Why you need a digital marketing strategy

Now more than ever, adapting to the online space is vital to staying competitive. Your digital marketing should align with your strategic business goals, which is why you need a clear and actionable plan. 

In this article, we explore: 

• What a digital marketing strategy is
• Benefits of a digital marketing strategy
• What to include in a digital marketing strategy

What is a digital marketing strategy?

A digital marketing strategy outlines how your business can leverage digital channels to achieve marketing objectives. Essentially, it provides a roadmap to maximise your online presence, build brand awareness, and drive traffic.

A well-designed digital marketing strategy takes into account the specific needs and preferences of your target market and identifies the best digital channels to reach them. It also defines the messaging and content that resonates with this audience to encourage conversions. 

An effective digital marketing strategy should include a plan for measuring and analysing campaign performance to optimise tactics and adapt accordingly. This is based on data insights and analytics generated by your CRM and other digital tools. 

Benefits of a digital marketing strategy

So why should you bother with a digital marketing strategy? No matter what products or services your brand sells, digital marketing is a powerful tool to achieve your goals. We’ve summarised the key benefits below: 

Reaching strategic business goals

By aligning your digital marketing with your overarching business goals, you can fast-track success. Whether you want to increase sales, expand market share, improve brand awareness, or launch new products, digital marketing initiatives can support and contribute to these overarching objectives. 

Engaging your target audience

One of the main benefits of digital marketing is the ability to target your ideal customers directly. With buyer personas, advanced analytics, and digital channels, you can identify how your ideal customers communicate and tailor your campaigns to match. 

By understanding demographics, interests, and behaviours, you can deliver personalised messages that resonate with your best-fit buyers, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates. 

Building brand awareness

A digital marketing strategy provides a framework to maintain consistent brand messaging across multiple channels. Through carefully crafted content, social media engagement, influencer partnerships, and online advertising, you can increase brand visibility, enhance your reputation, and foster loyalty.

Measuring campaign performance

Unlike traditional marketing methods, digital marketing offers several accurate tools and metrics to measure campaign performance. A digital marketing strategy should incorporate key performance indicators (KPIs) that allow you to track your campaign’s effectiveness in real time. 

By analysing website traffic, conversion rates, click-through rates, and social media engagement, you can easily identify what works and what needs improvement. This makes it easier to optimise your marketing efforts with data-driven decisions. 

Keeping up with digital trends

The digital landscape is constantly evolving, with new technologies, platforms, and consumer trends emerging constantly. An effective digital marketing strategy helps you stay ahead of the curve and adapt to these changes as they arise. 

By reviewing and updating your strategy regularly, you can take advantage of new opportunities and capitalise on emerging digital channels. 

Return on investment (ROI)

Digital marketing offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional marketing methods because it often generates more return on investment (ROI). With a well-crafted strategy, you can reach a larger audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. 

This is largely because digital strategies allow you to track campaign performance more accurately. This way you can allocate your resources more effectively to focus on the areas that yield the highest returns. 

What to include in a digital marketing strategy

Developing a digital marketing strategy may seem daunting, so we’ve outlined the key elements to include. Generally, a digital marketing strategy should include the following:

• Target audience and buyer personas
• Unique selling proposition (USP)
• Goals 
• Budget
• Channels and platforms
• Messaging and creative assets
• Content calendar
• Metrics and analytics

You can also use our content mapping template, email marketing checklist, and marketing metrics guide. 

Digital marketing agency NZ

If developing and implementing a digital marketing strategy seems like a lot of work, there is an easy solution – you can outsource your marketing to a specialist agency. There are significant advantages to this approach, including:

• More time to focus on the company
• Access to a team of marketing experts 
• Fresh insights into marketing trends
• Consistency in marketing activity
• Access to the latest tools and resources
• Accountability to achieve tangible results

If you’re ready to get started, see the services we offer here at Vanguard 86. From one-off projects to ongoing managed support, we can help you turn your marketing strategy into leads, conversions, and growth. 

If you’re interested in outsourcing your digital marketing to our experienced team, take a look at our three levels of HubSpot management – build, grow, and accelerate. Whatever your business sells, we can develop a marketing strategy tailored to you. 

Find your tailored marketing plan here