Have a Strategy to Reach Your Goal

“If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail,” is the cheesy catch-phrase of many business coaches, life coaches and inspirational leaders (when addressing us lowly, unorganized individuals).  While it can be infuriating when it is used on you, it is quite relevant and true when it comes to the brutal arena of digital marketing.

A digital marketing strategy is not just something that sounds good to talk about in meetings or something to mumble when your boss asks you what you’re doing on Twitter in the middle of the day. When used properly, a digital marketing strategy can guide you and your business. It can be the Yoda figure that can guide almost every decision you make.

End Goal

This is the whole point of creating a marketing strategy. It’s your strategy’s reason for being. You’d be surprised how many businesses have a marketing strategy ‘because we should have one.’

Thinking about what you want from your strategy is not as simple as it sounds. Like arguing with your partner about who gets the remote control, you’ve got to have a clear idea of what you want and what success at the end of your strategy will look like.

This is no time to be vague. A mission statement of ‘We want to improve sales/make more money’ will absolutely not cut it. You need specifics. Do you want improved sales? How many? From what demographic? By when?

You’re not going to be a billion-dollar business by next Tuesday. Be realistic, focused and perhaps the most important, be honest with yourself.

Everyone on the same page

Your marketing strategy is obviously a secret to your competitors. It’s not, however, a secret from your colleagues. A good marketing strategy that everyone knows and understands can ensure that everyone pulls in the same direction. This can help your branding be consistent and on-message regardless of who is in charge of the Twitter account that day.

Creating a marketing strategy can force you to really analyze your business. What is your personality? How do you want to be viewed? Your brand personality should be genuine and authentic. Otherwise, the public will not want to interact with you. For example, if you’re a small firm of accountants, don’t attempt to be the Ernst & Young of the accountancy world as it won’t appear genuine, nor will it be likely to resonate well with your typical target client. This brings me nicely to my next point.

Do your research

Who are you targeting with your social media strategy? You need to have a clear idea of the demographic to whom you want to market (and a reason why) if you’re going to have a successful strategy. If you’re not entirely sure who this is likely to be, finding out who your customers are is always a useful exercise. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Review your orders: who has been buying from you/using your business?

Assess your followers on social media to determine a ‘typical’ brand advocate.

If it’s a new segment that you’d like to target, do some listening on social media to build up accurate personas of your new targets.

This is important, as your target demographic will dictate which media your strategy should focus on. If you’re going for over 65s, a witty Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram campaign is unlikely to be successful.

Natural Boosts

When you’re creating your strategy, have a look at your calendar. Are there any events that would complement your marketing strategies? A simple example would be a restaurant that wants more couples may naturally gravitate towards Valentine’s Day. Or you could alternatively do an anti-Valentine’s campaign promoting your takeaway services.

The point here is that there are certain events in the calendar that match your marketing strategy. National Beer Day was trending on Twitter on August 4. With some advance planning, a bar could incorporate this into their strategy and offer a promotion based around an online competition.

There is a lot more to a digital marketing strategy than ‘sell more things to more people.’ It takes a bit more thought and strategy, but when you have a solid base, you will find that many of the other elements seem obvious. If you’re still not sure how to build a great strategy, contact SK Consulting. We develop strategies that work for you.  And, just maybe, beer will be involved.