DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN – 10 KEY STEPS FOR BUSINESSES

by Elmakhu Elvis

Developing a great digital marketing plan should be the most prioritize strategy if growing online is a major or paramount goal for any forward looking corporate brand. Just like developing a business plan gives or breakdown a clear blueprint or road-map to show the futuristic foresight’s of any forward looking organization, so is developing or designing a digital marketing plan a cursor that propagates and direct the digital strategy of a corporate brand.

Every goal-oriented business or brand must spend immeasurable time to come up with a digital marketing plan. A musical artiste decides to promote its genre of music for the next one year, that, of course, needs a digital marketing plan, A new company is trying to introduce its product into an emerging market, it definitely need a digital marketing plan or a Non-Governmental Organization is trying to raise awareness about a particular project, campaign or community activity, they definitely need a digital marketing plan. Provided the brand is determined to innovate, then it needs a DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN.
A Digital Marketing Plan is a strategic document that creates the detail timelines for all the planning for a company or brand’s digital marketing campaigns or actions. It’s the roadmap to a successful and productive digital presence on the internet.

This article, show Ten (10) key steps in developing a great digital marketing plan for brands and also actionable snippet to make it work.

1. DEFINED THE BRAND OBJECTIVES:

Define the brand objectives – Digital Marketing Plan
Define the brand objectives – This is quite straight forward, in a nut shell this segment addresses why the business needs to go online. What the intrinsic goals are? Is it to introduce your product or services into the market? To run instant sales? Or to gain awareness or relevance on social media? Whatever the case maybe, your online objectives should and MUST be clearly defined and this also includes a well-planned time frame for your objectives to be achieved.

Action Plan: Write out your Top Three (3) Digital Marketing Objectives.

2. TARGET AUDIENCE:

Target Audience – Digital Marketing Plan
A company’s brand or project cannot cater for everyone it must have a specific target audience or mostly if the brand is into niche-specific product or service, it must define its target audience and decide where they are predominantly located, what time will the campaign be most effective. A brand that is into pageantry will to study the time period young that people that resonate with such events most likely appear on platforms like Instagram, Facebook etc.

Action Plan: The brand should have a brainstorming and research session with its team by categorizing target audience and understanding their online behaviors and how it affects its digital penetration strategies.

3. CHOOSING THE RIGHT CHANNELS AND MEDIUM:

Choose the right channel and medium – Digital Marketing Plan
This has to deal with the online medium the brand uses in relaying its message to the target audience. Is it through the company’s website, social media or third-party online vendors? Example, the brand sales online, it must define the number of online sales to breakeven. The goal here is to define the necessary digital online platform, medium, and channels (Blogs, Social Media, Online Forums, etc.), where the target audience can reach the brand more productively.

Action Plan: Based on the brand or organization, it must be defined what media channels and mediums users or potential customers are using to reach the brand goals. In a nutshell which channel (Facebook, Instagram, Email Platforms etc.) gives the brand the best productivity for the business growth. Remember conversion is essential.

4. WHERE IS THE BRAND NOW:

SWOT Analysis
Where is the brand now. As a brand, it is ideal that the business comes up with the SWOT Analysis of the brand’s current state, in lieu of market expectations and also in comparison with its competitors. In a nutshell, is the evaluation of the strength, weakness, opportunity and most importantly the threat the brand is facing with reaching its online goals. As far as I am concerned, this is where the hard dose of reality needs to step in for the business to achieve reasonable and reliable online goals. It is expedited for the brand to ask holistically these questions. What are we outsourcing online? how can we control our online presence? What do we need to put in place for our digital campaigns to be consistent? What is the competition doing differently? The brand must find a way to answer and solve these puzzles.

Action Plan: The brand should carry out an ONLINE SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) Analysis of the brand. Realistic and measurable effort must be put in place to get this right.

5. CORE BRAND VALUE:

Core Brand Value
This aspect deals with defining the business or brand’s unique selling point, its core brand value and why it really stands out. The major trigger here is to think like the customer or target audience. Why should the customer choose us rather than the competition?

Action Plan: A thorough definition of why or what makes the brand’s project or offering stands out should be defined.

6. MARKETING BUDGET:

budget
Just as budget is set aside for the day-to-day running of the brand, likewise it is definitely important for a sizeable marketing budget to be set aside for the company’s digital online operations in lieu with meeting its online marketing goals. Great brands are achieving success in the digital spectrums by placing aside sizeable budget of the company’s annual budget to cater for its digital needs.

Action Plan: Create a budgeting plan for your online goals. Advisably, at least one-third (1/3rd) of the brands overall budget.

7. COMPETITION:

Competition – Digital Marketing Plan
It is paramount the brand knows and keep track of the competition, know what they are doing and what is working for them. The point here is not to be a copycat but to measure what is working for them and see if it can be integrated into the marketing plan. This is a very popular strategy in the telecommunication and banking sector.

Action Plan: The brand should Study Top five (5) competitors in its niche and see how it fares with them.

8. MARKETING CALENDAR:

Marketing Calendar – Digital Marketing Plan
Discipline is the watchword here. The brand should create a marketing calendar of the time it will be posting, scheduling, or giving out giveaways, it should be perfectly spelled out; in a nutshell, have a disciplined digital calendar.

A proven great tool that is extremely useful in achieving strategic marketing reminders is Google calendar.

Application like hoot-suite and buffer is another great scheduling tool for social media posting and scheduling that can come in handy.

Action Plan: The brand should decide which scheduling tool is right and necessary for its online plans to be successful one. Consistency is everything.

9. WELL DEFINED METRICS :

well defined metrics – Digital Marketing Plan
The one advantage of online marketing over traditional is the ability to measure and track business growth with well defined metrics. On Facebook we have a Facebook insight, which gives how users react and the estimated sizable audience of a particular campaign. Google analytics gives insights and real data of how targets audiences are performing. Its needless if a brand activities online cannot be tracked and measured. The ROI on investment for such a brand’s digital activities is like a ship sailing without a specific anchor direction.

Action Plan: Define the tools (software’s) and metrics that will give measurable instance on how the brand is doing on the digital spectrum

10. ATTACK WITH THE PLAN:

Attack with the plan
In a nutshell, the brand must put everything into action and work with the plan (attack with the plan). The overall goal for designing a digital marketing plan is to achieve the brand’s business objectives by improving and increasing sales, awareness, and the ultimate objective, to make profit.

Definitely, the goals must define in the short, middle, or long term as the case may be.

As always, the brand must seek to outsource its online goals to experts so as to achieve its overall goals.