In today’s fast-paced digital world, creating a solid digital marketing strategy is vital for any business looking to thrive online. Whether you’re a startup or an established company, knowing how to make a digital marketing strategy helps you reach the right audience, generate leads, and grow your business. In this guide, we’ll discuss the key steps to develop a successful strategy, especially if you’re a beginner. From understanding your business to choosing the right platforms, everything will be covered.
Understand the Nature of Business
Before developing any digital marketing strategy, it’s crucial to understand the nature of your business. In short, it could be done by figuring out the answers to the following questions:
- What are your business goals?
- What is the model of the business?
- What is the market reach of the business?
Before making any digital marketing strategy, always define the goal and objective that you want to achieve at the end of the campaign. For example,
- Increase Revenue – Achieve a 20% revenue growth within the next 12 months.
- Expand Market Reach – Enter 3 new geographic markets by the end of the year.
- Improve Customer Satisfaction – Increase customer satisfaction ratings by 15% within six months.
Try to understand the business model, you could use Business Model Canvas for this purpose. It will help you when you are handling campaigns for clients. It contains different elements including proposition (what you offer), target customers, revenue streams, costs, resources, etc.
Business Model Canvas Template
Market reach helps determine the geographic area and audience your business should target. It includes local, online, offline, or global. In each type of market reach, the strategy varies.
Local
If a business is local it primarily targets customers within a specific geographic area, such as a town or city. Digital marketing for local businesses often focuses on Local SEO, Google My Business, and local social media targeting. For example, a neighborhood restaurant or a local dental clinic.
Online
If a business is online with no physical storefront. This type of business relies on digital marketing strategies like e-commerce SEO, paid search, content marketing, and social media. For example, an online clothing store or a digital marketing agency.
Offline
If a business is offline it primarily operates in a physical location without an online presence. It is what defines the traditional marketing. In digital marketing, this term is less common as most offline businesses now use some form of online marketing to drive foot traffic. For example, a local bookstore that doesn’t sell products online but may use digital marketing to attract in-person customers.
Global – If a business is global it means it operates in multiple countries and markets. Digital marketing for global businesses involves strategies that cater to different regions, languages, and cultures, often incorporating international SEO, global PPC campaigns, and geo-targeting. For example, a multinational corporation like Amazon or Nike.
Thus, in determining the market reach, digital marketing strategy varies from local SEO to international campaigns.
Tools to use:
- Business Model Canvas
- Google Trends
Competitor Analysis
Once you know the nature of the business, next comes the Competitor analysis. It is a critical step in developing a digital marketing strategy. By analyzing your competitors’ strategies, you can gain insights into what works and what doesn’t in your industry. Begin by looking at their website traffic, keyword rankings, social media presence, and types of content they produce. Learn from their successes and mistakes to create a unique strategy that sets you apart.
Tools to use:
- For checking Website Traffic – Ahref Traffic Checker
- Keyword Ranking check – SEMRush Keyword Overview
- Social Media Presence – Google Query, for example, “Nike” site:facebook.com OR site:twitter.com OR site:instagram.com OR site:linkedin.com
Once you are done with the competitor analysis, it gives enough analyzed data to conduct a SWOT analysis for your business and define your Unique Selling Point.
SWOT Analysis
It helps you understand a business’s internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats. It helps you identify what you’re doing well and areas you can improve, as well as potential risks and chances for growth.
SWOT ANALYSIS Template
Unique Selling Point
It is what makes your product or service stand out from competitors.
Build Customer Persona
After the successful competitor analysis, the next step is to build a customer persona. A customer persona is a detailed profile of your ideal customer based on data and market research. You can make it easy by asking yourself a few questions including:
Who is likely to buy your product or service?
Where do they spend time online?
By knowing about the product or service, it helps you target the right audience for your digital marketing strategy. Consider factors such as age, gender, location, income, interests, and buying behaviors.
In the beginning, it is defined based on the “Business Nature” and “Competitor Analysis”. For this purpose, you can use a buyer persona maker to create an ideal target audience for your business.
buyer persona template
However, when you implement the digital marketing strategy, you can later redefine it for more optimized campaigns by using different tools, including Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Microsoft Clarity, etc. Each tool serves a different purpose but gives you analytics on your customers.
Current Search Analysis of Business
A digital marketing strategy relies heavily on understanding current search behavior related to your business. Conducting a search analysis helps you uncover how people are finding products or services like yours online. This step includes performing keyword research, understanding search intent, and assessing how competitive certain keywords are. Search analysis guides you in optimizing your content to rank higher on search engines.
Tools to use:
- Google Keyword Planner – Find relevant keywords related to your business.
- Google Search Console – Track how your site performs in search results and identify search terms that drive traffic.
Intent Selection
Intent selection is about aligning your digital marketing strategy with the various intents of your target audience. User intent can be categorized into four types: informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial.
Information – When someone is searching for information or answers to a question. For example, “How to bake a cake” or “What is digital marketing?”
Navigational – When someone is trying to find a specific website or page. For example, “Facebook login” or “Nike official website.”
Transactional – When someone is ready to make a purchase or take a specific action, like signing up for a service. For example, “Buy iPhone 15” or “Best gym memberships near me.”
Commercial – When someone is considering a purchase but still researching options. They’re looking for comparisons or reviews before making a decision. For example, “Best laptops for students” or “iPhone 15 vs Samsung Galaxy S23.”
Knowing the intent behind your audience’s searches allows you to tailor your messaging and content accordingly.
Tools to use:
- SEMRush – Use it for keyword research with an “intent” filter to get the relevant results.
- AnswerThePublic – Helps uncover common questions and intents behind searches related to your business.
Platform Selection
If you have made it this far, then you have almost completed defining your digital marketing strategy. Platform selection is simply choosing the right platform for executing your digital marketing strategy effectively. The above-mentioned steps have already provided you with enough data to understand where your target audience spends most of their time. Depending on your business, this could include social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, or search engines like Google and Bing. You might also consider email marketing, paid ads, or content marketing. Selecting the appropriate platforms ensures that your marketing efforts are focused on the right channels, maximizing your ROI.
Based on your analysis, you choose which Digital Marketing component should primarily be focused including Social Media Marketing (SMM), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Email Marketing, SMS Marketing, Remarketing, Online Reputation Management, and Influencer Marketing
Conclusion
Developing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy doesn’t have to be overwhelming, even if you’re just starting. By following these steps—understanding your business, performing competitor analyses, building a customer persona, search analysis of business, selecting the right user intent, and choosing the best platforms—you can set a strong foundation for success. The right tools and strategies will help you reach your audience more effectively, allowing you to achieve your business goals with a targeted approach.
For those working on a digital marketing strategy for beginners, these fundamental steps provide a roadmap to building a strategic and results-driven online presence. With the right mix of research, tools, and intent-based marketing, your business can stand out in the crowded digital marketplace.
