Developing a Digital Media Strategy To Lead The Way to Success
All of the top businesses use digital media strategies. They do this to take advantage of the evolving opportunities that are offered by digital media.
Digital media strategies are successful because they are a holistic approach. In order to have a systematic approach that leads to a predefined goal, you need many varieties of digital marketing methods and techniques.
Explaining What A Digital Media Strategy Is
Put simply, a digital media strategy is the method of marketing that utilizes online and digital mediums to bring awareness to your products/services. It is often referred to as a digital marketing strategy. The mediums that are used for digital media strategies are:
- Audio
- Apps
- E-Books
- E-Mails
- Video
- Web Pages
- More
Improving the consumer’s life or solving a problem for the audience is the most straightforward and successful digital media marketing campaign. These campaigns use strategies, such as focusing on building a culture around your brand digitally. This will get traffic to turn into conversions, and that is what you need for your business.
Why Do Businesses Need Digital Media Strategies?
With a digital media strategy, you are focusing on making value for the consumers while you maintain that competitive edge you need in your industry’s market. These strategies will help you determine the audience online you need to market to, as well as offering these benefits:
- Relationship Building– Your marketing efforts with digital media will build relationships that are meaningful to the customer. This will turn a lead into the loyal customer you need. If the strategy is good enough, you will be providing a memorable experience for the customer, keeping them coming back.
- Relevant Targets- You are able to reach leads, with digital marketing, that is interested in your services/products. This target audience is based on demographics, habits, needs, and more. With the proper strategy, you will not only be reaching the audience but teaching them about your company.
- Measurability- Compared to more traditional marketing strategies, digital media campaigns can be more easily measured. You are able to collect valuable data on your customers while you determine whether or not your goals are being met.
- Fast Results- The right digital media strategy will help you convert customers with more efficiency at a faster rate. Not only will you be spending less time with bidding techniques and automated testing, but they also help you optimize your strategy to it’s the best performance.
4 Steps To Take For Creating A Digital Media Strategy
To have a successful digital marketing strategy, you need to have coordination between all the different departments of your company, especially marketing and sales. Your customers’ needs come as a priority, meaning you have to work together to make sure their needs are met. You want to make sure your brand is associated with a positive experience.
We have decided to help you create a digital media strategy by providing these 4 steps:
1. Set Your Goals
Just like with your life, your business needs to have goals. If you want to have a successful digital marketing campaign, you need to know what you are setting out to do. What your goals depend on what is needed by your business. You need to determine whether you want to gain new leads, or even make the leads you get to turn into conversions. Knowing what your company aims to achieve will help you with your investment in your digital media strategy.
For example, if your goal is to increase sales, then you could make your next marketing goal to be a rise in sales by X%. Your marketing goals put simply, should be in alignment with your overall business goals. Every goal needs to work towards a larger company goal. Also, these goals have to be S.M.A.R.T goals. S.M.A.R.T goals stand for:
- Specific- You need to have your goals be specific. If they are vague, then you won’t have anything to really shoot for. However, if your goal is specific, it will give you more incentive to reach that goal and hone your strategy to make it work.
- Measurable- Measurable goals are those that can be tracked easily. For example: If your goal is to increase your traffic by 40%, you know to track the traffic increase/decrease that your company gets. This will dictate the course of your digital marketing campaign. Easily measured goals will help you discover key metrics that show you your accomplishments.
- Achievable- However, when you are setting a goal, it should be achievable. It is up to you to determine whether or not your resources can achieve your ultimate and short term goals. The 40% increase in sales may not be a possibility for you, which can make your strategy fall apart. This can make your sales and marketing team become discouraged.
- Realistic- On top of being achievable, your goals need to be realistic. In fact, the two go hand in hand. For example: If your goal is to increase your Facebook shares by 20%, that is a realistic goal. However, if you are trying to accomplish this with results that show in a short period of time, it isn’t realistic. Make sure you have milestones that are measurable; doing so will help you reach the goals you have set out.
- Timely- In order for your goals to be realistic and achievable, you have to also be timely. Make sure your goals have deadlines. Also, be strict on enforcing those deadlines. It will help motivate you during the development of your digital media strategy. Without a realistic and concrete deadline, there is a chance that your team will not reach your goal. This can cause the goal to fall wayside.
S.M.A.R.T goals will help you to focus, stay on track, and push for success.
2. Find the Unique Value Proposition of Your Product
Let’s face it, you need to have a unique quality of your service/product in order for the customer to find value in it. If you can’t put the value on display, no one is going to know how your product/service is different from the rest. Here are some simple questions to help you identify the value of the product’s proposition.
What Does My Product Accomplish For The Customer?
You have to know what needs are met for your customer with your service/product. The idea is to improve their lives with what you are offering. To determine the benefits of your service and showcase them. It is easy to identify the unique value of a service/product. All you need to do is ask yourself these questions:
- What Problem is being solved by my product?
- How is my product bettering the customer’s life?
- How is my product accomplishing this solution more efficiently than my competitors?
- What means do I possess to bring this value to customers?
- How do I preserve the unique value of my product?
What is my business’ niche market?
The niche market of your product is a big factor in how you market your campaign. Entering a market that isn’t fitting with your services/products will only make it harder for you to bring in an audience. That means you aren’t competing with other businesses.
That is why you need to identify your niche. It will allow you to discover the product’s value in comparison to the competitors’ products.
3. Identifying your Audience
Marketing without knowing your target audience is like fishing with only a hook and no bait. If you don’t know what you are fishing for, you are never going to catch what you need. Knowing your target audience allows you to use the right bait. Here are some factors that help determine your target audience:
- Priorities/Values
- Location
- Interests
- Needs
- Age
- Goals
- Income
You can determine these factors with customer lists, interviews, and surveys. This will create a buyer persona, which represents your customers. It is based on real data and not assumptions.
4. Pick Your Tactics
After you have set your digital marketing goals, discovered the value of your product/service, and identified your target audience, it is time to pick your tactics. Here are some tactics that are used in digital media strategies:
- SEO- This is a tactic that works off the algorithms of search engines to determine rankings in search results. The content of your website’s pages is read by search engines to determine what they encompass. If they are relevant to the search words and terms used, you will be placed higher on the rankings. This drives traffic to your site and raises brand awareness.
- Social Media Marketing- This is a tactic that focuses on your brand awareness expansion. It is a campaign that reaches out to your audience on social media. It uses consistent posts of content, as well as paid advertisements on whichever social media platform you are using. This will do more than increase brand awareness; if done correctly, it will also increase the trust in your brand from the customer.
- PPC- PPC stands for Pay-per-click, it is similar to SEO. It is a tactic that puts your business on top of relevant search results. In turn, it drives traffic to your site. PPC is a tactic that requires some bidding for the top placements of ads.
- Content Marketing- This is the heart of your strategy. Each tactic requires your content to be up to date, relevant, and interesting to the audience. It must function properly in order to lead customers through the marketing funnel. This is a marketing tactic that is done for free, but you can invest in better content through an agency or freelance content creator.
- E-Mail Marketing- Personalized e-mails focus on customers that have subscribed to a mailing list for your business. It is an easy tactic that helps build customer relationships while providing quality experiences with your brand. Many businesses that use this tactic see an increase in customer loyalty.
- Web Design- This is a tactic that focuses on the experience the user has with your website. You need to have a website that is designed to be appealing, easily accessible, mobile responsive, and quick. You want the interaction with your website to be positive in order to turn leads into conversions.
These tactics are wonderful ways of succeeding with a digital media strategy. While one tactic alone is enough to increase your traffic, utilizing multiple tactics at once will help you better reach your goals and provide a positive customer experience to increase your brand awareness.
