5 Crucial Considerations When Putting Together Your Marketing Strategy

Today’s highly competitive marketplace has placed premium importance on developing and implementing a successful online marketing strategy. With 275 million internet users in the U.S. alone, a digital marketing plan is critical for any business.

There are several things to consider when creating an online marketing strategy for your business. Some of the things you should consider include competitive analysis, social media marketing and good old SEO tactics. It all starts with planning and executing the marketing strategy until your end goals are met. So, if you’re planning to execute an online marketing strategy for your business, below are 5 crucial considerations when putting together your marketing strategy.

1# IDENTIFYING, CREATING YOUR GOALS

When creating your marketing strategy, the first thing you should consider is your goals. Know the end game and create a plan that gets you there. Are you planning to increase traffic to your site or are you building your current customer base?

The secret to establishing a successful marketing plan is to begin with small goals. These should be measurable and should get you to your overall goal. If you’re planning to increase your website traffic, start with a few dozen or more visitors a week. This way, you could establish if your online marketing strategy works before investing any further. Start with small, measurable goals.

Be S.M.A.R.T.

When creating your marketing goals, be S.M.A.R.T. Your plans must meet your goals. Create your marketing goals by following the SMART process.

S – Specific goals
M – Measurable goals
A – Attainable goals
R – Relevant goals
T- Timely goals

Key Performance Indicators

After setting your goals, identify what are your key performance indicators. If you’re planning to build website traffic, then select the tools you need to measure these numbers. We use a few of these free tools which include Alexa or trafficestimate.com to measure traffic.

If this would not be your first time, then check your previous online marketing strategy and analyze previous results. You could now make a quick comparison of your previous efforts and check if your current marketing strategy is any better. If you’re planning to increase your conversions, then using Google Analytics is the best way to go. But if your tracking your social media engagements then BuzzSumo is a great tool for measuring this.

#2 BUILDING YOUR TEAM

Just like any business, working with a professional is a key investment. If you’re planning to leverage the benefits of online marketing, then having the right tools and the right person for the job is critical to your success. Your current and potential team members must possess the necessary skills and know-how in online marketing.

Communication is essential and to build this connection between several team members, selecting a good communication platform is important. With the advent of new technology and the changing landscape of today’s workplace, having several team members working in different locations, scattered across several timelines is becoming the norm. This is especially true for many of today’s online marketing teams. Having a modern communication or project management tool such as slack.com or trello.com helps bridge the physical gap between members and makes managing your team more efficient.

#3 CREATING YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

After identifying your marketing goals and building your team, the next step is to create your marketing strategy. There is no such thing as a cure-all plan for your marketing woes. When creating a marketing strategy, you should be able to create a marketing plan that answers your goals.

Know your target audience

Put your audience at the center of your marketing strategy. Identify their needs and create a marketing strategy that meets this. Google Analytics can be a very useful tool when identifying your target audience. The information contained in the “Audience Reports” can be a goldmine. Here, you can get information such as age, sex, career, etc.

Know your target audience, their taste, needs, and preferences. After determining this, create a marketing strategy that showcases your strengths and what distinguishes you from the competition. Make initial research on how to best reach your audience. How do you best communicate with your audience (email marketing, social media, blogs)?

Key questions to ask

Who is your target audience?
What are your strengths?
What is the best way to communicate?
How frequent are you going to publish?

#4 PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION

During the implementation of your marketing strategy, one important consideration is your marketing budget. This determines the aggressiveness of your marketing efforts and the available means to implement this. Below are a few things to consider:

Project Costs:

Determine your financial resources
Check your previous marketing efforts for cost evaluation if any
If working with different marketing strategies (social media, content creation, paid advertisements), allocate resources accordingly
Create checkpoints for determining if the cost of a marketing strategy meets is congruent with its benefits. This allows you to allocate resources to those marketing strategies which provide you with the best traction

People Management:

Does your current team have the technical competency to execute your plan?
Do you require more employees and is this something you can afford?
Would it be more cost-effective if outsource this project?

Marketing Strategies:

After determining your goals (conversion, building brand loyalty, attracting new customers), it is now time to develop and implement your marketing strategy. What works best with your goal (social media marketing, SEO strategies, email marketing, paid advertising, or content marketing)?

Online marketing makes it possible for you to reach more people at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. This makes it even possible for you to automate your marketing campaigns.

Digital Marketing Schedule:

Create a marketing timeline for publishing, executing your marketing strategy. This makes it easier to create checkpoints for measuring KPIs
Allocate time and resources for each marketing strategy
Document each step and mark it on your marketing calendar

#5 MEASURING RESULTS

Key performance indicators make it easier for you to determine the success and effectiveness of your marketing strategy. This, together with your marketing calendar makes it possible for you to determine specific results within a specific timeframe. It makes it possible for you to adjust your marketing strategy according to how it performs. The key here is to monitor and quickly make changes to your marketing strategy accordingly. This makes it possible for you to concentrate your resources to those that work. To make this possible, here are a few tips: