The Importance of Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing is an essential part of all business marketing strategies in today’s society. With so many customers now online, a digital marketing strategy is critical component to marketing to ensure growth of business and a gain of market share. Both competitors and customers will be online almost daily so digital marketing is in fact the only way to keep ahead of the game (Bryan, 2014). ‘Strategic Digital Marketing is a definitive guide on how digital media channels and tools can be used to extend an organization’s marketing outreach and achieve a measurable return on investment’ (Edmiston, 2015). There are many component to an effective digital marketing strategy, these often include:

• ‘Customer management (optimising recruitment, retention, development and efficiency strategies).
• Channels; communications and sales (e.g. digital, web, social, mobile, near real-time CRM, catalogue, internal sales and contact centre, field sales).
• Promotions (promoting the right products to the right customers in the most cost-effective way, to produce the best results).
• Product management (optimising product mix, bundles, own/brand and management).
• Pricing
• Purchasing (acquiring the right products for customers and markets).
• Logistics/supply chain/payment/finance (the flow through the business and delivery to customer).
• Process (how efficiently, transparently and speedily things are being managed, speed to market).
• Colleagues (how well people are performing, where improvement is most required)’ (Stone, Woodcock, 2014).

Source: Zeendo.com, 2014.

If all of these components are banded together effectively, there is no doubt a business will have an outstanding digital marketing system. However, many businesses have little to no strategy when implementing digital marketing or they are simply getting it wrong. So, how do Businesses improve on this?

• Critical Planning is essential
• Focus on people aspects
• High and easy engagement
• Know what you want
• Analyse your past                                           
• Know your customers and what they want
• Identify your means
• Stick to your budget (Digital Marketing Institute, 2016)
• Take control
• Promote/Search engine optimization
• Make the most of your contacts

Source: Smartinsights.com, 2015

An example of a business that were able to take sales to a new level through an effective digital marketing strategy is Tatu Couture. Tatu Couture are a lingerie business that used the strategies above to expand market share and generate much more sales (Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick, 2016). ‘The “always on” consumer (and business consumer too) is able, and increasingly likely, to search, enquire, interact, complain, buy and pay through mobile devices. Marketing for most corporations is becoming increasingly interactive and “always on”’ (Stone, Woodcock, 2014) this is why digital marketing is so important in today’s market.

 

References

Bryan, R. (2014). 5 Simple Digital Marketing Strategies That Can Help Your Business Grow. [online] The Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-bryan/5-simple-digital-marketin_b_4816425.html [Accessed 11 Sep. 2016].

Chaffey, Dave, Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona. (2016). Digital Marketing, 6th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781292125640/

Dawn Edmiston, (2015) “Strategic Digital Marketing”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 24 Iss: 1, pp.90 – 91

Digital Marketing Institute. (2016). 5 Steps to a Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy. [online] Available at: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/5-steps-powerful-digital-marketing-strategy [Accessed 11 Sep. 2016].

Digital Marketing Strategy. (2016). [image] Available at: http://scottsdigital.com/viral-marketing-agency/2015/12/18/digital-marketing-strategy-photos/ [Accessed 11 Sep. 2016].

Digital Marketing Strategy. (2014). [image] Available at: http://zeendo.com/info/digital-marketing-strategy/ [Accessed 11 Sep. 2016].

Digital marketing strategy. (2015). [image] Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/ [Accessed 11 Sep. 2016].

Merlin David Stone , Neil David Woodcock , (2014) “Interactive, direct and digital marketing: A future that depends on better use of business intelligence”, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 8 Iss: 1, pp.4 – 17