What is a Digital Marketing Strategy and Does Your Business Need One?

Businesses need customers, and so, businesses need marketing.

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No matter what industry, type and size, organisations have always used marketing to raise brand awareness, increase customer engagement, generate leads and boost conversion rates.
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However, with the rapid advancements in technology and the evolution of online media, a whole new section of marketing has evolved and thrived – that is, digital marketing.
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Digital marketing leverages the power of the Internet and all other forms of digital communication and technology to promote your brand and help you connect better with audiences.
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However, to harness its full potential, you need to have an effective digital marketing strategy that will coordinate your efforts, optimise your resources and guide you toward reaching your business goals.

‍The right digital marketing strategy is absolutely essential if you want to launch effective digital marketing campaigns as it gives you a direction and a roadmap to success.

In this article, we’ll share the importance of a digital marketing strategy and the benefits your business can gain from having one.

What is a digital marketing strategy?

Your business’ digital marketing strategy serves as the overarching roadmap that outlines the various actions you need to take to achieve all of your digital marketing goals.
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A digital marketing strategy can also be referred to as a “digital marketing plan”, a “marketing plan”, a “digital roadmap” or a “digital strategy” - but in essence, they’re the same thing with the same goal in mind.
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They’re all a gateway to digital marketing excellence.
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An effective digital marketing strategy is all built upon your specific objectives, vision statements, customer personas and budget to align your digital marketing initiatives with the core objectives of your business. Most of the time, the digital marketing strategy is devised by marketing strategists, like Ask Marketing, and then implemented by an experienced senior marketing leader or marketing service provider.
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For more information, download our 9-Step Digital Marketing Strategy Guide.

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A digital marketing strategy should serve as your compass to navigate toward your business’ vision and objectives.
To do this, it should outline the who, what, where, when and why of your digital marketing approach.

Who needs a digital marketing strategy?

Every single organisation.
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With so many digital channels to use, a comprehensive digital marketing strategy provides a compass direction to keep marketers from getting overwhelmed while trying everything and hoping for the best.
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So, even though each digital marketing strategy is unique when it comes to implementation, they all involve coordinating your digital approach to strengthen your branding with an effective and efficient plan.

How a digital marketing strategy applies to all organisations

Digital marketing strategy for businesses of all sizes.

• Start-ups and small businesses must have a Go-to-Market (GTM) digital marketing strategy to achieve both cost-effectiveness and competitive advantage when introducing their products and services to the market.  
• Scale-up businesses, on the other hand, need a digital marketing strategy to nurture and maintain their growing audiences across all different online channels.
• For well-established businesses and large companies, a digital marketing strategy is essential to keep content, advertising and the overall brand relevant to customers as the product or service matures.

Digital marketing strategy for businesses of all types.

• A digital marketing strategy is a must for any business across all industries. Whether you are in the real estate, finance, education, retail or technology sector, being equipped with a digital marketing strategy enables you to develop a perfect value proposition that will help you stand out in your niche.
• Furthermore, an effective digital marketing strategy allows you to fully understand your online audiences. Through this, you can provide the appropriate digital marketing at each stage of their buying journey.

Digital marketing strategy for businesses of all revenue models.

• All models - service-based, subscription-based, commission-based, transactional and advertising businesses - all have something in common. They need a bespoke digital marketing strategy that creates brand awareness, generates interest and drives interested prospects toward a digital conversion point.

No organisation can exclude itself from the online world today. So, you need to adopt the power of  forward-thinking marketing practices with a strategy-first digital marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals.

So, regardless of the business structure you have, you can rely on a digital marketing strategy to help you determine your goal market share, measure your online marketing performance and make improvements as needed.

What are the benefits of having a digital marketing strategy?

Just like a game plan, a digital marketing strategy equips your business with guidance and well-thought-out tactics to help you win more customers and succeed in today’s ever-evolving business landscape.

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Imagine having:

• A marketing roadmap with clear deliverables. A digital marketing strategy gives your team clear expectations of what content and digital marketing channels to use, how you will create value, who you will deliver it to, and where to post it.
• Clear qualitative and quantitative goals to keep you on track. To measure your organisation’s performance and evaluate your growth, a digital marketing strategy helps you define your qualitative and quantitative goals, including the reasons behind them.
• The exact pieces of content to develop in priority order. Through a digital marketing strategy, you will be able to know how to best optimise your blogs, podcasts, videos, social media posts, white papers, lead magnets and other types of content to consistently capture your audience’s interests and keep them engaged.
• A resourcing plan. A digital marketing strategy helps you to assign the right people to execute every component of the digital marketing function. With it, you can assure that workflow is seamless and that the right skills for every role are being utilised.
• Integration and alignment of digital marketing with your business objectives. A digital marketing strategy ensures that your multiple digital strategies and tactics are all contributing to the fulfilment of your business objectives.

These are the practical benefits an effective digital marketing strategy offers your business.

The main benefit of a digital marketing strategy is that it provides a guide to ensure you earn positive returns from digital marketing.

What does a great digital marketing strategy cover?

When it comes to executing your digital marketing and achieving business success, a comprehensive digital marketing strategy should include these 3 fundamental components:

1. Resourcing needs – Your digital marketing strategy should dictate whether you will recruit a digital marketing team, assign tasks to existing internal marketers, outsource to other external marketing agencies or use a combination of all these options.

2. Content needs – One of the most important roles of your digital marketing strategy is mapping out all of your content media requirements, together with a timeline and your budget.

3. Technology needs – Your digital marketing strategy should also include the adoption of appropriate marketing technology (or “MarTech”) that can achieve results while improving cost and time efficiencies.

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.