How to create an effective digital marketing plan?
While everyone is speaking about digital marketing and the various tactics in digital marketing, no one is actually talking about how can you make a digital marketing plan for your business.
Whether be it digital marketing or any other activity, planning is a very crucial part of the process.
A plan helps you visualize the steps of activities that you are going to perform. It also helps you understand what is your current position or on which stage of plan you are right now.
I have experienced that when you move ahead without a plan, your chances of failing are more.
With more than 10 years of experience in this industry, I have worked for hundreds of clients from varying domains.
Irrespective of the domain you are in, the basic layout of the digital marketing plan remains the same. In this article, I am going to share a blueprint of how any business can plan their digital marketing activities.
What is a digital marketing plan?
A digital marketing plan is a blueprint of all the activities which you are planning to implement for your digital marketing campaign.
It is a layout that describes the entire journey of your digital marketing process in a step by step methodology. It is an exhaustive document that helps the various stakeholders associated with the business to understand the goal, the activities to be performed, the platforms, KPIs, etc.
Just by creating a website or posting pictures on social media or merely by running a paid ad campaign, a business cannot succeed. All set of activities requires a direction and this direction is given by a plan.
Steps for creating a digital marketing plan
- Analysis of the existing marketing process
- Setting up a goal
- Creating buyer personas
- Identifying the digital channels & budget
- Creating and optimizing digital marketing assets
- Finalizing the digital marketing activities
- Implementing the finalized digital marketing activities
- Measuring the results
- Repeat the process (Go back to step 1)
#1. Analysis of the existing marketing process
Usually, people skip this step or think that this is an irrelevant step while creating a new plan. But unless you know what your past was and what your present is, you cannot effectively draft a plan for your future.
In this step, you must list down the marketing activities you used to perform till now.
What were the results of the marketing activities?
Which activity gave you the most number of leads and conversions?
What were some good marketing campaigns you implemented in the past?
This step is the situational analysis of your existing marketing process and I would recommend you to do a situational analysis of the entire business.
I would recommend you to perform a SWOT analysis and Porter’s five forces analysis.
On the basis of the various analysis performed, note down the key insights and inferences.
#2. Setting up a goal
Unless you know what you want, all the directionless work you perform goes in vain. Set up a goal. But, not a fictional goal. Set up an achievable goal.
In step 1, you would have done rigorous analysis and derived some insights. On the basis of the findings of step 1 and on the basis of your future aspirations for the business, set up a goal.
While setting up a goal, set up a goal for your entire business and then split the goals for offline and online marketing.
For example, consider you are owning a personality development institute. You desire to sell your course to 10,000 students in the upcoming year.
Using IDEO’s 3 lenses of innovation for Goal Setting
I would recommend you to use IDEO’s three lenses of innovation at this stage. Usually, businesses use this approach when they are working on innovative ideas. But, we can implement this business canvas model for setting a goal too.
The three lenses are Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability.
Desirability is what people desire.
Feasibility is whether the desire is technically and organizationally feasible.
Viability is whether the desire is financially viable.
In this case, the desired goal is 10,000 conversions. Now, that is desirable. But after desiring for this goal, you need to check it’s technical feasibility and financial viability too. Once you are sure that the goal is feasible and viable too, then finalize it.
Splitting the goal – Digital, Traditional and/or Both
The next thing would be to determine acquisitions to be made by digital channels and offline channels.
Suppose, your sales team is already able to sell the course to 4,000 students each year. The analysis performed in step 1 will help you derive this figure.
In this scenario, let us assume that on the basis of your past data and current business position, you are confident that 4,000 conversions are possible by offline marketing.
This indicates that you need to sell to 6,000 additional students in order to achieve this goal. Whether you are going to sell this 6,000 course only through digital or through offline medium or both?
Let us assume you made all the calculations and analysis and finally concluded that you are going to acquire 3000 students through solely digital medium only.
This means your goal is defined. Total 10,000 acquisitions = 4,000 through traditional approach + Additional 3,000 through digital-only + 3,000 through a combination of both digital and traditional.
Now, goals for all aspects of your marketing are defined. On the basis of the goal, define key performance indicators (KPIs) for various teams and move ahead.
#3. Creating buyer personas
Knowing the buyer will help you sell in a better way. Be it offline marketing or online marketing, understanding the buyer is a very significant activity.
In digital marketing, the buyer is not in front of you and this makes it more important for you to make your buyer personas as early as possible.
As per HubSpot,
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-definition-under-100-sr
After setting your digital marketing goal in the previous stage, create as many buyer personas as you can in this stage.
Answer the following questions:
Who will be your buyer?
What will be his/her education?
Age?
Interests?
What is a day in their life like?
What are their goals?
Where do they go for information?
How much time do they spend on the internet?
Which websites/social media platforms they use the most?
#4. Identifying the digital channels and budget
A well begun is half done. By this step, you already have an idea of your goals and buyers. You have your KPIs defined and you know that who are your buyers and which digital channels are used by them.
On the basis of the goal which you set in step 2 and the personas which you developed in step 3, you need to identify the digital channels and budget.
What would be the right digital channel and the right budget?
If you have made buyer personas honestly, then they will answer this question.
There are several digital platforms via which you can sell.
Suppose, you are selling square pizzas in your vicinity. The right channel would be to get listed on Zomato, Swiggy, FoodPanda and so on, to have an optimized Google My Business listing and to have a website/app (optional). Also, you will have to target social media platforms.
On the contrary, for a person who is selling shoes and wants to get online, the right approach would be to rank higher e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, etc. This would be a more viable approach rather than spending time and budget on his own website.
To identify the right digital channels, find answers to the following questions:
How much time are the buyers spending on the internet?
How often they buy online?
Which social media platform is used by most of them?
Do they write reviews about the product they bought?
Which e-commerce websites they visit the most?
Do they read review articles before making a purchase?
Talking about budget, it varies from business to business. If your goals are high, you would be expected to allocate a decent enough budget to your digital marketing campaign.
Again, find answers to the following questions to get help in finalizing a budget:
What is your total marketing budget?
How much budget have you dedicated to digital marketing in the past?
How much are you willing to spend to acquire one new customer? (Maximum CPA)
How much are you willing to spend to retain a customer?
How much are you willing to spend to create awareness about your brand?
Is the budget you finalized feasible enough to generate the desired results?
#5. Creating and optimizing digital marketing assets
Digital marketing assets consists of the various platforms, website, social media, etc which you are going to use for the digital marketing campaign.
Any asset in digital form is known as a digital asset. A digital asset includes emails, images, data on cloud, media, website, cryptocurrencies, etc.
Digital marketing requires a lot of digital assets like websites, landing pages, social media accounts, YouTube channels, etc.
Usually, businesses have several such digital marketing assets, but they are not optimized.
Imagine a shop in a corner of the market without any name or signage. Also, there is nothing on display. Though the shop might have the best commodities or products. But, if the consumer is not able to see things in place, will he/she enter the shop? Will anyone even come to know what does the shop sells?
The same concept is applicable to your digital assets. If you have a website, people must know about it. If you are having a LinkedIn Page, it must describe your company, products/services offered, etc in detail.
Your digital assets are your online identity. They represent you. Hence, it is very important to maintain and optimize them.
In the previous step, you have already identified the digital channels and the budget. So, select the digital marketing assets accordingly.
For instance, a student who is starting a small venture might not have the capital for making a website or an e-commerce site initially. But, he can use social media, business listings and other such free digital resources in the beginning.
On the contrary, an established business may have the budget to run varied digital marketing campaigns, make several landing pages, run paid ad campaigns, etc.
Do not start the digital marketing campaign unless you have the right digital marketing assets in place and well optimized.
#6. Finalizing the digital marketing activities
Now, you have a goal with you, your buyer personas are ready and also the digital marketing assets are ready.
The next step is finalizing the activities. Digital marketing is a very vast field and is comprised of a plethora of activities.
Few of the most commonly used digital marketing activities
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
3. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
4. Affiliate Marketing
5. Influencer Marketing
6. Online Reputation Management (ORM)
7. Video Marketing
8. App Store Optimization (ASO)
The list goes on.
Identifying the right set of activities that you are going to perform is very crucial before you actually start implementing it.
Most of the people start with any random activity in the beginning and focus only on it. This is not the right approach. Multiple activities need to performed simultaneously to get the desired outcome.
Also, the activities are interlinked with each other.
For instance, if you are having a website and an app both. But, your goal is to make “x” percent of people to install and use your app, then you will focus more on ASO. This doesn’t mean you will completely neglect SEO or your website. But, the emphasis would be on ASO.
Let us take another example. Suppose, your last product didn’t work well or you failed to serve the customers well previously. And, there is a lot of negative reviews about your company online. Then, here you must give emphasis on ORM initially to develop a positive reputation. This can be done by listening to customers, understanding their problems, solving their problems and making a positive image.
Every business has different needs and the goals differ too. The following questions will help you finalize the digital marketing activities for your business:
What platforms are used by your competitors?
What activities can drive better results?
Where is your audience?
What activities are you currently performing?
Do the selected activities suits your business model?
Is your budget sufficient to perform all the listed digital marketing activities?
#7. Implementing the finalized digital marketing activities
After performing the 6 preparatory steps, this step will help you perform activities to achieve your goal.
If you would have conducted the above 6 steps honestly, this step will be a smooth execution for you.
Every identified digital marketing activity needs to be planned and then goals are to be set for each activity.
For instance, you finalized in the previous step that you would be doing SEO and SMM.
Here, you need to have a plan for the SEO activities, a timeline which indicates by which date, what activity will be completed. Also, a goal for each sub-activity should be set. Example: For SEO, you would be optimizing “x” web pages, creating “y” backlinks and generating “z%” more traffic.
For SMM, a plan for each platform should be made. What would be your plan for Facebook? What would be your plan for Instagram?
Define a plan and goal for each micro activity and then start working on it. Develop a proper content calendar.
With the help of automation, you can actually schedule future posts once you have a content calendar in place. Try out tools like Hootsuite or Buffer.
Stick to the plan and ensure that every activity is performed on the scheduled date.
While you would be actually implementing the activities, do not jump to execute something which was unplanned but looks fancy. For instance, your friend integrated chatbot on his Facebook page. You liked the idea and want to do it. Plan this chatbot integration for the next cycle and focus on the activities which are already planned and you are working on.
#8. Measuring the results
Planning and implementing the plan is not just sufficient.
Unless you measure the results, you cannot evaluate whether the plan has been successful or not.
Analytics help you understand whether you have achieved your goals or not. It plays a key role in digital marketing.
If the results are as expected then your campaign was successful. But, the results will not be positive always. At times, the results will deviate from your goal. Check out the analytics data and analyze the root cause for the deviation.
#9. Repeat the process (Go to step 1)
Digital marketing is not a one-time process. It is an on-going process. A single plan or goal is not sufficient. Goals changes with times and as the business grows. The digital marketing plan should also change.
We live in an agile world and change is the only constant. If you fail to upgrade yourself, you will fail.
In order to see optimal results from digital marketing activities, you will have to repeat this process several times and experiment with the activities.
If you do not see the goal completion in the first attempt, try again. If your goals are met in the first run itself, do not stop. Repeat the process with other goals or with a desire to optimize the results.
In my career of 10 years, what I have observed is that people give up after planning and executing the campaign after the 1st attempt only. It is very important to understand that if your activities are organic, it will take some time. Paid activities will give you immediate results but are not long-lasting. Hence, I prefer a mix of both and the ratio in which the mix is to be done varies from business to business.
Conclusion
I hope this step-by-step guide on how to create an effective digital marketing plan would be of great use to you. Just take a notepad and a paper and try to create a digital marketing plan for your business or maybe yourself as an individual too.
If you want my assistance in developing a digital marketing plan for you, please feel free to connect. Ready to help!
Also, if you are having a different approach for making a digital marketing plan, feel free to share your approach in the comments section.
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