You Can’t Measure An Undefined Digital Strategy

As a business owner, you understand the importance of having a website and building an online presence. But if you think you can succeed online without a digital marketing strategy, you need to think again.

A digital marketing strategy is essential if you want to see results from your online efforts. Without a plan in place, you’re only going to waste your resources. You need a comprehensive strategy that includes specific goals. Your strategy sets a path to reach your goals through the use of SEO, advertising, social media, and so on.

You need to consider how your online marketing fits with your brand strategy and offline marketing efforts. Why should you do all this? Here are a few reasons why you can’t afford to neglect your digital marketing strategy.

Visibility

In order to build your brand and develop an online reputation, consumers need to be aware of your existence. Your digital marketing strategy plays a vital role.

One of the major goals of any online enterprise is to increase traffic.  More specifically targeted traffic, membership, sales, sharing, and so on. You can do a lot with a single strategy like SEO or social media marketing.  But the best results come when you form an all encompassing strategy.  Then you can make the best use of your resources to coordinate efforts on multiple platforms.

Competition

If you don’t have a social media marketing strategy in place and you’re not constantly fine-tuning it, you’re not really competing in your market. This isn’t to say that small or medium size businesses should necessarily try to compete with their larger brethren – they have far more resources.

That said, the online arena provides a virtually level playing field for competition within your local market or against business interests of roughly the same size. If your marketing strategy is superior, you can excel, but you need a solid plan based on market research, you need to keep an eye on what competitors are doing, and you must be prepared to adjust your strategy as needed to remain competitive.

Reach target audiences

Building a marketing strategy is a complex undertaking. You might be tempted to choose one avenue of marketing and go all in. The truth is that dumping all of your resources into SEO or Facebook advertising can certainly deliver results.

However, you’ve probably heard the phrase “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. The idea, of course, is that what cracks one egg could end up cracking them all. What if you funnel all of your resources and efforts into one form of marketing and it doesn’t pay off? Disaster.

A rounded strategy may require some trial and error initially, but the results of early efforts will help you to see what works, hone your strategy, and adjust to make the most of every medium you utilize for optimal outcome.

Cater to mobile users

More and more people rely on their mobile devices for browsing and shopping, and numbers are increasing year after year. A digital marketing strategy allows you to reach patrons and prospective customers in mobile space, approaching them on a platform they’re already using instead of expecting them to find you by other means.

Conversions

There are many goals with any marketing efforts, but online marketing, in particular, aims to increase a variety of conversions, from click-through, to lead generation, to sales, reviews, referrals, and patronage. A comprehensive online marketing strategy gives you the best opportunity to increase conversions on every level and streamline the process of turning leads into subscribers and visits into sales.

Savings

You can devote a lot of resources to any marketing strategy, including online marketing. There are two ways in which a digital marketing strategy can save you money. With a proper digital marketing strategy, with goals that can be tracked and measured, you have the ability to analyze results and tailor your efforts to reach marketing goals.

In addition, the potential for return on investment is greater with digital marketing. You can spend less and see greater results. Digital marketing is cost-effective, especially when used appropriately.

Increase sales and revenue

The ultimate goal of marketing is to see a return on investment in the way of sales that exceed expenses, helping your company earn enough revenue to survive and perhaps expand. Your digital marketing strategy is the first step toward creating funnels that end in sales and ongoing patronage.

It’s not enough to make forays into digital marketing by setting up social media profiles and advertising willy-nilly. You might see some results, but you’re not going to achieve the sustainable growth you could with a complete digital marketing strategy.

When you put in the time and effort to round out your strategy with a variety of complementary marketing activities and a comprehensive strategy, you can not only collect a range of data that helps you to hone and perfect your efforts, but you have the opportunity to improve visibility, engage your target audience, increase conversions, and of course, boost revenue.