster it materializes into instructions and documents for yourself, for your partners, employees, contractors, the faster you will get additional leverage both for business management and for scaling.

Therefore, the question of whether you are ready to create a marketing strategy should not be in principle.
It is important when you are just about to start.
It is needed when certain promotion tools have already been tested and there is a certain result.
It is obligatory when there are already certain positive results.
It is vital when there are already basic points of contact with the audience (website, page in the social network, page in the local issue, etc.), there is traffic, applications and sales.
Without it, it is not possible when sales volumes are not satisfied, goals are not met, and you do not know how to change the situation.

Marketing DISMANTLING

And the only thing you need right now is to understand the basics of digital marketing, understand how the basic tools work, who should perform what tasks and how to control them. You will find answers to these questions in my book “Marketing DISMANTLING – an educational program for an entrepreneur, marketer and not only.”

Otherwise, you already have the necessary experience: understanding the concept of your brand and product, your target audience and its needs. The main thing is to understand that no one will “package” your business better than you, no one will sell your product better than you can. If you don’t know how to present and sell your product, it’s too early for you to think about self-promotion. In this case, expert assistance and prompt closing of gaps in competencies and knowledge is needed.

Having formed a strategy and following it, you will be able to reach a qualitatively new level of work, solve your problems and be able to scale, constantly increasing your profits.

Any strategy begins with an understanding of the initial position – an audit of the current state and an audit of competitors (I devoted several live broadcasts to this issue on the KBV consulting page on Instagram). In fact, this is the first stage in the formation of a full-fledged marketing strategy. He gives us the answer to the questions:
– What do we have at the moment?
– What is the situation on the market?
– What do we want to achieve?
– What are the main promotion channels we can use?
What actions will help you achieve your goals?

To better understand the picture, we need facts and figures. It is important to understand your strengths and weaknesses, potential market threats and opportunities for growth. We need to answer basic questions about our business and product, about the market and customers, about competitors and pricing, the deal cycle and sales funnel, and so on.

Even a basic audit can answer a hundred questions. I will now give just a few of those that will help us form a strategy that works in almost any conditions:
What do we sell?
Which of our products are the most beneficial for us, which ones for consumers?
How do we position ourselves?
What advertising activities do we use now and how effective are they?
What is the state of our website, pages of social networks, directories, forums, etc.?
What is the reputation of our company at the moment?
What is our unique offer (USP of our products)?
Why is it profitable for consumers to buy from us?
What do our competitors offer?
What are the advantages of competitive products?
What are the sales volumes at this stage?
What is the estimated volume of demand in the market?
Why is our offer better than competing products? etc.

Target Audience

At the same stage, we must clearly present our consumer – work out our target audience . Here it is important to understand whether among our potential customers there are bright groups of consumers who are united by certain demographics and interests. So it will be easier for us to create catchy advertisements and the necessary newsbreaks for them.

Ideal Clients in Digital marketing

At the same time, if it is not possible to single out “ideal” clients – do not despair – modern advertising campaigns are smart enough to select the appropriate target audience for us on their own. True, in practice, manual tuning often allows you to get better results.

Next, you can move on to defining goals . This is very important in order to choose the right toolkit. Understanding the global task, it is easier to think over specific actions. After all, the big is made up of the small. A clear idea of the goal, combined with an understanding, albeit indicative, of the possibilities of promotion channels will give us an answer to the question of the number of channels and the required amount of work in them. Any large goal should be divided into a number of tasks, and each task into subtasks. Thus, we will get an idea about our sales funnels and criteria for evaluating their effectiveness:
– the number of applications, sales, active customers, etc.,
– sales volumes, market share,
– percentage of website conversion into applications, applications into sales, etc..

Achieving Results

To achieve maximum results, it is important to set specific expectations and plan goals for key products and “ideal” customers. How to do it? It is easy to use the average market indicators for the number of targeted requests, the level of competition and the cost per click, for the click-through rate of advertising and the conversion of website visitors into buyers. Thus, we will be able to predict not only advertising budgets, but also the load on the sales department. It will also be clearer by what tools it is possible to achieve the planned figures.

All the digital marketing strategy steps described above allow you to create a primary marketing strategy. And this means that we will already get a landmark and motion vectors. Only now everything will need to be tested by combat. Only practical testing will hone both strategy and tactics. It is important for us to be aware that the marketing strategy should be moderately flexible and adaptive. Flexible enough to quickly respond to changes in demand, market, consumer. At the same time, not too flexible – to get a full-fledged feedback from a specific advertising activity, you need a certain amount of time, appropriate traffic and the number of interactions with potential customers. For example, you should not change an advertisement in the target only because it did not bring requests during the day. After all, perhaps you need to adjust the audience, either increase the budget a little to get the right reach, or just restart the campaign. This is absolutely normal practice.

The digitization of everything around us has given us the opportunity to measure professional marketing activities with very specific numbers. Therefore, at the stage of implementing your strategy, special attention should be paid to analytics. Unfortunately, this system is not perfect either. That is, data can be collected and interpreted in different ways. That is why it is extremely important for every entrepreneur to have at least a basic understanding of web analytics.

The first ad launches will allow you to adjust your expectations in terms of timelines and budgets, as well as conversion rates at different stages of the funnel. There is no need to despair if sales do not grow 2 or 3 times in the first weeks. Sometimes, during this period they do not grow at all. And there are objective reasons for that. Perhaps we are fighting in a highly competitive niche and we need to win back our “piece of the pie” from the current leaders. Therefore, in the first months it is worth focusing on increasing other key indicators. For example, traffic growth, increasing the time users spend on the site, increasing engagement.

A B Testing

Testing is also a litmus test for all the “weak links” in our chain of interaction with the target audience. Having started the PROMOTION, we need to promptly respond to both negative and positive trends. For example, a lack of traffic can lead to a low number of transactions. On the other hand, too much traffic can paralyze the work of the sales department.

Therefore, in the first case, we need to take care of increasing traffic, and in the second, increasing the throughput of the sales department. For example, by increasing the number of call center operators or transferring part of the traffic to a chat bot. Here it is important to keep track of every parameter: conversions, average check, returning customers, additional sales, etc.

The testing phase is inseparable from the adjustment of the strategy. It allows you to move from a hypothetical to a real and working strategy. Here it is important to work out in detail each element of the strategy and hone the tools. It is very important to share information about both the strategy itself and the PROMOTION process with your team.

After all, a misunderstanding entails an overestimation of one’s own efforts, an underestimation of the contribution of other team members, and in general leads to an imbalance in the team, which will certainly disrupt plans.