Both brick-and-mortar and online businesses need an online marketing strategy to increase market penetration and increase leads and then customers. A digital strategic plan can mean thorough planning that leads over time to success (achievement of goals) or significant sales growth for an existing business, especially when things start to be thought of from the perspective of a strategic, medium-term plan, or long.

If you're ready to start a business or sell a new product, you need to do a little (or even more) research and develop and implement an online marketing strategy based on several 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!

So what is digital marketing?

Digital marketing comprises a set of effective tools and methodologies used in promoting products or services online. Online marketing includes an even wider range of mechanisms, techniques, and approaches than traditional marketing, thanks to certain channels and mechanisms of promotion and measurement, accessible only in the virtual environment. So, in the digital environment, it is easier to have access to the results of each online promotion campaign.

Online marketing brings the following benefits:

• Increasing the market coverage potential.
• Reduction of promotion expenses (online promotion is much cheaper than a radio or television campaign).
• Improving customer service (by getting as close as possible to the target customer, understanding his way of thinking, and awareness of the problems faced by this target audience).
• A wider analysis of the results (with the help of specific audiences, and performance metrics such as ROI or Engagement Rate, you can learn very important data about which specific message catches best with your target audience).
• Guerilla Marketing advantage against competitors (when with little money you manage to build strong and healthy marketing strategies - you have a chance to beat the competition in record time).

How to create your online marketing strategy

1. Create a healthy and people-pleasing brand that could compete with the biggest brands through a great digital presence.

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

2. Research competitors and digital marketing trends

You can do this right by analyzing their website. That way, you will learn the pricing policy and sales methods, including the digital marketing tactics your competitors are applying. Try to find out what marketing strategies your competitors have used in the past and what they are using now; even 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 the field of your business and also which are the disadvantages of your competitors.

3. Study the market

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

4. Analyze examples of successful digital marketing strategies of your competitors

We know it sounds simple, but it is extremely complicated to implement in reality, however, it is not impossible! In the process of studying your competitors, find out how many social media followers they have, what their weekly and/or monthly Engagement Rate is, how many people leave comments on their blog, how people feel about their competitors' brands, etc. (in various niches, metrics can serve as KPIs). That way, you can understand if their marketing strategy is getting positive responses from users and thus take something useful for creating a digital strategy for yourself.

5. Develop a multi-directional marketing strategy

To improve your brand recognition, you need to run multiple marketing campaigns simultaneously. Consider the list below of possible strategies to launch consecutively

• Create social media accounts and post regularly (sometimes even daily is appropriate) 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 consistently mention certain keywords related to your product and at the same time contain interesting material, and useful tips - are a great way to present your product to potential customers. With their help, you will also be able to place the site as high as possible in the search results. Do not save based on the lack of SEO expertise, because the Google search engine has a complicated algorithm to present the highest quality articles in the first positions of the search results.
• Create a database of contacts for email marketing - to send newsletters with useful information and promotions. Online store owners have been building up a customer base for years. The sooner you start, the better.
• Film videos and online lessons that provide value: about or complementary to your product. They can be placed: on your website, on social networks, and YouTube - to interest consumers and increase traffic to the site.
• Buy advertising space on sites that specialize in providing information about your niche. For banner ads, place your logo, a video, or any other information about your product. To create a quality banner ad, 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 a Google Analytics account. Organize an advertising campaign for each direction of your strategy. Thus, after a while, you will be able to check which one brings the highest return on investment.

All measurable data must be tracked for effective promotion. Otherwise, you won't learn which methods work and you won't work blindly!

7. Be consistent in setting digital marketing tactics

Be extremely consistent if your promotional methods involve communicating with customers. Fulfill your promises quickly and with quality to get positive feedback on the site and other specialized portals.

Motivate customers so that you get this public feedback, create a portfolio of your successes, strengthen by all possible means the name you have created, and work on your reputation.

8. Analyze the results of marketing strategies and repeatedly apply those that have shown maximum results

The winner can be any of the methods you are using now, so you can adjust it based on the positive experience to continuously improve the indicators. Don't forget the Pareto rule here, which also applies in digital marketing.

So what do you need to develop your online strategy:

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

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

• What is your unique selling proposition?
• What are the "weak" and "strong" parts 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: side effects, shelf life, delivery. Which of these can be resolved, for example, for an additional fee?
• Do you have secrets or know-how strategies that no one uses?
• Do you have one-of-a-kind specialists in the given field?
• In your opinion, what is the level of saturation and competition?
• What is your current market position?
• Who is your competitor?
• What are the "weaknesses" and "strengths" of your competitors?
• Who is the target audience? What are his needs, problems, fears, and objections?
• What attracts customers to your product? Why do they buy it?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of promoting your product? Write down in detail what works and what DOESN'T work.
• What tools do you use to communicate with potential customers? Website, Vkontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Blog, Youtube?
• On which platform do you collect traffic (landing, site, audience, webinar) and how do you convert it into orders?
• What is the process for processing leads and requests?
• What key/core/core indicators do you collect and analyze in the business, and how?
• How long do you want to achieve the desired result and how much time are you willing to dedicate to the project?
• Objectives of creating a promotion strategy: What are the commercial, brand, and business tasks following the implementation of this strategy?