When it comes to digital marketing, there are some common misconceptions about the best way to get started.
‍

Do you find the resources first? Or your digital marketing plan first?

‍

Some business leaders believe they simply need a marketing unicorn or a junior team that can “do it all”, while others assume that their marketing department/partners can simply follow their lead, despite having no in-depth knowledge of marketing themselves.
‍
Because of this, many businesses hire/enlist their people first and then develop their strategy around them. The problem is, without a tailored blueprint, these businesses typically end up with a redundant, ill-equipped, confused or inefficient marketing team.
‍
So, unlike the chicken and the egg debate, I have the answer for this marketing conundrum! It’s the plan first.
‍
It’s important to develop the right digital marketing strategy before deciding who you need to execute it. This way, you can hire the right people to do the right tasks using the right marketing tools every time.
‍
While you may already have marketing staff in-house, it’s important to stop, make a plan and then execute it together.
‍
Here’s how to build and give your team direction based on a digital marketing strategy.

‍

Step 1: Determine whether your business is ready to invest in digital marketing.

Before you rush in, it’s a smart idea to take a step back and determine whether your business needs a digital marketing strategy in the first place. Some key indicators include:

• A growing sales team with ineffective processes and dwindling conversion rates
• A sales team that needs a better marketing presence to compete against larger, more established companies
• An evolving sales team and product offering that requires a consistent strategy to excel
• A sales team spending too much time qualifying leads and explaining your business value
• A sales team looking for new ways to improve conversion rates
• The need to amplify current business growth by attaining more leads in a new or broader market

‍

Step 2: Once you’re ready, you need to develop a strategy.

Despite popular opinion, you cannot hire the right people without first developing an effective digital marketing strategy.
‍
Today’s marketing has become extremely diversified, with more than 40 different types of modern marketing executions and growing. That’s why the concept of a Marketing Unicorn, or someone who can “do it all”, is so far-fetched. Instead, by developing a great digital marketing plan first based on your business goals, you can hire the people most suited to each part of marketing for your business.
‍
With the right digital marketing strategy, you’ll get:

• A marketing roadmap with clear deliverables
• Clear qualitative and quantitative goals to keep you on track
• Exact pieces of content to develop in priority order
• An effective resourcing plan
• Integration and alignment of digital marketing with your business objectives

This allows you to effectively cover all your resourcing, content, and technology needs.

For more information, check out our 9-Step Digital Marketing Strategy Guide.‍

‍

Step 3: Find the right people to execute your plan

Once you’ve got your digital marketing strategy, the person who delivered it should ultimately be the one responsible for determining who you need to execute it.
‍
At Ask Marketing, we earmark every area of your strategy to indicate who we believe would be best to help execute it:

• Ask Marketing has launched a new service arm which can help. You can now hire Ask Marketing, who will provide you with a managed and dedicated marketing team, contracted you for a set number of days per week - based on your needs. We manage all of their deliverables and all of the ongoing strategic guidance to your business. All of your marketing fundamentals, are now sorted.
• From time to time, or further down the track once you have been successfully doing your marketing for 6-12 months, we may recommend scaling up your marketing or adding other layers of marketing like advertising. In this case, we will introduce and help you to work with our partner agencies.
• Much like builders in the marketing industry, we are your trusted partner. We develop and own the plans with you, execute all of the critical foundations and then enlist any recommended technical marketing "trades" as needed.
  ‍

Do you need help with strategic digital marketing for your business?

All you have to do is Ask!

At Ask Digital Marketing, we combine decisive digital strategy and managed marketing execution to help B2B service-based businesses build demand, establish thought leadership and own their industry through digital business marketing.

Stop waiting. Start building. Experience success.

Just get in touch with us and we can discuss your business to help you navigate the digital marketing landscape towards success.

Let’s harness the power of digital marketing today!

For more great marketing content, connect with our company leaders, Alexandra King and Stephanie King, or follow our Ask Marketing LinkedIn page.