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- What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?
- 1. Know Your Business
- 2. Know Your Customer
- 3. Define Objectives Define the objectives of the Digital Marketing plan
- 4. Marketing Funnels Mapping: Linking Objectives with Customer Decision Stages
- 5. Choose methods or marketing strategies that meet the objectives.
- 6. Choose media and channels to reach the target audience.
- 7. Report & Optimize: Measure the results and improve the Digital Marketing Strategy further.
- Recommend additional resources for learning about Digital Marketing.
When it comes to Digital Marketing, we often consider various methods to implement, consider the content, consider different platforms to reach customers, such as Facebook, LINE, Search Engines, etc., and consider the promotional strategies we want to use.
But the question is, how do we start creating a Digital Marketing Strategy that will allow us to conduct Digital Marketing systematically and comprehensively, meet our objectives, and be implemented effectively?
The content of this article will help you understand what a Digital Marketing Strategy is, what it consists of, and how to implement it successfully in practice.
What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?
Digital Marketing Strategy is the creation of a marketing plan that helps us understand what we have to sell/use, what we will do, how we will do it, for whom (target audience/customers), and where (channels). In other words, it encompasses the What, Why, Where, When, How, and Whom of marketing.
A good marketing plan will help us know what to do, how to do it, with whom, and when, in order to achieve what we aspire to.
What does a Digital Marketing Strategy consist of?
The following content will serve as a framework to help you establish basic planning principles, consisting of 7 steps, as follows:
- Know your own business. What will we sell?
- Know the customers or target audience
- Set the marketing objectives and KPIs.
- Design the customer decision-making journey (Customer Journey)
- Choose channels and media to reach the target audience.
- Choose a strategy, substance, or promotion.
- Bring everything together to design the plan.
What needs to be done for each item? What should we think about? Let’s gradually understand each step together.
1. Know Your Business
Before we start marketing, of course, we need to know what we are going to sell. But it’s not just that. In order to create an effective Digital Marketing strategy that truly drives sales, business owners must first have a deep understanding of their own business.
“Know Your Business” What do you need to know?
Get to know the overview of our business: What we do, what we sell, who we sell to.
It would be quite strange if we started marketing without knowing what our business actually does as a whole, what it exists for, or who it serves… The tool that will help us understand our business better is the Business Model Canvas.
The appearance of the Business Model Canvas (BMC)
Image from wikipedia.org
The Business Model Canvas is a simple nine-box table that helps us understand our business better. It can be used from the moment we start designing the business or to gain a deeper understanding of our own business. Each of the nine boxes helps the business understand itself better, as we engage in our business activities…
- Who needs to do what, and what labor or resources are required (Key Partner, Activities, Resources)?
- What value does it provide to people/consumers/the market, or in other words, what services or products does it offer (Value Propositions)?
- Who are the customers, how will we reach them, and through which channels (Customer Relationship, Customer Segment, Channels)?
- Expected costs and revenues of the business (Cost & Revenue)
For planning marketing, whether it be Digital Marketing or offline marketing The aspects of value, products, and customers, as well as the methods of reaching customers, are crucial parts that, if we think carefully, will help us formulate strategies that truly align with the business. Not going off course or doing marketing that may not yield results for the business itself.
It is recommended that if you do not yet have a good understanding of the business and BMC, or if you have never done it before, you should take a little time to study this further and try printing out this Canvas to write on it in order to understand your business as a whole before starting to make a marketing plan.
Know your strengths and weaknesses (SWOT Analysis)
SWOT Analysis is another widely used business and marketing framework to understand what strengths and weaknesses a business has, and what opportunities and obstacles there are for business growth.
By “S-W-O-T,” what does each letter mean?
S – Strength
W – Weakness
O – Opportunities
T– Threats
SWOT Analysis
Image from wikipedia.org
We might try using SWOT to analyze our business first, identifying the strengths that give us an edge over competitors or attract customers (so we can choose the right marketing message). And what about our weaknesses? What will we do about them? How will we communicate with our target audience or customers? Are there any opportunities or markets that can help us sell or market our products better? And finally, let’s list the obstacles that might hinder our business operations, marketing, and sales from achieving our goals. How will we address or overcome these obstacles?
In this section, it is still a broad understanding of the business, but it is one of the top priorities before we rush to come up with promotions to win over the target audience.
Understanding the business well first With BMC or SWOT, including other aspects of our products and services, we will know where to allocate our efforts and resources to achieve the highest results.
2. Know Your Customer
ขั้นตอนนี้ เป็นอีกขั้นตอนคลาสสิกที่จะข้ามไปไม่ได้เลย ซึ่งในขั้นตอนการทบทวน BMC เราก็พาจะแตะๆ มาบ้างแล้ว แต่ในขั้นตอนการทำ Digital Marketing Strategy ขั้นตอนนี้ เราจะมาลงรายละเอียดการ “กำหนดกลุ่มลูกค้า” ของธุรกิจมากขึ้น ด้วยเครื่องมือที่เรียกว่า “Customer Persona” หรือ “แบบจำลองลูกค้า”
An Example of a Customer Persona
Customer Persona and Digital Marketing Strategy
Customer Persona is a simulated representation of a customer, someone like this, who is our customer. This simulation may be based on our Brand Position, targeting urban dwellers, office groups, etc. Or we might use Customer Persona to understand the customers we already have and want to continue focusing our marketing efforts on them.
If we understand our Persona or customers well, we will know how to plan and strategize our marketing to reach them.
The details of the Customer Persona that should be focused on include
- Who is the customer (basic personal information): age, gender, education, province of residence, occupation, status (single/married), etc.
- Goals/Problems/Interests: Hobbies, Likes/Dislikes, Interests. What are the goals or problems they have?
- His behavior and channels: The channels he uses to consume news, channels for acquiring knowledge or accessing products, such as Facebook, Google, physical stores, etc. This may also include payment channels.
- What they prioritize or worry about: These are the key factors in their considerations or decisions.
The details and information of the customers that we create as Customer Personas will help us understand how to design our marketing plan and which channels to use. What kind of message or content will resonate with them? What tactics will make them decide to become our customers? We will understand this in the next steps.
3. Define Objectives Define the objectives of the Digital Marketing plan
And now we have reached the stage of setting goals and defining the objectives of our Digital Marketing.
First of all, many people may have a vague understanding between “goal” and “objective.” Let me explain a little for clarity.
Marketing goals vs Marketing objectives
The term “goal” (Marketing Goal) refers to something we want to reach, similar to a destination on a map or GPS that we want to go to. For example, a marketing goal could be to have the brand grow to be well-known and top of mind when people think of products/services in the same categories.
Different from the term “objective” (Marketing Objective), which refers to various metrics we set to support the realization of the business’s marketing goals. The nature of an objective is something tangible. Measurable and based on reality, for example, needing 50,000 users to visit the website per month, needing 50 free registrations per month, etc.
If we are going to create a marketing strategy, what we need to define are measurable marketing objectives so that we can then choose methods and tools to develop a Digital Marketing strategy that meets these objectives.
Example of setting marketing objectives
Build Brand Awareness
- There is a monthly traffic of 50,000 users to the website.
- Got Facebook Reach per post over 1,000 Reach
- There are 10,000 followers on the Facebook Page in 3 months.
- A webpage of the website appears on the first page of Google for 10 important keywords within 6 months.
Nurture Leads & Prospects
- There was a 10% increase in email subscribers in the first quarter.
- There are 20 brochure downloads per month.
- There are people who have filled out the form to be contacted back.
- Someone contacted us to request a demo.
Create results or set income (Hit Conversion)
- Closed 30 sales per month.
- Achieved sales of 100,000 baht per month.
Techniques for Setting Marketing Objectives with SMART Goals
Image from productplan.com
The SMART goal-setting principles (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) still apply to setting marketing goals or objectives.
…set specific objectives Read and understand what needs to be done, such as Increase website traffic
…set measurable objectives to track progress
…set achievable objectives (Attainable) based on the business, market, and resource conditions
…set objectives that align with the goals and the business itself (Relevant)
…set objectives by specifying the completion date and measuring results (Time-bound)
For example
“Our company must have a specific number of 30 demo contacts (Specific) every month (Time-bound) to increase the chances of acquiring new customers (Relevant).”
Marketing objectives can be defined and measured using various metrics. However, the metrics we choose to set as marketing objectives should genuinely address business goals and be realistically achievable, based on the various factors we have analyzed about our business and customers.
4. Marketing Funnels Mapping: Linking Objectives with Customer Decision Stages
Knowledge about the Digital Marketing Framework or Sales Funnel We will use it in this step to formulate the Digital Marketing strategy.
After we have set the various objectives of the brand, sometimes we may not have completely “plugged the gaps,” resulting in the objectives we devised being incomplete. Sometimes we may only set objectives for the Awareness stage or making the brand known, and the objectives related to sales only. This leads to our chosen strategies not being able to address every decision-making stage of the target audience, allowing them to slip away at certain points.
Whether it’s the Sales Funnel, AIDA, or Inbound Marketing Flywheel, we can use these Marketing Frameworks as a framework for thinking about the objectives and marketing strategies to be used.
An example of linking objectives with the Sales Funnel
Sales Funnel can be divided into 3 stages: Awareness Stage, Consideration Stage, and Decision Stage.
Awareness Stage: Recognizing the Problem, Interested
- There is a monthly traffic of 50,000 users to the website.
- There are 10,000 followers on the Facebook Page in 3 months.
- A webpage of the website ranks on the first page of Google for 10 important keywords within 6 months.
Consideration Stage: The stage of considering solutions or deciding to make a purchase.
- There was a 10% increase in email subscribers in the first quarter.
- There are people who have filled out the form to be contacted back.
- Someone contacted us to request a demo.
Decision Stage: The stage of deciding on a solution or making a purchase decision
- The number of people using discount coupons
- The number of people who registered in advance
It seems we have reflected and found that the objectives we set cover all decision-making processes, and each process is interconnected. In the next step, we will find strategies or marketing methods to achieve the various targets as outlined in the objectives.
5. Choose methods or marketing strategies that meet the objectives.
Once we have set the marketing objectives, it is as if we have posed a question to ourselves or our marketing team. What remains is to choose the answer, or the marketing strategy.
There are many marketing strategies available. Which may mean, for example, discounts, exchanges, giveaways, or other promotions, where we can choose to do it in various ways. Or it could mean different offers that our brand or business can present to them. We can choose to use various strategies, selecting those that meet the needs of our target group and are likely to achieve the marketing objectives we have set.
The list of messages in the table on the right are examples of offers that we can choose to meet the objectives in the decision-making process or each stage of the sales funnel.
An example of a Sales Funnel that specifies the marketing strategies to be used.
Example neilpatel.com
Examples of Digital Marketing Strategies
- Upsell / Downsell
- Discount / Promotion / Bundle
- Making a website appear at the top of Google (SEO)
- Influencer / Sponsorship / Partner
- การสะสมแต้ม / โปรโมชั่นชวนใช้ซ้ำ
- ทดลองใช้ / Free Trial
- Coupon
- Personalization
- Marketing Automation
Etc.
6. Choose media and channels to reach the target audience.
At this stage, we will select the media and channels we will use to promote or implement the strategies we have chosen to reach our target audience.
The media we choose to use can be easily divided into three categories, which are:
- Paid Media Buying media or advertising, which will yield immediate results but comes at a high cost.
- Owned Media, or media that we own ourselves, whether it’s a website, email, or the brand’s social media channels.
Earned Media, or media from others that mentions our brand, which can be in the form of Organic (people mentioning it themselves, people reviewing it themselves) or Influencer/Sponsorship, etc.
Improvement diagram from tribe.digital
In addition to selecting media, we will then choose “Channels” or digital marketing channels, which are avenues that can reach our target audience, and select strategies that will map to the marketing strategies we have chosen.
Examples of popular marketing channels
- Website & Blogging
- SEO
- Google Search Ads
- Social Media
- Social Media Ads
- YouTube & Other Video Platform
Read more: Highlights and tips for marketing on each Digital Marketing Channel
At this point, you have a rough outline of the entire process as a guideline for planning your Digital Marketing strategy. The format could be in Excel or Google Sheets, or it could be a Presentation detailing the objectives, Sales Funnel Stages, strategies to be implemented, and marketing channels to be used, along with a Timeline indicating what needs to be done when, or you could specify who is responsible for each task.
But your Digital Marketing strategy will still be incomplete without measuring results and evaluating them to develop and create better marketing plans.
7. Report & Optimize: Measure the results and improve the Digital Marketing Strategy further.
After we create the Digital Marketing Strategy and start implementing it, the ‘necessary’ next step is to measure the results of everything we have put effort and investment into, so that we can know which strategies and factors are truly effective.
Whether you are doing Digital Marketing for your own business or for someone else’s brand, everyone wants to know what is going well and what needs to be improved. Optimize the results to be better, including the expenses invested in various marketing activities.
Recommend additional resources for learning about Digital Marketing.
I hope this article will help you plan your marketing strategically and create a practical marketing plan. Additionally, Content Shifu has many more stories and knowledge in marketing, including techniques, methods, and other insights. You can follow our blog and learn about various aspects of Digital Marketing with us.