How to use SWOT analysis in digital marketing

Hendri Augustine Sugiarto -
“Understand the capability of your brand to grow, identify the elements in your brand that need to be improved, see the opportunities in your industry, and anticipate challenges in the future.”

SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying both the Opportunities open to you and the Threats you face. Used in a digital marketing business context, it helps you carve a sustainable niche in your market. This kind of analysis will help you to identify what makes your business or brand special compare to your competitors and the resources you have. Another reason why you need the SWOT Analysis is the digital marketing ever-changing situation. The speed of technology’s growth demands a disciplined approach in order to survive.

There are two kinds of analysis in SWOT, internal and external. The first step is to identify the internal factors, the strength and weaknesses of your business. Then you can go on to the external factors,  which are the opportunities and the threats that may affect it. The main purpose of it is to get an objective outlook of your business. Here is the detail explanation from SWOT elements that will help you to identify:

Strengths

“…everything positive attributed to your business and within your control, whether it is tangible or intangible”

Points that should be included in strength are any positive attribute of your business and within your control, whether it is tangible or intangible.

  • What are your resources?
  • What are the characteristics and abilities of your business or brand that provide advantages over your competitors?

Tangible things includes of your business capital, patents, information and processing systems, and equipment.

Intangibles are the positive attributes of the people in your company, including their knowledge, education, and skills (such as SEO strategy, copywriting). It can also be your brand reputation and the extensive reach via social channels. After you identify the strengths in your business, you can find a way to keep, to use, and to grow those positive factors as your advantages. For example, you will know that your business has a high availability of skills. You can refine those skills and it will be the aspect you can give the light more in your marketing strategy.

Weaknesses

…tangible or intangible factors you need to enhance in order to compete and be better than your competitors

Weaknesses are the negative factors in your business and within your control, that may hinder you from thriving among your competitor. What are things that need to be improved? What are the resources you should acquire? These things can be limited resources, lack of access to skills or technology, inferior service offerings, or the poor location of your business.

Weaknesses contain the tangible or intangible factors you need to enhance in order to compete and be better than your competitors. These are disadvantages you need to overcome. The more you identify your weaknesses accurately, the more you will know better about your own business, and that means more improvement you can make.

Opportunities

…the captivating external factors that will be the reason for your business to exist and to grow

Opportunities are the captivating external factors that will be the reason for your business to exist and to grow. These factors are the good potentials you can realize by implementing your marketing strategies. You can set questions, such as are there something the target audiences are looking for that your business can provide? Are there any potential market areas that you haven’t reached yet? After you identify the opportunities, you can place the time frames around the relevant opportunities. That means how much time you have to take those opportunities and how fast you should take action upon them.

Threats

challenges created by an unfavourably trend or development that may lead to deteriorating revenues or profits

While the opportunities are the positive things from outside of your business, threats are the negative things. These are the factors beyond your control that can threaten the existence and the growth of your business. You have no control over them, but you may benefit by having comprehensive plans to overcome them.

  • What are your competitors doing that you don’t do?
  • Are there any government regulations that could threaten your business?

Threats are challenges created by an unfavourably trend or development that may lead to deteriorating revenues or profits. For example, competition, intolerable price increases by suppliers, governmental regulation, economic downturns, or a shift in consumer behaviour. The better you can identify potential threats, the more you can take a stand to proactively make a plan and respond to them.

Conclusion

After going through the four areas of SWOT, you need to take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities available to you by doing the analysis for your business. It can be used to "kick off" strategy formulation. The SWOT Analysis will be your helpful tool to develop, as well as to confirm your goals and marketing strategy. It is your weapon to thrive and grow as a business, as well as an individual. Your time will not be wasted away in doing the SWOT Analysis. The benefits of discovering ideas and new information offer a very sobering result for the well-being of your business. For a closure, in “Encyclopedia of Management Theory” Eric Kessler wrote that the companies that keep analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats on a regular basis have 60% more chances to survive than the companies that don’t.

Rock Paper Scissors is the missing link between business and technical world. We translates business language into technical, and technical limitation into business constraints. We guide organization and individuals alike to create their own digital product and navigates all the complexity of product creation process. Find out more.

References:

https://coschedule.com/marketing-strategy/swot-analysis/

https://www.mplans.com/articles/how-to-perform-a-swot-analysis/

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/perform-swot-analysis-digital-brand/100491/#close

https://www.rightlydigital.com/swot-analysis-in-digital-marketing-what-why-and-how/