6 steps in creating a digital marketing plan
A digital marketing plan is an essential tool for any business, large or small. It's important to have a plan in place to help you grow your company and generate more revenue. This blog post will walk through 6 steps that will create the perfect digital marketing plan for your business!
But first, let's explain what is a digital marketing plan and the benefits of having one!
What is a digital marketing plan?
A digital marketing plan is a strategy that includes the goals, objectives and initiatives of your company's online presence. It helps you to focus on important aspects like target audience, content creation, how often you post updates/information about your business and more.
What are some benefits of having a digital marketing plan?
There are several reasons why it's so beneficial for any sized business or entrepreneur to create an effective digital marketing plan:
- It lays out what steps need to be taken in order to achieve specific short-term & long-term goals.
- You can stay organized with all of your work in one place - no matter if you're working independently or as part of a team at your company!
- Your employees will know what to do and how they can contribute to the company's success.
- It helps you keep your website up-to-date with fresh, relevant content that will attract new customers!
- You'll be able to measure the results of campaigns/tasks easily. You can then determine what works best for your business so that you know where it makes sense to spend more money in the future (and where not).
- Creating a digital marketing plan is an ongoing process - just like any other work project or goal. It takes time every week but once you have everything set out on paper, it becomes much easier than trying to remember all of these points yourself while working independently!
Scroll down for step-by-step instructions on creating a digital marketing plan!
6 Steps to create a digital marketing plan
Now we'll show you the 6 steps in creating a digital marketing plan
- Define your goals
- Identify your target audience
- Research the competition and what they're doing to be successful
- Develop a strategy for each of your marketing channels (social media, email, website)
- Set your budget
- Measure the results of all your efforts and make course corrections accordingly
1. Define your goals
Before you can begin to create a digital marketing plan, it's important that you first define your goals.
What are some of the main things you want people to know about your company? What would make someone choose your product over another competitor's one? Is there anything specific that sets you apart from other businesses in your industry or geographical location?
You should aim to create S.M.A.R.T goals so you can later measure how will your digital marketing tactics were.
2. Identify your target audience
You should figure out who your product or services are made for! What kind of job do they have? Where are they located? What are their common interests?
The more specific you can get, the better. It's also a good idea to find out if your target audience is mostly male or female - that way you know whether there might be any differences in how they respond to marketing campaigns and messages!
3. Research the competition and what they're doing to be successful
There's no need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to do it better! Doing competitor research will give you marketing ideas on how you can be successful as well!
You should look at what social media profiles they're active on, keywords they're targeting, any paid advertising campaigns, and what content they're creating.
4. Develop a strategy for each of your marketing channels
It's important to have a separate strategy for each marketing channel you decide to use!
For example: If your business is active on Facebook and Instagram:
- what are the best times of day that work well for reaching your target audience
- What kind of images/videos should be used in order to get people interested in your company?
- How often do you post new content about product updates or sales & more?
- Would it make sense to start using paid advertising campaigns as well or maybe offer special discounts via selected hashtags only?
You need time every week (at least!) dedicated solely to creating fresh content.
For your email marketing campaign:
- You should create a strategy for how often do you plan to send out emails?
- What kind of offer or content will be featured inside the email (social media, blog post links, etc.)?
As far as your website goes:
- What are some key points that need improvement and which pages aren't pulling their weight yet in terms of conversions?
- Should there be more product images added to increase sales even further?
- Would adding a live chat improve the user experience and conversion?
- How about having an FAQ section where customers can easily find answers if they have any questions.
5. Set your budget
The goal of your digital marketing plan is to create a profit! That's why it's important to create a budget so you can maximize your revenue!
You should decide on how much to spend per month and set that as your limit.
Then, you can create a plan where each marketing channel has its own budget for advertising campaigns - if any at all!
6. Measure the results of all your efforts and make corrections accordingly
How do you know if your digital marketing tactics are working? You should create separate goals for each marketing channel that is being used in order to measure success.
For example, if you're active on Instagram - there are so many metrics to keep track of!
- The number of followers
- likes per post/day/week
- fan growth rate
- and many more.
For email campaigns:
- what's your open rate?
- Are people joining your email list?
- How many people clicked on your Call-to-action links?
For the website:
- what's the average time spent by visitors
- how many drop-offs did you have from your landing pages?
- Did traffic increase after adding new product images or FAQs to specific key points of interest for potential customers.
Once you measure the results for each marketing channel, you can make adjustments to make improvements!
Create your digital marketing plan today!
If you’ve never created a digital marketing plan before, the process may seem daunting and time-consuming. But it doesn’t have to be!
You should re-evaluate your digital marketing plan every so often just to ensure that goals are being met.
Don’t get discouraged if there are some kinks that need to be worked out.
Listen to customer feedback and learn from your mistakes! This will allow you to become a better business owner in the long run.