A good digital marketing strategy is fundamentally a good business strategy.
Today, every customer and client operates in a digital environment and so, by extension, every business needs to have an effective digital strategy. Powered by data, digital marketing has the advantage of being able to test, learn and develop at both speed and scale meaning that businesses who get their strategy right, are able to achieve exceptional growth.
WHAT IS A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY?
In its simplest form, a digital marketing strategy is a plan that connects a business with its customers. The key to a good strategy is the coherence and coordination of specific actions behind that plan with a specific objective in mind.
Contemporary strategies which are resilient in the fast-evolving digital marketing landscape and can outpace a competitive market focus on these key things in order to drive tangible business results:
Coherence: a detailed understanding of both your market, your products/services and, most importantly, your customer – who they are, and how they engage with brands online.
Coordination of specific actions: this really is the core of your strategy, having a comprehensive understanding of how you will engage with specific customer types, on which channels and what creative will perform best.
Specific objectives: typically the objectives will reflect KPIs for core business performance: revenue growth, increased profitability, reduced customer acquisition cost. Sophisticated strategies determine specific targets and ensure the accurate and validate measurement of progress towards these goals.
“A future-proofed digital strategy merges clarity with impact, turning complex challenges into growth opportunities. Beyond today’s KPIs, it must commit to crafting sustainable growth models that enhance your brand’s future equity, ensuring every move counts.”
INTRODUCING EVERYSEARCH™
The digital marketing landscape has always been defined by rapid evolution. In fact, it’s this ever-changing nature that has always attracted disruptive businesses as it creates the opportunity for more agile brands to acquire new customers and market share from slower-moving competitors. However, the last few years in particular have seen a real shift in the way people incorporate multiple digital touchpoints, channels and content formats when looking to discover new ideas, brands and products.
We used to conventionally think about Search as being exclusively the preserve of the search engines and, conversely, social platforms being simply where people consumed content. However, as the platforms have evolved and people’s online behaviours have changed we need to completely redefine the notion of Search as being about capturing visibility, commanding attention, and maximising performance across every searchable platform.
Where we might have talked about upper- and lower-funnel activity, we must adopt a more contemporary approach to digital strategy such as the messy middle marketing model where people bounce between exploration and evaluation – incorporating a variety of channels, media and purchase influencers – before ultimately arriving at a decision. The Everysearch™ framework is the key to success in this diverse landscape as it provides both the insight on how and where your customer personas are searching online as well as the strategic approach to maximising performance across every searchable platform.
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES/ TRENDS TO HELP NAVIGATE THE LANDSCAPE IN 2024
In our work developing growth strategies for our clients, we see that the way in which people are consuming content, finding inspiration, informing purchase decisions and discovering new brands no longer follow conventional principles of a linear marketing funnel. Instead, people cycle between two phases of exploration – “what am I looking to buy?” – and evaluation – “is this the right product and brand for me?” before finally arriving at the point where they are ready to make a purchase. People are looking to a variety of content types and channels to go through these phases such as creator content on YouTube and user generated reviews on TikTok. With this in mind, these are the 3 key areas to consider when navigating the digital marketing landscape.
AI-powered marketing
The diversification of search means that brands need to understand how their consumers are searching across an increasing number of platforms. With this comes exponentially more data to gather and analyse. AI-powered tools help cut through this noise and provide clear, actionable insights that can be used to formulate your digital marketing strategy. The opportunities for Growth lie in identifying where your audiences spend their time online, and building your strategy around these platforms.
Be discoverable
Audiences are proactively looking for answers to their queries on different platforms and using different content formats. Someone wanting food inspiration may search for recipes on TikTok and another person trying to solve a business challenge will listen to thought-leaders on YouTube. Understanding your customers and where they are searching is key to determining your channel mix.
Understand your audience
Your audience consists of people with different perspectives, who are inspired in different ways and who seek different values from the brands they choose to engage with. Building these different personas using data-drive insights from sources such as GWI is key to both addressing their needs and tailoring your marketing messaging.
The search landscape has completely changed, and will continue to evolve. Everysearch™ provides the framework to understand how and where your audience is searching for and discovering brands online now, but also the agility to maximise performance across every search platform into the future.
If you want to know more about the Everysearch™ framework. Get in touch with one of our team today.
