The 4 Pillars of a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

Did you know that in the past two decades, internet usage has increased by 1,266%?  That’s huge- Successful Digital Marketing Strategy! 

As of 2021, 63.2% of the global population used the internet frequently. In other words, the marketing landscape has changed drastically. 

TV commercials, billboards, and newspaper advertisements are now replaced by video ads, banner ads, and social media campaigns. Other businesses also use multi touch marketing attribution software to boost their marketing campaign.

That said, focusing most of your marketing efforts on the online medium is now mandatory rather than a recommendation. 

But digital marketing is not only about creating a website and setting up a few social media accounts. First, you’ll need to come up with a plan. 

So why do you need a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy, and what are its most important elements? 

Let’s take a look at Successful Digital Marketing Strategy. 

• Table of Contents

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  Reasons You Need a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy 

• 1. It Gives You a Sense of Direction 

Devising a strategy will allow you to understand where you currently stand, what you want to achieve, how to do it, and how long it will take you. 

Consequently, you’ll have an easier time allocating the necessary resources for individual marketing activities and measuring their performance effectively. 

• 2. It Helps You Understand Your Target Audience 

The beauty of the internet is that it gives you access to a lot of data. More specifically, information regarding your target audience. 

Tools like Google Analytics will reveal who your visitors are, where they’re from, how they ended up on your website, what pages they browsed, how much time they spent on them, etc. 

There are also plenty of other heat mapping tools that will enable you to see where users move their mouse on the web page, what they click on, and how far they scroll. 

All of this information will give you an insight into who your target audience is and how it behaves. Thus, you can build a more accurate buyer persona and adjust your marketing efforts based on that. 

• 3. It’s Targeted 

Back in the old days, marketing was a relatively hit or miss type of deal. 

Suppose you place a billboard on the side of a highway. Sure, a lot of people will see it, but how many passers-by fit your buyer persona? 

You’ll likely never know. 

Digital marketing makes sure that your campaigns will only reach the people who’ll find your ads relevant. 

For example, you could set Facebook to display ads to users based on their age, location, gender, interests, and even their relationship status or education. 

Consequently, as long as you know your audience through and through, your ads will likely bring more people to your website while also keeping the costs down. 

• 4. Differentiate Yourself from the Competition 

When creating a digital marketing strategy, assessing your strengths and weaknesses is only one part of the deal, though. You’ve also got to analyze your competition. 

You can check your competitors’ social media pages and see what posts generate the most engagement. 

There are also plenty of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools that will allow you to see what keywords your competitors rank for, what backlinks they generate, etc. 

Or Website Grader, for example, can give your competitors’ websites a score based on their performance, mobile friendliness, security, and SEO.

In other words, digital marketing gives you the tools you need to study your competition, find its weaknesses, and look for ways to gain the upper hand. 

• 5. Track Your ROI 

Lastly, digital marketing lets you track the ROI with the strategy you’ve adopted. With the analytics tools available, you can keep a close eye on your progress, see where there is room for improvement and optimize your strategy for maximum profits. 

• The Essential Elements of a Digital Marketing Strategy

• 1. A Responsive Website 

In digital marketing, you could hardly do without a website. 

Whether potential customers interact with you on other marketing channels like social media or emails, the chances are that they’ll look for your website to learn more about your business.

For example, a potential customer has seen an ad displaying one of your products on social media. 

The product caught his attention, and he’ll search for your website to find out more about it. Once the user finds your website, he’ll decide if he wants to buy the product.

That said, having a website is necessary, while all of your other marketing channels should lead to it, as that’s where most of your audience will probably convert. 

Consequently, your website should be engaging, provide an excellent user experience, and be designed in a way to convince users to take action. 

So how can you do that? 

For starters, your website needs to be mobile-friendly. 

That’s because mobile devices account for almost 55% of all web traffic. 

What’s more, according to Google’s Core Web Vitals update, which was released in June 2021, mobile-first indexing is set as the default for all websites. Before, this was only valid for new websites. 

Mobile-first indexing means that Google prioritizes mobile-friendliness when ranking websites in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). 

In other words, if your website is not optimized for mobiles, you stand to lose on the majority of users while also taking a hit in terms of SEO. 

To avoid this from happening, you’ve got three options: responsive, adaptive, or mobile-first design. 

Digital marketing companies suggest you should opt for the responsive approach. That’s because this option is affordable and provides a consistent user experience across all types of devices. 

• 2. Measured Search Campaigns 

Speaking of websites, the first five organic listings attract 67.60% of all clicks. 

That said, if you want to drive more traffic to your website, you’d better step up on your SEO game. 

For that, you’ll need to focus on providing users with quality content, improve your website’s user experience, do keyword research, earn backlinks from authoritative websites, and much more. 

However, the key to SEO success stands in measuring your campaigns. 

Make sure to track data regarding your keywords, links, rankings, etc. This will give you an insight into what does and doesn’t work for you. Thus, you’ll be able to make the necessary adjustment for maximizing performance and budget. 

Search marketing isn’t all about SEO, though. You also have Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) to consider. 

PPC ads appear on top of organic search engine listings, meaning that they’ll give you the most visibility. 

To make PPC ads effective, you’ve got to measure keyword search volumes and competition. This will prevent you from blowing the budget.

Furthermore, make sure to tweak your ad copy from time to time and see what generates higher click-throughs. 

But, both SEO and PPC have their ups and downs. 

Most notably, with SEO, you might need four to six months until you see any results. During this time, you’ve got to keep pumping quality content, improve your website, earn backlinks, etc. All of which can cost you money.

The upside? Once you occupy the top positions in the SERP, you’ll start to generate traffic without much effort. 

In contrast, PPC ad campaigns will bring you instant results. However, once your budget depletes, so does your traffic. 

So how do you know which approach might be better for you? 

Again, through measurement. Make sure to track your results and see what’s more effective for you. 

• 3. Email Marketing 

Although email marketing has been around for a while, emails are still a powerful marketing channel. 

In fact, for every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect $36 in return.

As opposed to other marketing channels, emails feel more personal. Thus, you can establish a stronger connection with the recipients and create a loyal customer base. 

To do this, sending personalized emails might be a good idea. You wouldn’t want your emails to look like the spam we are all used to. 

That said, consider micro-segmentation. This is the process of dividing your audience into multiple groups based on specific criteria, like demographics, user interest, and purchase history. 

Consequently, you’ll be able to create smaller yet more powerful email campaigns catered to each segment of your audience. 

Suppose you’ve split your audience into two groups: new email subscribers and existing customers. 

The first group might not have bought a product yet. But they’re interested enough in your business to subscribe to your newsletter. So sending them an email with a coupon code might convince them to make a purchase. 

In terms of existing customers, you can look at their purchase history and recommend products that complement previous acquisitions. This could motivate them to keep shopping in your store. 

• 4. Social Media 

Lastly, you’ve got to be active on social media. That’s because social platforms are a great way to engage with your audience, build brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. 

First off, you’ll need to be on the right platforms, more specifically, where your target audience is most likely active. 

For example, 60% of TikTok’s user base in the US consists of people between 16 and 24 years old. So, if you target younger audiences, TikTok should be your go-to.

In terms of social media content, keep it short and sweet. Users’ feeds are flooded with hundreds of other posts. A full-fledged blog post might be too much for them to take in, and they’ll scroll down as a result. 

Instead, you should provide an exciting snippet from your blog and place a link to your website for the full version. That way, you’ll catch the users’ attention, make them read it, and potentially drive traffic to your website as well. 

Also, focus more on visual content, like images, infographics, or videos, as they’re better at grabbing attention and typically experience higher engagement levels. 

• Final Words 

All in all, a successful digital marketing strategy doesn’t focus on a single element. 

You’ve got to be active on social media, run email marketing campaigns while also taking care of your website and making sure that it’s visible in the SERP.

You’ll need to make constant tweaks, run tests, and keep track of your results to get everything right.

Author bio:

Tomas is a digital marketing specialist and a freelance blogger. His work is focusing on new web tech trends and digital voice distribution across different channels.