Digital marketing is more important now than ever. My recommendations on the challenges and opportunities for growth
Digital marketing is deceptively easy if you take the deliberately simple definition from my book Digital Marketing:Strategy, Implementation and Practice where I define Digital Marketing as:
"Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital media, data and technology".
But in reality, digital marketing is a tough challenge since many businesses know how vital digital and mobile channels are today for acquiring and retaining customers. Yet the research shared below shows that many businesses don't have an integrated plan to support digital transformation and business growth based on engaging their audiences effectively online.
In this article, I will explain why a digital marketing strategy is essential for all businesses. If you're looking for an introduction to the scope of digital marketing and what should be included in a plan, see my post explaining What is Digital Marketing.
Regardless of the type…
Use our digital marketing strategy template integrated across the RACE Framework to plan and get ahead in your digital marketing
We all know the old saying “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”, but when it comes to digital marketing, this really is the case. It has never been more important than it is now to create a digital marketing strategy template so you can plan, manage and optimize your online activities.
Today, digital media is vital when it comes to driving leads and sales, meaning marketers need to understand how best to engage and convert online audiences. Despite this, our research into digital marketing trends for 2024 shows that many businesses (around 40%) still don’t have a digital marketing plan. As a result, companies are missing out on the benefits of having a digital marketing plan integrated into their overall marketing plan or as a separate roadmap…
Discover how a customer experience strategy that enhances digital experiences across all touchpoints can help build brand loyalty and improve ROI
In today’s fast-paced digital world, providing a seamless customer experience strategy is no longer a luxury but a necessity. As consumers have more options than ever on where, when, and how to interact with brands, ensuring a consistent and positive digital experience can significantly impact your business's growth and competitiveness.
It’s easy to forget just how many touchpoints your business may have. The Smart Insights customer lifecycle visual highlights just some of the many paid, owned, and earned media omnichannel options available today to communicate with prospects and customers. There’s a lot!
The diverse array of channels highlights the amount of avenues we need to effectively manage to create effective customer experience,…
An example of how to structure a digital marketing strategy plus examples from other sectors
We launched Smart Insights in 2010, to help marketers develop digital marketing strategies, since we saw that many businesses faced the challenge of where to start when creating a digital marketing strategy. The most popular downloads were templates for structuring a digital marketing strategy. We quickly found from member feedback that examples were important, and we now have examples of digital marketing strategies in many sectors, which we cover at the end of this post.
Although digital marketing platforms and technology has changed immensely in this time, particularly with the recent growth in use of Generative AI, the fundamentals of creating a digital strategy are the same. Some of the AI recommendations on digital marketing strategy and many of the human ones fail to get these essentials right, they go straight to recommending different digital marketing channels…
7 steps to creating an effective marketing plan for businesses of all sizes
A marketing plan is a bit like a job description for your company. Everyone should have one, but they’re often not fit for purpose, out of date, and reviewed infrequently...
Research has shown that businesses with plans succeed, outperform competitors, and retain staff, more than those with no plan.
Without a plan there’s no direction for the company or its employees, decisions can be uninformed, opportunities can be missed and threats can damage or destroy the business.
Whether you are looking at creating a traditional marketing plan or a multichannel digital marketing plan, we've got resources to help you.
Free marketing plan template aimed at small businesses
In this article, Annmarie Hanlon recommends 7 simple steps for structuring a classic marketing plan. But for an SME or SMB, you need a little more detail about prioritizing your investment of time and…
What are the essential parts of a multichannel marketing plan template?
Multichannel marketing, or omnichannel marketing, is the process of utilizing online and offline marketing communications channels to target and engage with your customers.
As outlined in our popular Learning Path module, structure a plan using the RACE Planning framework, the purpose of a multichannel marketing strategy is to empower marketers and managers to plan, manage and optimize the resources needed to achieve business sales targets. The timeframe is typically annual but potentially longer-term, such as 18 months to three years.
Examples of communications channels could include, for example:
Websites
Physical stores
Catalogs
E-mail marketing
TV
Text messaging
Blogging
Direct mail
The goal is to deliver leads and sales targets for defined products and services, which can apply to an organization as a whole, or a single market if there are multiple markets and product or service categories.
An effective omnichannel approach to marketing…
A content marketing planning tool to help marketers generate a matrix of ideas for the most engaging content types for their audiences
We created our Content Marketing Matrix to help our members audit their content marketing assets as part of creating a content marketing strategy. It can also be used for content ideation, i.e. to brainstorm future content ideas to generate leads, nurture prospects, encourage sharing, and generate backlinks for SEO.
Since we created it eight years ago it's been shared many times and has inspired many 'mashups' in different formats, as this Google search shows; great to see it's been useful!
I think our Content Marketing Matrix is a powerful mindtool for marketers since it's a content mapping tool, structured to help you think through two key dimensions of which types of content will best support the path to purchase for your target audience.…
From SMART to SMARTER marketing objectives: Discover how to define marketing objectives, measure your digital marketing goals, and use data to inform your marketing strategy
When identifying specific marketing objectives to support your long-term goals, it is common practice to apply the widely used SMART mnemonic. You will know that SMART is used to assess the suitability of objectives set to drive different strategies or the improvement of the full range of business processes.
By its simplest definition, an effective SMART marketing objective is:
Specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound.
But you will learn in this article that beyond this well-known acronym, there are different variations and nuances which you can apply to practice Smarter Marketing.
What is Smarter Marketing?
The SMART acronym is much more than a mnemonic since it defines a way of thinking about getting better results within business and marketing. This mindset is based…
Set the right goals for digital marketing using the 5Ss
Do your set of goals for online marketing cover all the bases? A good set of digital marketing goals covers a range of different measures to help set, review, and control performance across all digital marketing activities. In this article, we cover the 5S framework which are a simple method to gain more focus on how digital marketing can support a business.
The 5Ss are a great simple framework, as the examples show. It's worth bearing in mind that goals are broader than objectives which we recommend as essential for setting targets and reviewing performance using digital marketing dashboards. If you need to use a more data-driven approach to digital marketing, see these primers or our free template for more examples:
Setting SMART objectives for…
What goes into the Amazon marketing strategy secret sauce? Our business case study explores Amazon's revenue model and culture of customer metrics, history of Amazon.com and marketing objectives
In the final quarter of 2022, Amazon reported net sales of over $149.2 billion. This seasonal spike is typical of Amazon's quarterly reporting, but the growth is undeniable as this was the company's highest quarter ever.
There is no doubt that the e-commerce retail giant continues to lead the way in e-commerce growth. The Amazon marketing strategy we are familiar with today has evolved since it was founded in 1994.
I've highlighted the Amazon marketing strategy case study in my books for nearly 20 years now since I think all types of businesses can learn from their digital business strategy. Their response to the pandemic is impressive but not entirely surprising…
