With a majority of marketing and sales activities now being conducted online, having a strong and consistent presence has never been more important. Just like setting new year’s resolutions, creating a digital marketing strategy for your brand is a great way to set intentions or goals, but more importantly set out all the steps and actions that will help lead to the successful achievement of those goals. 

Most digital agencies follow a linear process in the development of their Marketing Strategy; stemming from a traditional ‘set and forget’ ethos. At Sentius, however, we see a Digital Marketing Strategy as a living, breathing thing that is always evolving, just like the technology used to deliver the campaigns is constantly advancing. 

Being responsive in our ever-changing world is what allows our clients to stay on top of the latest trends and tools, and ultimately, achieve their desired business goals.

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

A Digital Marketing Strategy plan can be divided into three parts: 1. the Strategic Planning where we look at the bigger picture – the who, what and why; 2. Tactical Planning which looks at the details of how, where and when; and the final Going Live phase which is where all the magic happens. 

While the first phase is the most static and unchanging of the three, we still recommend reviewing and updating it semi-regularly; at least every 3 to 6 months. The third phase is the most fluid, with a recurring reviewing and adjustment process happening on a weekly or daily basis for our clients. 

Here's a further breakdown of what’s involved in the three phases of our digital strategy planning process: 

1. Strategic Planning:

Set your goals – marketing and business (what)
The difference between marketing and business goals is that one is about setting the long-term direction of the company, while the other is more concerned with the short-term or day to day activities. 

While marketing activities will generally and inevitably contribute to the achievement of business goals, we find there is often a disconnect between the two which means it takes longer to achieve the desired state, or the brand reputation is diminished.

Our background in business consulting means we don’t just focus on short-term goals like most agencies, but make sure we’re helping create organisational success too. 

Don’t forget to make your goals SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. 

Understand your audience (who)
Taking the time to understand who your audience is, how they behave and what drives them is essential in developing any effective Marketing Strategy. 

Unless you have a niche or rare product, it’s unlikely that you will have one simple audience type or profile. There may be a core group of desired customer along with additional offshoots or segments. Don’t ignore these smaller groups - especially if your product or service has a higher price point, where just a few new customers can make a big impact. 

You can also create a detailed user journey or narrative to help map out and drive audience behaviour – by creating a campaign that guides a customer or client, step by step through the sales funnel of awareness, interest, engagement and ultimately action or purchase.

Define your business and brand differentiation (why)
Instead of a traditional SWOT analysis, we focus on identifying and amplifying each brands unique strengths and points of difference to establish a well-defined and competitive position within the market. 

We aim to create a strong and clear brand personality and differentiation that will make our clients stand out from the crowd, essentially rendering the usual SWOT analysis of weaknesses and threats useless. Knowing who you are and what you stand for is essential in todays oversaturated and competitive consumer world. 

 

2. Tactical Planning:

Choose your channels (where)
There are many owned, earned and paid digital channels to choose from – your website, social media, email marketing, SEO, Google Advertising, PR and lots more. 

It can be tempting to spread activities across all available channels but focussing your attention and budget on those which will help achieve your set goals and reach your specific audience more quickly and efficiently will always be a better use of your resources and will deliver better results too. More is not always better – be targeted and specific. 

Determine your tactics (how)
Will you run a series of social media or digital advertisements, a promotion or giveaway, a sale or discount, host online events or courses, create and share new blogs, review and update your existing content - there are endless options when it comes to working out which steps will help reach your ultimate goals. However, understanding that some tactics are better suited to certain channels or audience types is crucial to achieving cut-through and success. 

Remember to make sure the tactics you do choose are aligned with your goals – we see many agencies side-tracked with cool and creative ideas, that have lost sight of the core strategic objectives. 

Doing things for the sake of doing things keeps people busy but does not necessarily grow brands or businesses!

Establish your timeline and calendar (when)
Setting out a clear timeframe and calendar for your activities will not only provide an end point or deadline – but also allows you to create clear milestones and check points along the way. Long gone are the days of setting up a campaign and letting it run without any further interaction or interventions.

Creating a timeline will also help you identify other events or key dates, both internal and external that could impact your campaign negatively and positively. It also helps break down large or long campaigns into smaller management chunks.

3. Going Live:

Create the content 
There is no shortage of content creators and writers these days but finding one who possesses both creative skills and an ability for strategic thinking is far less common. Whether you’re creating videos, social media posts, online ads or blogs - finding the balance between engaging and interesting content that also meets your overall objectives is essential. 

Ensuring all content is on brand, from both a messaging and design perspective will also help create and improve brand trust and reputation. At Sentius, our content and design teams work hand in glove to ensure the strategic development of all digital content. 

Schedule and run the content or campaign
There is an art to posting content that looks and reads well, with each channel having its own unique look and feel. In the same way each platform has a unique and dedicated analytics or results section. Unfortunately, this level of customisation does makes it time-consuming and complicated for marketers. 

Luckily, there are a wide variety of scheduling and monitoring tools and apps available, and we are always trialling and testing out the latest options. These tools save time and consolidate results to make it easier to schedule content and see what’s happening across one or multiple platforms, rather than tediously posting and checking each individual channel. 

Monitor, measure and adjust
Monitoring your content is one of the most important daily tasks once your campaign has launched and is live. While it’s important to give your campaign enough time to gain some momentum and gather data, do make sure to keep an eye on and examine your results on a regular basis, and not just at the end of your campaign. 

Investigate how your audience are behaving in comparison to how you expected or wanted them to behave, examine which parts of your digital strategy are working well, and those that are not working well, and evaluate the interim outcomes against the set goals and objectives. 

This will allow you to identify any issues and make any required adjustments or edits before it’s too late, keeping your digital strategy dynamic and responsive. 

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