Businesses these days fully understand what it means to have a strong and excellent digital presence. This is because since the world entered the post-digital transformation era, consumer behaviour has undergone drastic changes. If your company can’t adapt, then there’s a slim chance of achieving success.

Digital marketing has an important role today in consolidating and imprinting your brand on the internet and attracting new leads and customers. While the digital environment created a democracy and has helped even out the playing field for all businesses, the ecosystem is filled with rapidly-flowing information which makes the competition tougher. If you want to stay visible and remain relevant, it is necessary to act strategically. The most effective way to do that is to create a well-structured digital marketing plan.

You probably have a lot of questions around online marketing and how you can craft an effective plan, so to help you do that here are a few pieces of worthwhile advice.

Conduct a SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis refers to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of any business. This analytical tool is used in mapping out some of the key aspects of any strategic plan to identify what factors can influence the overall operations of a company. In marketing, this allows marketers and owners to diagnose potential opportunities and risks for the campaign which is essential when structuring a perfect digital marketing plan.

By knowing these components, it is easier to explore and assess the situation and find a workaround to resolve any issue or problem that might arise. SWOT analysis is usually done at the beginning of the process as it can serve as a point of reference for your team. So, whether you’re thinking of starting from scratch or updating your current strategy, this tool will be helpful to the planning process.

Identify Your Goals

Another crucial step you must take to come up with a well-structured digital marketing plan is to ask yourself about the things you want to achieve. By listing down your goal and objectives, you can get a clear view of the things you need to prioritise.  Even the most seasoned marketers will agree on this one.

In digital marketing, setting up specific and measurable goals plays a vital role in achieving success. You’ll also be able to establish KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which will be useful when you measure the effectiveness and progress of your approach. Later on, you can use this KPI in making crucial decisions in the future.

Create a Brand Persona

Creating and defining a brand persona can make or break the run of your digital marketing campaign. Why? It is primarily because it represents your company and carries the message you’d like to deliver to your audience. Brand persona stimulates the connection between your brand and your customers. It humanises your brand and makes it more relatable to people.

When creating a persona, it’s important you collect demographic data from your target audience. From there, you can develop an identity that specifically appeals to your audience. Through this, you can facilitate better strategies and communicate better with your potential clients. It can help you in exploring opportunities and drive more leads and conversion to your business.

Understand Digital Marketing Channels

Understand the different types of digital marketing channels. What digital assets and channels do you currently have? Do you have a website, social media profiles, paid advertising, listings, etc.? This will help you in determining the possible direction of your marketing campaign. While at it, you should also start asking yourself the following digital marketing questions:

• Which channel/s is/are most beneficial to your brand?
• Which among those digital assets are your customers most exposed to?
• Where do you see more leads and visit opportunities for your brand?
• How much time can you spare in managing other channels?
• Why do you need to create more profiles?

These questions will allow you to refine your decision in exploring multichannel strategy.

Although you are not required to build a presence on all channels, you’ll have to figure out which among them would impact positively on your brand. In case you choose to establish your presence in all those assets, be prepared to spare some time in managing them.

A digital marketing plan plays a vital role in guiding the direction of your online campaign. This also serves as your metric and progress report on the overall performance of your strategy. To develop a perfect and effective approach, it is necessary you understand your company from the inside out. In addition, it’ll benefit you if you stay updated with the latest trends in the industry. Most of all, there are two key aspects in devising a winning strategy and this lies with your goals and target audience. Once you establish these things, nothing can stop you from winning the competition ahead of your rivals.

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