6 Steps to a Digital Marketing Strategy that drives growth

With the right approach to digital marketing, you can reach your target audience, drive traffic to your web site, and optimise conversions – no matter how limited your marketing budget is. But you can’t expect to be successful in digital marketing without a clear and simple strategy.

Digital marketing is more than randomly posting on social media and updating your website with new products and services. You need to be strategic and make sure your time, resources and investment does not go to waste.

Don’t try to do too much – choose a few channels to focus your marketing efforts on. Automation and optimisation are critical to getting the most out of your time, resources and investment.

Here are 6 Steps to a Digital Marketing Strategy that drives growth:

1 – Engaging Content

Buyer personas can really help to determine the right type of content that is relevant to key stakeholders and your identified audience. Have a think about the markets your serve and what is evolving with projects, new technologies, and products.

Continually put your customers first – paying attention to the specific needs, preferences, and issues. Sales leads and conversions will naturally come when you shift your intent from pushing to pulling your audience in with valuable and engaging content.

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Organic

To ensure your content reaches your target audience your SEO and keywords need to hit the mark. Scan your website and all content and then start to make a list of keywords and relevant topics of interest.

Using this list build a framework and schedule for blog posts/news stories/brand content. Then start to curate this marketing content using this structure. Ensure you scan all your media before putting it on your website, to avoid duplication.

Measure and relentlessly improve with your SEO efforts. You will start to rank higher and higher in search engines. The objective is to rank in the top 5-10 of all your topics/keywords.

3 – Thought Leadership

Brands and Specialists earn the Thought Leadership title by delivering content that answers the questions your primary industry and target audience is asking.

Your thought leadership strategy should include:

• Expert Insights – gathering insights requires original research, innovative ideas, and subject matter experts compiling the thoughts of others.
• Influence – creating a presence online through social media and other channels is critical. Being quoted and referenced in industry articles or presenting at conferences as a keynote speaker.
• A point of view – being consistent with your content. Your audience will be more interested in your purpose and motivation. Have a clear point of view and be authentic with your approach.

4 – Email Marketing

Email marketing works. It’s one of the few marketing channels you can use to build a connection with your customers, prospects, people, and stakeholders. It’s the ideal channel to re-purpose and communicate your content.

Do this well and your audience will not only read your emails, but they will look forward to hearing from you! To succeed with email marketing you’ll need to:

• Choose an email marketing provider.
• Implement segmentation.
• Personalise your messages.
• Craft perfect subject lines.
• Be creative and implement automation.

5. Social Media

Rather than trying to grow your social media presence on multiple platforms, choose just a few (for example, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram) and focus your efforts on growing these channels.

This is your opportunity to build your connections and followers. Lead them back to your website posts, and resources to further engage and build trust. Ensure you engage with your audience and stay disciplined. To succeed with social media we recommend:

• Develop with a social media plan/strategy.
• Decide which platforms will work for you.
• Know your target audience.
• Expand your target audience.
• Share compelling content.
• Focus on quality over quantity.
• Use the right tools.
• Measure and improve.

6 – Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC Advertising can be a worthwhile investment only when you do your research and plan very well. You’ll need to consider the following as a starting point:

• Select a platform.
• Choose a type of ad to invest in.
• Determine your budget and bidding strategy.
• Segment your target audience, interests, location, and search terms.
• Design landing pages that match the intent of each search term.
• Track your ads’ performance.

DIGITAL MARKETING SUCCESS

It’s critical to ensure you are measuring the success of your content and supporting campaigns on a regular basis. Make changes to improve your results. Keeping an eye on your engagement, conversions, and traffic figures will give you valuable insights into refining digital marketing strategy. This, in turn, will enable you to create more successful content in the future.

If you are ready to develop a winning digital marketing approach, let’s chat.

Related: Download your Digital Marketing Guide

Other Reading: Australian Email Benchmarks

DIGITAL MARKETING GUIDE

Learn how to develop a winning digital marketing strategy. You’ll need to consider a different approach to crafting content to set your industrial brand up to win for the long-term.

With our Digital Marketing Guide, you’ll have access to a proven approach to create a consistent and strong digital presence underpinned by your value proposition.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Zafiris is an industrial marketer and founder of Industrial Ideas. Having built his experience in B2B marketing from the ground up, Peter understands what it takes to succeed with your marketing strategy. All client projects are personally managed by Peter to help industrials like you get the return on investment you deserve. Peter and team, work hard to become an extension of your business, to help you get the most out of your marketing efforts. Get your free 30 minute marketing consultation to learn more.