Both traditional businesses and online ones need an online marketing strategy to increase the number of leads and customers.

A strategic plan in the digital field can mean planning that leads to success in time (reaching goals) or a significant increase in sales for an existing business, especially when the thinking is executed for a medium to long-term strategic plan.

Identifying good digital marketing solutions involves possessing a large array of knowledge in areas such as social media management, SEO, blogging, Google Ads Management, etc.

If at least one of the above concepts is completely new to you, we suggest that you study them at least for a basic level of understanding. They are the pillars of a complete and healthy online presence. If you are ready to start a business or sell a new product, you need to do a little (or even more) research, to develop and implement an online marketing strategy based on a series of digital marketing tactics.

In this article, you will find the concrete steps you should take to develop a successful digital strategy. Stay with us to learn the secrets of a healthy strategy!

Nevertheless, what does digital marketing mean?

Digital marketing includes a set of effective tools and methodologies used to promote products or services in the online domain. Online marketing includes an even wider range of mechanisms, techniques, and approaches than traditional business marketing, due to certain channels and mechanisms for promotion and measurement, accessible only in the online environment! In the digital environment, it is easier to access the results of each promotional campaign.

Online marketing brings the following benefits:

• Increasing market coverage potential (for example, in Moldova 72% of the population has internet access).
• Reducing promotional expenses (online promotion is much cheaper than a radio or television campaign).
• Improving customer service (through the maximum proximity to the target client, understanding his / her thinking, and awareness of the problems that this target audience is facing).
• A broader analysis of results (with the help of specific audiences, and performance metrics such as ROI or Engagement Rate, you can find very important data about what message is best for your target audience).
• Advantages of guerrilla marketing against competitors (when with little money you manage to build healthy and powerful marketing strategies you have a chance to overcome the competition in record time).

How to create an online marketing strategy

1. Create a healthy and enjoyable brand for people, who could compete with the biggest brands through an excellent digital presence.

In the modern world of advertising, the brand and the logo are just as important as the marketing strategy. Branding is what makes you become known and differentiates yourself from competitors. Therefore, before implementing the strategy, develop a name and only then create a digital enterprise strategy.

2. Research on competitors and digital marketing trends

You can do this even by analyzing their site. This way, you will find out about the pricing policy and sales methods, including the digital marketing tactics that competitors apply. Try to find out what marketing strategies your competitors have used in the past and what they use now; send them a message to find out what sales and/or follow-up methods they use. Thus, you will find out which are the most effective marketing techniques in your business and also which are the disadvantages of the competitors.

3. Research the market

Determine the exact niche you want to work on so that you can focus only on a certain target group or a few well-defined audiences. Decide who is the ideal consumer for your business. Target group analysis allows you to target your marketing strategy specifically to these people. The digital strategic plan is aimed at attracting and engaging the consumer you want to attract.

4. Research for examples of successful competitors' digital marketing strategies

We know it sounds simple and it is extremely complicated to implement in reality, however, it is not impossible! In the process of studying competitors, find out how many subscribers in social networks they have, what weekly and/or monthly Engagement Rate they have, how many people leave comments on their blog, what people's feelings about competitors' brands, etc. (in different niches metrics can serve as KPIs). Thus, you can understand if their marketing strategy observes a positive response from the users and "takes away" something useful to create a digital strategy for you.

5. Develop a multi-directional marketing strategy

To improve your brand recognition, you need to run multiple marketing campaigns at the same time. Get acquainted with the list of possible strategies below, which you must launch consecutively:

• Create accounts on social networks and post regularly (sometimes even daily) interesting and useful content. To attract as many followers as possible, the content of social media accounts must be constantly updated.
• Write useful SEO texts or hire an SEO expert to attract as much organic traffic as possible. Articles that constantly mention certain keywords related to your product and at the same time contain interesting materials, and helpful tips, are a great way to get your product out in front of potential customers. With their help, you will also be able to place your site as high as possible in the search results. Do not save on the deprivation of SEO expertise, because the Google search engine (and in the Republic of Moldova 94% of Internet users use Google) has a complicated algorithm to present the highest quality articles in the first positions of the search results.
• Create a customer base for email lists - to send newsletters with useful information and promotions. Owners of online stores for years have accumulated a customer base. If you do not have such a base, you can buy it from marketing companies or representatives of a similar niche market, but pay attention to how you continue to use it!
• Take video footage and valuable online lessons: about or complementary to your product. These can be placed: on your website, on social media, or on YouTube - to raise the interest of consumers and increase traffic to your site.
• Buy a place for advertising on sites that specialize in providing information about the niche you are a part of. For advertising banners, place your logo, a video, or any other information about your product. To create a high-quality advertising banner, use the services of a tested or recommended graphic designer.

6. Use tools to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaign

The easiest solution is to create an account in Google Analytics. Organize an advertising campaign for each direction of your strategy. In such a way, over time, you will be able to check which of them brings the highest return on your investment. All measurable data must be tracked for effective promotion. Otherwise, you will not learn which methods exactly work and you will operate blindfolded.

7. Be consistent in setting digital marketing tactics

Be extremely consistent if your promotional methods involve communicating with your customers. Meet your promises quickly and qualitatively, to get positive feedback on the site and other specialized portals. Motivate your customers to get this public feedback, create a portfolio of your successes, consolidate by all possible means the name you created, and work on your reputation.

8. Analyze the results of the marketing strategies and repeatedly apply the ones that bring maximum results

Success can be any of the methods you use now so that you can try to adjust them based on your positive experience to continually improve your indicators. Do not forget here about the Pareto rule, which also applies to digital marketing.

Therefore,  what you will need, to develop your online strategy, are:

• Brand;
• Marketing research;
• SEO-optimized content;
• Profiles on social networks;
• Interactive content (e.g. video, interesting images);
• Tools for analyzing the performance of online marketing strategies (Google Analytics, Kissmetrics).

9. BONUS: Key questions for choosing the right digital marketing strategy:

• What is your unique business offer?
• What are the "weak" and "strong" points of your product?
• What will the customer receive / what solutions will he find / what questions will he solve after using your product? Are there other ways to solve this problem without your product?
• Negative aspects of the product: adverse reactions, product lifespan, delivery. Which of these can be solved, for example, for an additional fee?
• Do you have secrets or know-how strategies that no one else uses?
• Do you have one-of-a-kind specialists in this area?
• Characterize the market. In your opinion, what is the level of saturation and competition?
• What is your current position in the market?
• Who is your competitor?
• What are the "weak" and "strong" points of your competitors?
• Who is the target audience? What are its needs, problems, fears, and objections?
• What does your product attract customers with? Why buy it?
• What are the weak and powerful points of promoting your product? Write down in detail what works and what does NOT work.
• What tools do you use in communicating with potential customers? Links: site, Vkontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Blogs, YouTube, etc.
• On what platform do you gather traffic (landing, site, audience, webinar) and how do you convert it into orders?
• What is the process of processing leads and applications?
• What key indicators do you collect and analyze in your business, and how?
• How long do you want to achieve the desired result and how long are you willing to devote to the project?
• The objectives of creating a promotion strategy: what are the commercial, brand, and business tasks following the implementation of this strategy?