Digital Marketing budgets in 2021 increased by 15% as the trend to reach more people online continues to grow.
Choosing the correct digital marketing channels for your business can be a challenging decision with the plethora of choices available these days. How can you be sure that you reach your audience most effectively and get the best return on your investment?
If this is a problem that you are currently struggling with, keep reading, as we have some solid advice to help you navigate the minefield. This short guide will take you through the steps you need to develop a robust digital marketing plan to help your business get noticed online.
1. Set Your Business Goals
Without defined marketing business objectives, any digital marketing plan is doomed to fail. When targeting your audiences, you need a clear goal in mind; otherwise, you may find yourself deploying a scattergun approach and missing everyone.
Marketing objectives should be SMART and lead you to a clear endpoint. You need to choose what you want to achieve: brand awareness, lead generation, or more direct sales. Each end goal will have a different digital pathway, so defining these clearly at the start will show you which way you need to go.
2. Define Your Target Audience
You will find different customer audiences on various digital channels, so if you want to make sure you are communicating with the right ones, you need to define who they are at the start. Using customer personas can be a great way to achieve this as it helps you dig deep into the personalities, wants, and needs of your audience segments.
Who your audience is will give you the answers to later questions, such as should I target Facebook vs Google Ads. The answer will be clear when you know on which platform you are more likely to find your audience.
3. Define Your Budget
Different marketing channels will require personalized budgets, so when it comes to calculating marketing ROI, you need to have a starting point. Ensure you have the right amount allotted to each digital channel or you will be simply wasting your funds.
Start by defining your overall digital marketing budget and then break it down by channel. This job will be helped by the audience segmentation work you have already done, as you will know where more of your audience resides. A little bit of A/B testing on your channels at the start will also help you decide which will bring you the best return on your investment.
You may find this fluctuates throughout the year and that sometimes you need to spend more on your social media marketing, other times on search engine marketing, and at crunch points, you may want to spend the most on Google ads to get more eyes on the product.
Get Help With Your Digital Marketing Channels
Once you have the critical factors in alignment goals, audiences, and budget, which digital marketing channels you should be targeting should become a lot clearer. But, you do not need to do this work alone. Consider speaking to outside talent in the form of a digital marketing agency if you need more guidance on the next steps.
With the groundwork done, you will find the process much easier and more rewarding. If you would like to know more about digital marketing, please consider checking out some more articles on our site.