8 Key elements of a digital marketing plan
“Understanding the key elements of a digital marketing plan will make it easier for the marketers to create online marketing strategies.”
Implementing digital marketing actions without a plan or strategy that was designed beforehand can cause failure because it does not consider all aspects that can affect their development. There are multiple factors that you have to consider in creating your company’s digital presence plan. To help you start planning, we have summed those factors into 8 most important elements in digital marketing plan, here are the details:
SMART Objective
SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) objectives are the key to digital presence plan and, eventually, successful business:
- Specific: You need to create clear and specific business objectives. It is easier to achieve than an abstract goal. Do not set a goal like: “Our goal next year is to increase brand visibility.” Try a more specific goal, such as: “By July, we will increase our brand visibility by 15%.”
- Measurable: Quantifiable objectives are easily trackable. It means easier plan implementation. E.g. 15% increase in brand visibility is a measurable objective.
- Achievable: A business objective must be realistically achievable. Look at your overall resources, such as manpower, technology, base materials, and time. Creating an impossible objective will hinder your business plan from becoming a reality.
- Relevant: SMART objective must be relevant to the business. If you realize that your conversion rate is reducing, you might need to check your landing page’s design or reconsider your offers.
- Time-bound: With no specific deadline, your objective becomes hard to accomplish. The first example shows a specific deadline, which is good for your business plan since the goal has a clear finish line.
Target Audience
In digital presence plan, your digital marketing should adhere to your target audience. If you run a hospitality business, your target audience will be different than someone who runs a luxury handbag business. Tweak your content to fit the tone and the audience’s needs. Re-purpose your content to fit in different platforms your audience in. In short, you need to connect with your target audience.
Competitive Analysis
With millions of people doing business, the chances are that you have some competitors in your line of business. You have to make yourself better than your rivals to fare better in the competition. Competitive analysis is essential for understanding rival firms. It can give you an edge over your competitors and help you differentiate your business from your competitors.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a powerful business tool to understand your current and upcoming business situation. Strengths and weaknesses mainly relate to your own organization, while opportunities and threats are external factors.
- Strength means your organization’s overall advantage, quality, uniqueness, and other internal factors that help you distinguish yourself from your competitors.
- Weaknesses means something that your business lacks. You have to know your weak points in order to patch them up. Being aware of your weaknesses is an important part of a successful business.
- Opportunities are external, supporting factors that can ease your business plan, such as lifestyle changes, technology, new trends, government policies, etc. You can also look back at your strengths and think whether those strengths open new opportunities.
- Threats are external factors that may hinder your business. Supporting factors that was mentioned in opportunities can be threats if you overlook them. Other threats include overwhelming debts, competitors advancements, and your own weaknesses.
Digital Marketing Budget Plan
Modern business needs to allocate a part of marketing budgets to digital marketing. How much do you need to spend on digital marketing? It depends on your goal, previous experiences, requirements, platforms, and content planning.
Selection of Appropriate Channel
There is a multitude of marketing channels. Choosing a marketing channel that fits you the most requires multiple analysis. Consider the cost and investments, reach, frequency, and impact of your marketing.
Type of Content (Content Marketing Plan)
One of digital presence’s bread and butter is the content. Content marketing is crucial to digital presence plan since it will get you steady organic traffic. To create good content and raise your digital presence, you have to consider your audience, the problems that your content will solve for them, your uniqueness, the format of the content, and the platform it will inhabit.
Set KPI & Metrics
A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) report is a reflection of your organization’s performance. KPI report can help you track real-time information, company budgets, sales performance, and other important metrics.
Keep these key elements in mind when you create a digital presence plan. By no means is this a comprehensive plan which you can plug and play into your business environment. It's high-level guidance outlining the 8 key components required to drive digital success.
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References
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-a-target-audience-2295567
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/how-to-plan-a-digital-marketing-budget