Love it or hate it, digital marketing is here to stay. Your digital marketing strategy should be ready for this new landscape. The world has quickly moved from analog to digital, and people are consuming their news, information, and entertainment through digital media more every day. From desktops and laptops to smartphones and tablets (and whatever may be coming next), digital is where it’s at. Businesses must adapt to stay alive.
The good news is that while a digital world makes things easier for consumers, it has just as much to offer marketers. Digital marketing is streamlined. It’s fast, nimble and versatile. It enables you to plan strategically by utilizing qualified data to customize your campaigns.
In a nutshell, a quality digital marketing strategy means you get a tailor-made plan that caters to your target audience, boosting your digital channels so your business can thrive.
So, What Is a Digital Marketing Strategy, Exactly?
Before we dive into the top reasons you need a digital marketing strategy, let’s take a quick look at the elements of that strategy.
- Digital Advertising – Any strong online presence has a solid digital ad campaign to back it up. This includes anything from Google pay-per-click to social media ads, all of which provide targeted, timely and trackable results.
- Content Creation – Content is king in today’s digital marketing world. Fresh and compelling content that is valuable and relevant engages your audience and builds trust in your brand.
- Website + SEO – No matter how amazing your information is – if your audience can’t find it, it’s like you don’t exist. Search engine optimization and a memorable and informative website combined together will become one of your strongest marketing tools.
- Email Marketing – Reach customers where they are and build personal relationships with them by delivering well-timed and relevant information to their inboxes.
- Social Media – One out of every six minutes online is spent on social media. You have to be where your customers are!
Fly Pages uses an integrated approach to thoughtfully combine these elements when working to improve our clients’ digital marketing efforts. This method allows us to have the best chance of reaching our clients’s audience.
The Top 7 Reasons You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy
Having a Strategy Helps You Meet and Interact with Your Target Audience
The tools of digital marketing allow you to engage with your target audience in real time. Meeting your customers where they are and interacting with them gets your message to the right people at the right time. And because you are hanging out where your customers are, you get insight into what they want. This is crucial information that can help you figure out your next marketing move, which will give your customers a better experience and help you develop a good relationship with them.
Tactics Within a Strategy are Trackable & Easily Monitored
Tracking your digital ad spend gives you immediate, measurable and scalable data, which is useful when making marketing decisions. For example, if a Facebook ad isn’t performing, the process is nimble enough that you can change things up midstream and send your dollars where they will have more of an impact.
In real time, you can see if your ads are resonating with your audience, gauge whether or not you are using the right platforms, or determine if you’re hitting the right demographics. You can then take that information and use it to benchmark your objectives for future campaigns.
A Purposeful Strategy is Cost Effective and Provides Goal-Based ROI
With the information you gather from tracking and monitoring your digital campaigns, your results are measured and immediate, leading to better revenues and better branding, which in turn leads to a steady flow of targeted traffic. And because digital marketing is targeted, you don’t waste dollars on people who aren’t in your audience. You can focus your funds on the people who want to buy what you have to sell. It’s a cost-effective way to naturally and organically reach your customers and convert leads into sales.
Strategic Digital Initiatives Level the Playing Field for Smaller Businesses
With digital marketing, small and medium-sized companies now have the chance to compete in larger markets. The sales and marketing methods that may have previously only been available to big businesses are at everyone’s fingertips online. Digital marketing allows you to engage with your customers, no matter where in the world they are located.
Best-Practice Digital Tactics Cater to Modern Customer Needs
Smartphones have become a central part of life and are no longer just phones. They have quickly become the favorite alternative to laptops and personal computers, even to the point of influencing purchasing decisions. All it takes is a swipe or a button click to download music, book a flight, or order the newest gadget. Digital marketing makes it easy to reach those mobile consumers, and to keep up with changes in how people shop and interact with your brand.
Consistent Digital Marketing Earns People’s Trust
When you utilize digital marketing elements like content and email marketing, you build a relationship with your customers. You provide them with reliable, consistent, and helpful information, positioning you as the authority on the subject and building trust in your brand.
In addition, as they begin to share information about your brand, their friends pay attention. Social proof like reviews and testimonials from your current customers are reliable signals that let potential customers in your targeted audience know that you and your brand can be trusted.
A Great Message, Consistently Delivered, Prompts People to Take Action
Once you’ve earned their trust (and backed it up with proof that you can keep it), you can use effective strategies to entice prospective customers to take positive action. Using a call-to-action button on your website or social media page gives specific directions as to what your customer should do next.
If you’ve proven yourself to them, they’re more likely to sign up for your email list, download information, or make a purchase. Just remember: be consistent on every digital channel, follow your strategic messaging and branding, and make sure you’re providing value well before you ask prospects to convert.
If you want to take your digital marketing strategy to the next level, give us a shout. Tell us your business goals, and our team of experienced professionals will help get your strategy on the right track.
