3 Key Factors to Build a Solid Foundation for Digital Marketing

Marketing a business online - aka digital marketing - can become confusing quickly for most small business owners and entrepreneurs. There are so many different methods, channels, options and opinions, that if we're not careful, we'll find ourselves constantly testing one tactic after another with zero to little results. That leads to frustration and, more often than not, many small business owners simply give up on digital marketing all together.

There is a better way. And it boils down to the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter solution for digital marketing. Why? Because most businesses aren't cookie-cutter, either. Even if two businesses are in the same industry and sell the same things, that doesn't mean the same strategy will work. Developing a strategy unique to your business and brand is key to succeeding in with online marketing.

There are 3 key areas to focus on to create a solid foundation for your digital marketing strategy.

• What's the end game? The first step is to understand exactly what your overall goal is for your digital marketing efforts, and more importantly, how does it tie-in to your overall goals for your business? For example, let's say your goal is to sell 1,000 t-shirts in 6 months via your eCommerce store. What role does digital marketing play in helping you get those sales? Are you planning for 60% of your sales to come from online marketing efforts and 40% to come via offline efforts such as trade shows or networking? Knowing exactly what you want to happen from your digital marketing strategy and setting clear, strategic objectives and goals is essential in helping you create a strategy and plan designed to get results.
• Determine your channels. Once you have your overall strategic objectives and goals identified, the next step is to determine which channels are best suited to help you reach them. This involves detailed research on your target market, their online behaviors and their overall buyer behavior. Knowing which channels you are going to use will be key in designing your online sales funnels. For example, if your top three channels are social media, email and your website, you can then create a plan for each channel and determine how they will work both individually and separately to help you meet your goals.
• Set your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and targets. Once you have your channels outlined, the next step is to set your targets for each channel and identify your KPIs. Let's take the example of t-shirts again. Let's say that for social media you've decided that you want 300 sales to come directly from your Instagram and Facebook profiles in 6 months. That means you will have a target of 50 sales that you need to hit each month. You can then build out a social media plan that includes organic content with calls-to-action (CTAs) to drive traffic to your website, you might run a targeted paid ad, and leverage an influencer campaign. By knowing your KPIs and targets you'll be able to determine if your strategy is working early on and make tweaks where necessary. For example, if the influencer campaign resulted in 100 sales but the paid ads only resulted in 20, you can adjust going forward to allocate more of your budget to the influencer campaign.

Digital marketing strategies include multiple aspects and steps for businesses to consider, but these three steps will allow you to build a solid foundation to design an online marketing strategy and plan that will help you leverage the full power of the internet to get results for your business.