You look in the mirror and can't help but notice the huge smile on your face. That's the look of success, of satisfaction, of knowing that you and your team are enjoying the rewards of having a great digital marketing strategy in place.
Yes, that last bit may be a bit of a reach, but believe us, there's more to strategy than data or results. What you sow, you reap, so you can expect to enjoy the following benefits if your brand sticks to the strategy that's leading the way:
- You reach the correct audience
- Your campaign is more cost-effective
- Your decisions are based on data
- You can implement automated marketing processes
- You enjoy fast customer and lead feedback
- You can create personalized content for your contacts
- You get to implement, test, and optimize your strategy as you go
Read on to learn more about these benefits to help drive your team in creating and implementing a great strategy and how these could be the right catalyst to kickstart this important structure.
Reach the correct audience
One of the key factors a digital marketing strategy focuses on is who the brand’s target market is. By clearly defining the space your brand will occupy or the direction it will be heading, you will be reaching the right, relevant audience instead of shooting blindly in the dark. Because you understand your audience, you know their behaviors and preferences, and you can definitely use this knowledge to your advantage by utilising the correct channels to connect with them. This article on Hubspot talks about the benefits of digital marketing your brand gets when you plan properly and are reaching the correct online audience.
When you reach, communicate, and build strong ties with the bullseye digital audience, your brand greatly benefits from this in the sense that your brand is securing its spot in people’s mind. Much like how some products have turned into household names or even represent whole categories, a strong digital marketing strategy will be checking the right boxes that loyal repeat customers have. No guessing here; you know who you’re talking to, and exactly how to talk to them. These are the people who will grow your brand in the long run and will vouch for you no matter what.
Cost-effective
Optimizing your campaign’s results is one of the key motivating factors for marketers to create the perfect strategy for their brand. Of course, not everyone has an infinite amount of money lying around for their marketing budgets. In this day and age, it’s wiser to know where your money is going and getting the most out of that instead of allocating a large amount which won’t result in amazing results.
With your strategy in place, you’ll be following blueprints that clearly show what to do, how to do these, and what to expect. This lets you effectively measure your efforts against your budget and optimise where necessary, thus ensuring that each dollar spent goes a long way. In making sure that you positively stretch your budget in creating great work that matters, you’ll be placing more than a few smiles on the faces of key stakeholders and audiences alike.
Decisions based on data
In a campaign’s lifecycle, there are times when optimization is necessary in order to get better results. Intelligent decisions based on facts and data are ideal because you’ll be making changes for a reason, with something to back up these changes. If someone asks you why a certain change was applied, you can confidently say that data necessitated this update.
Some benefits you get from making decisions based on data are being able to better predict your audience’s behavior or how they’ll most likely react to marketing efforts; being able to target more precisely, personalizing customer experiences, and improving your brand’s ROI. This article shares a quick guide to creating a successful data-driven marketing campaign and should be worth your time, too.
Automated marketing processes
Another benefit having a strong digital marketing strategy is that it allows you to identify which marketing processes you can automate. Automating marketing processes entails software that automates certain tasks, usually repetitive. In our case, we can use automation for email replies using bots, some social media or website actions, lead profiling, and assigning of leads to their respective contact owners, to free up valuable time especially if these tasks are simple enough to run on their own. One thing that happens is that you collect data from the channels you utilize for your brands, and you use these channels to send marketing messages over. This reduces having to rely on one channel and also makes the most out of all the channels you use.
While some marketing processes can be automated, remember that campaign optimization plays an important role to your brand, thus relying only on automated processes should be something to watch out for. However, with a solid plan in place, you and your team can pinpoint which processes can or should be automated, for how long, and what results to expect, thereby making the most out of this highly effective and useful operation.
Fast customer and lead feedback
By having an effective digital strategy, your marketing team will be better equipped to take on inquiries from your customers or leads. This strategy aligns everyone on the brand’s goals, and in return, streamlines the customer response process. There will be fewer instances of someone having to say “I’ll get back to you” in order to get more information, and instead, a response is given in a shorter amount of time. Not only that, feedback is better received, analyzed, and acted upon.
Your digital marketing strategy plays an important role in nurturing your customers and leads. If you’re able to take or respond to feedback quickly from your audience, this adds to a great customer experience - something that brands strive to improve over time - and is beneficial for both customers and brands alike.
Personalized content for your contacts
Your brand’s digital marketing strategy is an important structure that should be followed by your team, with the only variable being how your customers respond to your brand’s efforts. With a solid backbone, the general direction of your campaign is set. When you take into account how to respond to customers, you’re simply optimizing your content and catering to your market, getting the most ROI. For example, addressing leads by their first names in emails, or sending them content according to where they are in the buyer’s journey add a personalized touch to your brand and reduces the impersonal feel some work may have.
Because this personalization is based on data, be it analytics or observations, you have a better understanding of what catches your market’s fancy. You’re able to hit the right personas and create highly personalized content, which is what drives sales and positive feedback. You also don’t have to personalize every element; with a deep understanding of your audience, you optimize only the content and the channels that need adjustment, while keeping other strong performers up and running. Be careful in that you don’t overdo the personalization that it ends up pushing customers or leads away. Plan it well, personalize it enough so people will feel like they’re really being talked to, and reap the benefits of having tailor-fit digital content aimed towards the right online audience.
Implement, test, and optimize your strategy as you go
A well-developed digital marketing strategy should be solid, but not rigid; it must be agile and able to adjust to market demands and needs depending on the outcome of certain efforts, or even updates to internal brand goals. While it may be every marketer’s dream to shape the sales landscape, realistically, it’s the market that drives and determines success. By following your brand’s digital strategy, you’re able to implement, test, and optimize your online content as the campaign ages by accommodating customers’ needs.
A smart digital marketer always works with secure plans in place, and to better understand this, we gave 7 powerful reasons to develop a clear digital marketing strategy in 2019. There, we explain why having a digital marketing strategy is essential in running a successful campaign. We suggest you give that a read in order to better understand the benefits of having such a strategy and to avoid these 7 failures.
Your solid yet agile strategy serves as the backbone to great work. With this in mind, make 2019 your brand’s year to start something great. Work with your team to craft an awesome digital marketing strategy, and enjoy the benefits having one in place will bring to you and your brand. Get in touch with us to learn more about this essential piece of thinking.