How To Have A Successful Digital Marketing Strategy In 2023: Top Resources For You - UMass Blog (2023)

Companies use marketing to expand their visibility to target audiences, increase engagement and maintain customer loyalty, which means that in today's competitive market, companies must develop and implement the best possible marketing strategy. However, creating the ideal game plan is difficult. After all, no two companies are exactly alike, and not all demographics respond to the same marketing tactics. So what's a digital marketer to do?

We'll dive into the hows and whys of digital marketing strategies, how to create a digital marketing strategy, and things like planning marketing campaigns and marketing techniques.

What is a digital marketing strategy?

A digital marketing strategy evaluates specific business goals and develops a plan to build an Internet presence through online channels such as social media, organic search, paid advertisements, and other web-based media such as a company's website. The objective is to use existing digital resources and strategies to increase the number of customers and their participation.

Digital marketing strategies come in many forms. For example:

1) Content marketing

In this case, the content consists of materials such as infographics, videos, blog posts and more.

2) E-Mail-Marketing

In this form of digital marketing, email campaigns are created and sent to new and existing customers. Email campaigns are also one of the most profitable marketing strategies.

3) Pay per click advertising

Also known as PPC, this strategy involves bidding on keywords that you want your business ads to show for. Your ad will appear when a user's search uses the keyword.

4) Search Engine Optimization

Also known as SEO, it is all about improving your website's ranking in search engine results. For example, did you know that only 25% of web searches make it to the second page of search results?

5) Social media marketing

We've already established that marketers need to focus their efforts where so many people are: social media. It could be Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter or whatever comes next.

6) Videomarketing

Everyone loves video, and video marketing gives you valuable information about your business and products in an engaging and fun way.

7) Sprach-SEO

Voice SEO is a newer form of digital marketing that optimizes new and existing website content for voice search (e.g. Alexa, Siri, Echo).

Why does your company need a digital marketing strategy?

At this point, we're pretty sure no one needs to be convinced that the key to a company's success in today's market is digitalization. Marketing campaigns are clearly more effective when they focus on where the most people are, and today everyone is online.

Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration though.Online audiences have undoubtedly grown over the past decade.Also, it shows no signs of slowing down! So if you want to reach a lot of people, go digital.

But there is a difference between realizing the importance of focused online marketing efforts and realizing the need for a structured and organized approach.

Your business needs a digital marketing strategy because:

a) First, optimize your marketing efforts:Digital marketing strategies keep your sellers and their efforts organized. Marketing strategies provide structure, eliminate guesswork, reduce unnecessary layoffs, and increase accountability.

b) Provide marketers with real data:This benefit is closely related to optimization. Once your marketing department puts the strategies into action, you'll have a wealth of data on the effectiveness of your plan. After receiving this feedback, your organization can decide which strategies need to be implemented going forward.

c) Increases return on investment (ROI):An organized marketing strategy reduces waste and errors and improves response time and rational use of resources.

d) Offers a new perspective on your customers:Effective digital marketing strategies focus on customers, encouraging you to find new ways to engage them and think outside the box. Digital marketing strategies allow marketers to analyze every step of the buyer's journey and inspire digital marketers to add more value to the company-customer relationship.

e) Motivate your marketing department to learn more:Knowledge is power, and digital marketing strategies empower your digital marketing efforts by encouraging you to think about all aspects of your business. It would be helpful if you research your target audience, competition, and trends to keep your strategy fresh and relevant.

How to create a digital marketing strategy?

While this is not a one-time process for creating a digital marketing strategy, the following steps cover all the bases:

1) Define the brand

If your company has branding guidelines, use them to define the brand and how it will be presented in online campaigns. Consider factors such as your value proposition, brand voice, and unique selling propositions.

2) Create a buyer persona

Consider the demographic you are targeting. Create a profile of your potential customers, including what would motivate them to use your services or products.

3) Metas SMART

Use smart, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely (SMART) goals to create your marketing strategy. Describe your company's short-term and long-term goals.

4) Choose your digital marketing strategies

Review the types of digital marketing above and determine which are the most effective. Consider past campaign experiences. Go with the methods that give the most bang for the buck; Don't just jump on the latest popular bandwagon.

5) Set a budget for digital marketing

Research digital marketing costs and create a realistic, actionable budget for your entire campaign.

6) Brainstorming Strategy

This is where you start planning concrete, measurable steps. Set budgets for all aspects of the marketing campaign and create timelines, deadlines and outlines.

7) Launch your digital marketing campaigns

Put your marketing campaign plan to work on the channels you choose. Make sure each channel has adequate tracking mechanisms in place.

8) follow-up of results

Use Google-based tools like Google Ads, Google Analytics and Google Search Console to measure and monitor campaign performance.

What are the six phases of a digital marketing strategy?

Now that we've covered how to create a digital marketing strategy, let's break the process down into common component steps. There is some overlap with our previous section and you can consider this information as a continuation and refinement of the ideas presented above.

Phase 1: Planning

This phase includes SMART goals, buyer personas, a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), customer research, etc.

Step 2: Implementation

Create the content.

Step 3: Execution

Put your social media marketing strategies into action.

Stage 4: Analysis

Review data, gather information about markets, users and opportunities, and measure performance.

Stage 5: Reports

Organize analysis results into easy-to-read reports and send them to stakeholders.

Step 6: Measurement

Call it a summary. Measure campaign results against marketing ROI (return on investment) and use this as a guide to creating actionable items for future improvements.

How to increase the impact of your digital marketing strategy

You would think it would be enough to build a solid digital marketing strategy, implement it, collect results and learn from experiences for next time. But no, it's not enough. It's a tough and demanding environment, and follow these five steps to increase the overall impact of your strategy.

a) Take advantage of automation:Automation is the wave of the future, making our jobs easier and reducing time spent on redundant tasks. Use automation to automate customer service operations, manage email lists, and do other heavy lifting.

b) Create content that means something to your audience:Customize your marketing content for your audience. Content needs to be relevant, valuable and interesting to the group you are trying to reach. If your digital marketing campaign targets multiple groups, you need to ensure that each group has a dedicated, personalized message that resonates with them.

c) Predictive Analytics abrange:Once you've collected your data, use it through datasets and algorithms to predict and analyze customer behavior. Predictive analytics is great for driving and measuring ROI as it helps you identify the most effective leads for your customers.

d) Keep reassessing your marketing strategy:Trends come and go. Social, political and economic factors are constantly changing. Markets evolve, so your strategy must evolve with them. For this reason, you should review your plan frequently.

e) Increase customer lifetime value:It's easier to retain established customers than it is to attract new ones, so use those good customer relationships to fuel your business growth and boost your marketing campaign. Identify your valuable customers, engage your customers across all platforms, and build a lookalike audience. Lookalike audiences are members of social networks who share characteristics with another group of members.

Want to become a digital marketing expert?

The key to a successful career is having the right skills. You can enroll in UMass AmherstBootcamp de Marketing Digitalto improve your skills or start a new career in this field.

In this bootcamp, you'll learn how to create innovative digital marketing campaigns to attract customers and increase engagement. You'll learn essential digital marketing skills from top university professors and challenging projects, including skills in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Web Analytics, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Conversion Optimization.

Indeed.comrecently reported that digital marketers can earn an average of $60,211 per year, which can be as high as $100,000.