Investing time and energy in social media marketing without tying your efforts to a strategy is like participating in an archery contest with a blindfold on.

But, merely having a social media strategy is not the cure to all your marketing woes.

You need to ensure that your strategy is driven by data and not by whims. In sophisticated terms, you need to narrow down a social media strategy that is results-driven.

Several questions naturally stem from the above statement.

For instance,

• What does results-driven even mean?
• Which results are we talking about?
• How are they measured?
• To what extent should the said results be measured?

And so on …

The answers to these questions will help us in uncovering what a results-driven digital marketing strategy looks like, and how you can build one.

So, without further ado, let’s begin!

What does results-driven even mean?

Within the purview of our discussion, think of a results-driven strategy as one that engenders measurable progress by leveraging the insights provided by quantifiable metrics.

To make the most out of your results-driven action-plan, you should navigate your marketing efforts by:-

• Setting S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Based) goals.
• Delineating sensible metrics to track your progress on those goals.
• Being open to experimental ideas.
• Using your failures to discover room for improvement.
• Taking action based upon your learnings.

Brainstorm S.M.A.R.T. Goals

The full form of this acronym is not nearly as important as its essence. So, we’ll not entangle you with a letter-by-letter analysis of what S.M.A.R.T. goals are.

(However, here’s a brilliant resource if you want to want to approach the rest of this sub-heading with an increased sense of familiarity)

Instead, we’ll focus on the practical implications inherent to this goal-setting framework, as well as the data that you should leverage.

By thinking within the box of S.M.A.R.T. goals, you no longer have the option to swim in the waters of vagueness.

As per the S.M.A.R.T. framework, it isn’t enough to strive for more sales than before.

• You need to give a number to your ambition.
• You need a number that you can track.
• You need a number that you can realistically achieve.
• You need a number that justifies its pursuit.
• You need to tie that number to a well-defined timeline.

Here’s an example of a smart goal to eliminate any confusion: Since traffic originating from Instagram generates the most conversions for my website, I strive to cumulatively increase my followers every month till the end of this quarter. I will strive for 100 more followers in the first month, 110 more followers for the second month, 120 for the third month, and 140 for the last month

Note: For the sake of creating a results-driven digital marketing strategy, it is generally better to base your S.M.A.R.T. goals on conversions rather than impressions. However, we provided a contrasting example above to assert yet another important lesson. There is no universal approach to goal setting. You just need to know what the rules are so that you also know when to break them.

Some additional considerations:-

Industry Trends:- Don’t forget to account for industry trends like seasonality (how certain industries flourish during specific parts of the year and experience a slump in other months) while focusing on conversions. This will help you in keeping your S.M.A.R.T. goals relevant as well as realistic. Use tools like Statista and SimilarWeb to gather useful insights.

Historical Data:- Use Google Analytics to get an idea of your past performance so that you have some idea about what works and what doesn’t. Identify the correlations between website traffic and marketing channels. As exhibited in the S.M.A.R.T. goals example used above, insights gained from analytical data can help you in identifying channels that yield the best ROI.

Monitor the right KPIs

A pleasant after-effect of sticking with the S.M.A.R.T. framework for goal setting is that you automatically end up with the right key performance indicators.

However, given the myriad of insights provided by modern-day digital analytics tools, it is easy to get suckered into tracking unnecessary metrics.

For instance, tracking your unsubscribe rate isn’t always a fruitful endeavour. If you are meeting your conversion goals irrespective of a somewhat displeasing unsubscribe rate, you perhaps don’t need to lose sleep over it.

Now, we’re not saying that you shouldn’t try to know your customers/potential customers as much as you can.

All we’re saying is that make sure you don’t waste time tracking metrics that don’t offer any practical benefits.

Consider saving that time and spending it on gathering valuable information instead.

Don’t overlook small details while focusing on the bigger picture

Tracking your big-picture goals is imperative to growing your business in the digital age.

However, it is also pertinent to ensure smooth functioning of the internal machinery that ensures the propagation of your digital marketing efforts.

For instance, if you’re trying to increase the organic traffic on your website, thinking from an advertising-oriented standpoint isn’t enough.

You also need to ensure that the internal processes that increase the face-value of your website are all nicely oiled-up.

This includes optimising for SEO-centric aspects like keyword-research, site-speed, UX-design, backlinks, and more.

Simply put, don’t get so engrossed in tracking your progress that you forget to keep a check on the building blocks on your business’ digital presence.

Embrace experimentation

At its core, marketing itself is nothing more than an experiment.

After all, it is a dynamic endeavour that caters to the shapeshifting yet ever-existing gap between consumers and products.

Thus, you sometimes need to be able to step away from time-tested pathways and take the road less travelled.

For instance, you can endlessly tweak your copy to check all the right boxes and end up with a grand total of zero conversions.

However, under the same circumstance, something as simple as changing the colour of the ‘call-to-action’ button on your website can yield the intended results.

Eloquently put, you need to strike a balance between staying within the box of S.M.A.R.T. goals and thinking outside of it.

Follow the Deming Wheel

In the 1950s, Dr. William Edwards Deming, a well-known management consultant, came up with something called the Deming Wheel or the PDCA cycle to help businesses continuously improve their products and services.

The acronym, PDCA, stands for Plan, Do, Check, Act. This model can also be leveraged by digital marketing professionals to continuously improve their strategies.

• Plan:- As we’ve discussed above, start with creating S.M.A.R.T. goals to ground your progress in quantifiable terms.
• Do:- Execute your plan in multiple stages to ensure that you don’t get stuck with a strategy that isn’t doing you any good. In other words, design goals for quarters instead of for the entire year.
• Check:- Keep a track of the right KPIs to get reliable measurements of your progress. Periodically identify improvement avenues, and keep making relevant adjustments in your S.M.A.R.T. goals.
• Act:- Now, once you perform the first three steps for a good number of times, you’ll most likely identify glaring errors in your digital marketing strategy, and stumble upon long-term solutions. Implement those solutions, and return to step one.

Well, the Deming Wheel is exactly like the circle of life. It never ends. But, just like the circle of life, it affords you many opportunities to make the right changes.

The Take-Away

With data science and other novel developments in business analytics fostering large-scale customer research in a manner hitherto unimaginable, metrics have become an inseparable part of marketing strategies.

Thus, being results-driven is inarguably the sane choice for marketers in the digital era. However, it is also wise to address metrics with a healthy dose of scepticism.

Well, we’re not telling you to be sceptical of the figures themselves, but of the implications that they come with.

In a nutshell, be mindful of how you use data, and leverage it to improve your strategies.

However, at the same time, don’t stop listening to your gut, and dare to be experimental from time-to-time.

The post How to implement a results-driven digital marketing strategy? appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

The landscape of digital marketing is continuously emerging and more businesses are acquiring success by concentrating their efforts online. Your digital marketing plan should be an easily readable document that exclusively answers who you are, what you do, and how you plan to draw your customer’s interest.

Sometimes the digital campaigners might feel that they do not have sufficient ideas and knowledge for constructing a concrete and effective plan. However, for developing a marketing sketch that meets your business goals, it should be an ideal blend of the planning process and the finished action plan.

Customer centric digital marketing strategies are crucial for enhancing the opportunities of a profitable and sustainable future. In this highly cutthroat business environment, it is very important to devise an intelligent digital marketing plan for establishing your business values and identity strongly amidst your entrenched competitors. Although there are several ways to create focused digital marketing campaigns but to ensure perfection in your planning process is very important.

Understanding Digital Marketing Process

The digital marketing planning process is the heart of any truly marketing oriented organization for setting up its unique identity over internet. It also guarantees that the customers always remain at the center of its all significant decisions.  Nevertheless the most difficult task in the planning process is to evaluate the methods required to sketch the perfect digital marketing plan.

Summarization of marketing planning process is depicted in the diagram given as follows:

Any marketing plan should be able to provide a clear direction to all pertinent members of an organization. I will explain the complete procedure for planning an effectual digital marketing strategy by splitting the marketing plan into three steps that are not only used for setting up a useful marketing tactic but are equally important for both large and small businesses.

• Research and Planning
• Developing Marketing Strategy
• Determining Actions and Controls

Research and planning is the foremost step of devising an effective digital marketing plan for your business as it clearly articulate the mission and goal of your digital initiatives along with a clearance on selecting which channels to choose and how. This step includes the following points:

• Analysis of current business status and scope of plan
• Research for potential customers
• Scrutinizing the marketing environment and digital channels for promotion
• Recognizing opportunities for success and growth

You should perform initial market analysis for your services and products that will include getting an overview of your market, proper assessment of your website performance over internet and competitive analysis as well. After analyzing the current status of your business, you must ensure an in-depth knowledge of your customers because it is significant for triumphant marketing planning. Know your target audience and go through the popular digital marketing channels employed by your well-established competitors for devising the scope of your successful digital marketing plan.

The other technological factors that should be ignored while performing research and planning are:

• Emergence of latest communication channels
• Advances in computing and internet
• Launch of latest updates for search engine algorithms

2. Developing Marketing Strategy

Researching and understanding your target audience is not enough for creating an effective digital marketing plan but building up an appropriate marketing strategy and for doing so, you must remember three essential elements listed as follows:

• Creating a mission statement
• Statement of goals
• Tactics and strategies for accomplishing the goals

Mission Statement: Your mission statement represents your commitment and focus towards your business; therefore, it should be inspirational, motivational, yet achievable and relevant. If clearly defined, the mission statement develops the focus of your business strategy.

Importance of identifying goals: On the other hand, the articulation of clear business goals of your digital marketing program such as increase sales, brand awareness, customer retention, reduced cost per lead and lessened cost per acquisition of customers might does not help you in taking to path way to employ them digitally. But you must have to dig down your business goals profoundly to acquire success in the digital world.

Your short term goal must be short in all terms so that you can corroborate swiftly but not so quickly that you can’t consistently gauge your success. Medium term goals must be far enough to visualize the result. However, when it comes to long term goals, they should be a huge pie in the sky goal that you will be willing to reach.

Select a suitable strategy for successful digital marketing: When you have set up mission and goals of your business, you can start fleshing out a successful digital marketing strategy with clearly defined customer segmentation. You should segment the customers based on their needs, media preferences and their perceptions towards your services and products.

There is a list of actions that you can utilize to acquire information about your customer persona, which are given below:

• Customer surveys
• Web and Exit surveys
• Phone surveys

Once you have defined your customer base as per their preferences and requirements, you can research on their digital behaviors to determine the appropriate and suitable digital channels for targeting them.

This is where you will go into profound detail of your digital channel strategy that includes effective SEO and SMO techniques, PPC, Email marketing, Affiliate marketing etc. Here is a list of tools that is used as an essential part of a digital marketing plan:

• Blog
• Website
• SEO
• SMO
• Email
• CRM (Contact Management)
• Paid Advertising

Now when you have been aware of your business goals and target audience, you can start developing your proficient digital marketing plan for ensuring better conversion rates and revenue through your website.

Promotion is yet another major aspect that comes under successful marketing strategy but it is much more than advertising. It includes your branding strategy, you chosen set of promotional channels, and your offers and discounts over your site. And finally define the ways by which you will measure all these details since for each of the digital channels, you create a clear measurement framework where you can evaluate the effectiveness of every channel and create a matrix of core metrics to check if you are on the track to meet the goals.

3. Determining Actions and Controls

After researching, planning and devising digital marketing strategies for improving your business brand value on the Internet; it’s time to monitor your actions and controls. How will you monitor your strategy success? How will you adjust the plans?

For answering these questions, it is necessary to develop an action plan, which is a continuously evolving document distributed among the relevant people and scrutinized regularly to keep a check on the progress of your business. Action planning is a stage wise approach which includes the following elements:

• Clarify goals
• Link back your strategies and goals
• Establish criteria for success
• Establish timings
• Determining completion of each action point
• Monitoring progress of the plan and review on daily basis

The final stage of action plan is the execution of controls, measurements and reporting results. Many effective models for measuring the performance of businesses have appeared. Most of these models are developed to cater the needs of website owners and allow them to examine the overall triumph of their websites.

The key performance indicators of digital marketing plan that determine the growth of any online business are:

• Market share analysis
• Social media presence analysis
• Content Quality measurement
• Brand awareness
• Competitor performance
• Linking and benchmarking
• Profitability

Considered as a comprehensive method, the digital marketing planning process is indispensable for evaluating your business progress, your market value, and the environment so that you could devise accurate strategies for exploiting opportunities. Now that your plan is in place, you can execute this plan to monitor the growth of your online business because the key to perfect digital marketing is a tangible plan and its execution on regular basis. This is considered as a very significant process which must be used by all online business owners to ensure their lucrative and sustainable future.

Formulating the best digital marketing campaigns often needs the guidance of experts. Hiring the services of digital marketing experts will ensure that your business message reaches the right people through the right channel and at the right time.

The post How to Plan the Perfect Digital Marketing Strategy appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.