In our previous blogs, we looked at Social Media Marketing and Content Creation and how the two essentially marry when put together. However, amazing content on social media is fruitless without the proper strategy to execute the campaigns and ads you wish to see. This blog will explore what digital strategy is, how it gets implemented, and why it is important to have.
What is a digital strategy?
A digital strategy is a written plan that outlines your online goals. Digital encompasses things like billboards, TV ads, and any other imagery that promotes something on a digital platform and that cannot be held on paper or printed. Digital strategies provide a guideline of what content and information need to be published online in order to achieve those goals (read more about it here).
Your online goals relate to your overall marketing objectives and what you want your business to achieve online. A digital strategy is very important, especially in the industries of e-commerce and sales. A digital strategy enables you to prove that the content you have is able to achieve better sales, better growth, and better leads through your channels. A digital strategy looks very different from brand to brand and from company to company.
How are digital strategies implemented?
When you have a deck of content assets, any content you create to publish forms part of your digital strategy. Implementing your digital strategy is mapping out all of the content assets you have, posting them, scheduling them, placing them where they are relevant, and targeting your target audience.
Implementing any strategy doesn't necessarily have to happen in a linear fashion; in the marketing industry, we know that things are often unpredictable. Sometimes client briefs change and sometimes you have short deadlines. When creating a digital strategy, it needs to be flexible and able to accommodate unexpected changes.
Steps to take in order to really define your digital strategy and accomplish what it is you're setting out to achieve is to determine your target audience and which digital platforms you’re going to use to develop your campaign.
Why is it important?
The importance of any strategy is to give yourself a map of what you need to accomplish, how you're choosing to accomplish it, and what you need to do to ensure that you achieve the goal. Without a strategy in place, you'll be going through a constant trial-and-error process hoping for the best without really taking the necessary steps. It is imperative that any brand, business, or person attempting to market themselves as a service or product uses a strategy to map out the way forward.
A digital strategy gives a sense of planning. Having a plan helps you accomplish that execution optimally. In the case of social media and digital marketing, we really see the importance and the necessity of a strategy. Many people find that strategy helps them to get organised and keep them on track with what has been released. While strategy isn't necessarily linear or static, as business models and technology are constantly evolving, we do find that a sense of planning is always important to achieve what you set out to do.
By developing this blueprint, you really give yourself a push ahead to see the bigger picture. In 2015, Digital Dialog published an article stating that 50% of digital marketers had no defined strategy in online marketing activities, however, we see that in 2022 many people and marketers have re-defined what strategy is and adopted a new way of marketing.
As this blog explores, we see the importance of a digital strategy. When looking at how you're going to map out your online presence, your digital footprint, and how you're going to tackle digital marketing, it's always important to look at how you're going to strategise to move along. The benefits of a digital strategy really help you define the plan, assess advantages and disadvantages, and also give you the time to plan which tools are going to be best to use.
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