How do I develop digital strategy?

All marketing is digital marketing today. And a clear strategy is essential for success. Why? Because at its best, strategy defines the long-term plan for how a product or service will achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in an identified market. Your strategy sets the direction for your everyday marketing activities. This keeps the team focused on what matters most — so you can successfully acquire, keep, and grow customers.

Over the years, I have used both goals and initiatives to stay on track. But I quickly learned that defining those strategic focus areas was not enough. Teams need a way to link the strategy to the actual day-to-day work. This is why we created Aha! for Marketing — a purpose-built tool for setting strategy, building visual marketing plans, and reporting on program results.

Regardless of if you use Aha! for Marketing or not, I suggest you approach strategy as a digital marketing team in the following way:

Set goals and initiatives

Setting goals that are measurable and time-bound helps you demonstrate how marketing will deliver against the company’s goals. It also helps the team plan campaigns and promotional activities that deliver against companywide strategic directives.

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Research the market

It is important to identify specific customer segments within your overall market so you can refine your marketing approach for each group. Once you have defined your customer segments, create detailed personas that describe your ideal customer. Include key characteristics, such as their goals, challenges, likes, and dislikes. This helps you tailor your digital marketing efforts to each audience.

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Document your unique market position

Once you understand the market, you can create messages that will really resonate. This starts with crafting your strategic positioning and clearly articulating the benefits of your product or service. You can use a simple formula like this: (This group of users) have (this specific problem), which (your company/product) uniquely solves/makes possible by providing (this value).

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Prioritize the work

As new digital ideas and marketing requests pop up, weigh each one against your strategy. This will bring objectivity to the planning process and ensure you are pursuing strategic marketing activities.

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There is no doubt that the best teams I have worked with always led with strategy. It is easy to be reactive in digital marketing (and often we need to be) but it is never the right recipe for long-term success. Setting strategy is the first step towards creating breakthrough marketing programs that will have a real impact on the business.

If the above concepts resonate with what you are looking to do, you may want to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Aha! for Marketing or join a live demo.

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