Building a digital marketing strategy? It starts here

Digital marketing is not a blue pill that produces unheard-of results at the press of a button.

It is a process. The implementation of a clear strategy in which you work step by step, across several channels, on the right perception with your audience. The goal: building a competitive advantage over the long term.

In this article we go through how to build a digital marketing strategy that actually works.

1. Make customer profiles

First of all it matters to sketch what your ideal customer looks like. Do this before you send any message out into the world.

Let us look at it with common sense: you address a sixteen-year-old student differently from a forty-year-old accountant with two children. A good marketer starts from analysis. So look at your existing customer database first and answer these questions:

• how much do your current customers bring in?
• how scalable is this customer segment?
• how labor-intensive is this type of customer?
• what do your customers need and want?
• what already works in the market?
• which keywords do they type into search engines?
• which questions do they have about your product?

Trying to be everything to everyone is being nothing to no one.

Use those insights to define your ideal customer profile and make it visual. That is the first step.

2. Put the customer at the center

A lot of companies make the mistake of only communicating about themselves. “We are at this trade fair.” “We have something new.” “Our company is expanding.”

There are moments to share things like that, but focus above all on how you offer potential customers something of value. What does the customer get out of this?

A strong strategy turns the roles around. You respond to the needs, the doubts and the desires of your audience.

Use content to answer their questions: articles, emails, video, social posts. Bring the right message to the right channel at every moment, tuned to where the customer sits in their journey.

An example of the buyer’s journey

Attract, from stranger to visitor. Jan does not know your company. Through an article, an ad or a review he comes into positive contact with it.

Convert, from visitor to lead. He keeps showing interest and downloads a guide, comes to an event, or signs up for the newsletter.

Close, from lead to customer. Through convincing content, emails or a positive contact with the sales team, he decides to become a customer.

Delight, from customer to ambassador. Because of the excellent experience, Jan recommends your company to Erik. And for Erik, now a stranger, the whole process starts again.

3. Attractiveness and positive perception

People unconsciously link beauty with quality, which is known as the halo effect. If you want to build trust, everything has to look professional. Pay attention to three things.

A house style. Use consistent colors and typefaces so they become linked to the company and recognizable to the customer. Carry them through your logo, your website and your social posts. A house style creates calm and recognition.

Designs per platform. Different platforms need different dimensions and designs. Image formats for Instagram are not the same as for Facebook or email.

High-quality photography and video. High-quality images get more engagement because they look more attractive. The same goes for video: use professional cameras, get the sound right and use appropriate, properly licensed music.

4. Use a multichannel approach

Your customers consume content on different channels: email, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, articles. So your message has to be there too, adapted to the channel each time.

Start with an overarching brand story and translate it to every channel. Take account of the type of content and of the stage the customer is in: awareness, consideration, decision.

Combine audio, text, image and interaction. People process information in different ways, so vary your formats.

5. Advertise online

“Advertising is easy, you press a button and the ad is live.”

In reality companies throw away a great deal of money this way. On Google, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, most SMBs lack both the knowledge and a clear strategy.

The platforms and forms available include search ads, social ads on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, retargeting, display advertising on publisher sites, and paid posts with creators.

Advertising as a super tool

It is remarkable how precisely you can reach people. Through custom audiences you can bundle the five percent of people who spend the longest on your website and use them as an audience. The same goes for professional profiles on LinkedIn.

There is an important distinction between everything that is social media and everything to do with search advertising. Each has its own applications and requirements. What matters is investing in the platforms that meet a specific goal fastest.

With retargeting you can make sure one-time visitors come into contact with your company again. Think about the buyer’s journey here too. Somebody clicked on the page for an ebook but did not download it: you can reach that person with an ad prompting the download, while excluding the people who already have it.

6. Maximize your results

A digital plan has to be refreshed and analyzed regularly. The creative execution decides your result too. A strong strategy with weak visuals or weak copy does not work. Constant critical analysis is the message.

Make it measurable

• how many posts were sent?
• how many likes did they generate?
• what works best?
• what did the retargeting campaign produce?
• how many leads, clicks and budget went into the campaign?
• how many clicks came through search advertising?

Make sure you have a crystal-clear answer to all of those. Analytics platforms let you build dashboards to see them, and the ad platforms have their own reporting to pull data from.

7. Look after your leads and follow up

Once an enquiry comes in, the way you follow up decides whether somebody becomes a customer. Work with clear internal processes. Connect marketing and sales through codes or CRM tags. And make sure follow-up is fast and personal.

To influence word of mouth positively, you want customers to become promoters of your company. You do that by continuing to serve them with valuable information and follow-up, turning them into genuine ambassadors through newsletters, useful content and personal communication.

8. Influence word of mouth

As Scott Cook put it, a brand is no longer what a company says it is, but what consumers tell each other it is.

Digitally you want to deliberately influence people to choose your company. Providing the right information to the right audience at the right moment plays a large part in that.

But how else can you influence word of mouth?

• respond when people ask questions online, so you offer real-time customer service
• collect reviews, put written or filmed customer testimonials on your website, and get mentioned in authoritative trade publications

9. Do not forget the P’s

The principles marketing turns on are price, product, place, promotion and people. Digital marketing works even better when all of them reinforce each other.

Consider a retail chain closing dozens of stores. Not because of its pricing, its product, its promotion or its people. There was one thing it missed: place, in the shape of a webshop.

Power to the people

What often gets forgotten is the impact of committed employees. Once you have hired capable, engaged people it matters that you keep supporting them. Colleagues are an enormous factor in positive word of mouth too.

Building your strategy

Ready to build your digital marketing strategy? You now have what you need to do it well. Need help? Get in touch.