Building a digital marketing plan is no small task, but if you’re a small business owner, it’s one of the most important things you have to do.
We all want to sell products and services, but going from “wanting to sell” to “actually selling” is much harder than it looks.
To do so effectively, you need a marketing plan. A good marketing plan.
These are the 5 steps you can follow to creating, no matter whether you’re an experienced business owner or a brand new startup looking to make its first sales.
Step 1: Set Several Actionable Goals
This might seem like throwaway advice, but you’ll be surprised how many small businesses forget to set goals for their digital marketing plan.
If you want a successful marketing plan, the first thing you need is, well, a marketing goal. It’s impossible to create strategies without goals.
Of course, we all want to sell more products, get more views on content, and gain more followers, but your marketing goals need to be much more specific than that. The more specific your goals are, the more specific your marketing plan can be.
Here are a few “good goals” for a digital marketing plan:
- To build a following on a specific platform
- To use your already existing following to generate leads
- To build credibility as a thought leader in your specific industry
Step 2: Understand Where You’re At
If you’ve never posted on social media, written a company blog, or even edited your own website, you have to lower your expectations.
That’s a tough pill to swallow, I know. To set realistic goals, you need to have realistic expectations. You need to build a marketing plan that is relevant to where you’re at right now.
If you have zero followers, don’t expect to have a zillion in 3 months. Don’t set goals based on metrics alone, set goals based on quality, progress, and self-awareness.
Whenever we work with a client, we always meet with them to set specific, actionable goals that will help them drive traffic to their website, gain page views, and eventually, lead to sales.
Marketing is an investment.
It’s also one of the most important investments you can make in your brand.
Step 3: Create “Buyer Avatars”
Who is buying your product or services?
How old are they? How do they think? What is their income? How do they interface with digital platforms?
These are all key factors in determining how your digital marketing plan (see: the next step) should look, where you should be sharing content, and determining what your content itself will look like.
Here’s an example of a “buyer avatar” for a ____ soda brand:
Jack is 19 years old. He’s a freshman in college, lives at home with his parents, and is studying digital marketing with the hopes of becoming a social media marketer. _____ Soda is his favorite beverage, and he drinks it every night while he’s studying for exams and doing homework for classes. He spends a lot of time Googling things for school and personal curiosity, browsing social media (mainly Snapchat, Instagram, and Tik Tok), and engaging with the content of his favorite artists and influencers online.
This is just a brief example! You can be as specific as you need to be with your “buyer avatar”.
Step 4: Create a Content Plan
This is where all of the technical terms that you hear about in digital marketing come into play. Create blogs, create social media strategies, and build a website that you believe the majority of your customer base would want to interact with.
Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media, web design, and other types of digital marketing techniques in order to create a plan that will help your brand boost its views, engagement, and sales.
We recommend making your plans month-to-month because this will give you enough time to evaluate your metrics, see what works and what doesn’t, and devise new content and strategy. It’s impossible to make short-term judgments on digital marketing procedures.
Step 5: Test and Learn
This is the hardest step for all of us.
To actually build a following, you have to test strategies, run content, and evaluate metrics. You have to study your competitors, study yourself, and then test and learn constantly.
Sometimes, it takes weeks to see even an inkling of results with a marketing plan. Other times, it takes months.
Here’s a secret: it shouldn’t take years to create a marketing plan. If you don’t see results after a few months, try something different.
Final Thoughts
If creating your own marketing plan is too daunting of a task, or if you just want some extra help in designing content, applying marketing strategies, or creating social media and SEO plans, you should really consider reaching out to an experienced digital marketing agency.
To learn more about how you can create a digital marketing plan with Designz Digital, click here.
You won’t regret it.