A strong digital marketing campaign is a valuable method of promoting a business – whether it’s your own startup or a large corporation. The internet has undoubtedly revolutionized how everyone communicates, not least of all how brands are formed in order for businesses to connect with their audience.
This vibrant and comparatively new technology has opened up a world of possibilities still being uncovered by innovators in the industry – and any business that neglects to get on board with the growing necessity and value of a high-quality online presence is doomed to fail.
With this sobering truth in mind, if you are currently looking to plan your own online marketing campaign, whether for your own business or one you work with, this detailed guide can help you take full advantage of what the digital landscape has to offer.
Why is Online Marketing So Valuable?
There are currently two main categories when it comes to marketing – and these are traditional and digital. Traditional marketing is defined as the methods employed before the advent of the internet to promote a business – mainly print, radio, and television.
Although digital technology has since been developed, this hasn’t stopped traditional marketing methods from remaining useful for a more varied marketing approach. Online marketing is so hugely diverse and continually growing that it has become essential to nearly every business. Without it, a company can only hope to compete against the rest of the world.
What is the Purpose of an Online Marketing Campaign?
Since the online arena is so vast, it is no wonder that it brings with it a multitude of opportunities in all shapes and sizes. This means that anyone intending to promote their business through the internet has a huge variety of choices when it comes to the methods, techniques, and platforms.
Overall, the purpose of using digital marketing techniques specifically is to reach the most people with the greatest efficiency. Online marketing is far more affordable and potentially more far-reaching than traditional methods, which is why it has become so incredibly popular and continues to offer businesses worldwide a chance to make an impression.
Define Your Parameters for Success
The first step when planning a successful digital marketing campaign is to clarify what your end goals should be. Being ambitious is important, but you must also have an idea as to what lies within the realms of possibility.
Strike a balance between pushing the boundaries and being realistic in order to achieve the best results. Outline at the start what your campaign intends to do, whether this involves increasing traffic to a website, attracting more social media followers, or boosting sales by a particular percentage.
Perfect the Product
Even the most powerful digital marketing campaign in the world can’t necessarily bring sustained positive attention to a product or service that doesn’t deserve it. Businesses that can’t offer something that an audience wants or needs will inevitably go under, and clever use of social media will not save them.
This is why it is vital that the product or service is perfect and can actually deliver any promises the marketing campaign will make on its behalf.
Identify the Target Market
The more specific you can be when it comes to narrowing down your target market, the more likely your campaign will succeed. This is because trying to appeal to everyone is hardly ever worthwhile – even attempting to cater to a broad demographic isn’t as effective as breaking that demographic into smaller parts.
The ability to bore down into the finer details of what a market finds interesting or useful increases your campaign’s chances of capturing and maintaining consumer attention as opposed to opting for a more generalized approach. The latter tends to result in a lower success rate since no one within the target market feels especially catered to.
Set a Budget
Although digital marketing is far cheaper than traditional marketing methods, it still requires a budget. Either paying someone to perform all the necessary tasks or buying advertising space should be factored into your marketing budget. Perhaps you will need to hire the skills of a graphic designer to create appealing visual assets for your social media platforms or website.
In any case, avoid unnecessary spending so you can maximize the overall profitability of your campaign. Gaining a digital marketing masters could also help you feel more confident in your intuitions about where your funds will be of the most value and yield the highest returns.
Become Familiar with the Relevant Platforms
Not every target market will use the same online platforms. This means that if you are hoping to capture a particular group’s attention, it could be a waste of time and resources to extend your campaign to every possible platform. Instead, get to know your audience in depth by researching the platforms they prefer and what they use them for.
Is your market focused more on communicating with close friends, or broadcasting to a wider group? No matter your market’s communication habits, the best chance of reaching those within your target market is to familiarize yourself with how each social media platform operates. Be aware that many platforms bring out new features and make adjustments that could influence your marketing campaign, so it’s important to keep yourself up to date.
Stay True to the Brand
A marketing campaign that doesn’t adhere to the tone of the brand it’s promoting may capture an audience’s attention, but won’t be able to retain those customers successfully. Staying true to the brand message is important if you want people to believe that when the business makes a claim, it can back it up.
No matter which platforms your campaign will be using, you must maintain a clear tone of voice and brand image that promotes not only the product or service but also consistency.
Specify Your Campaign Message
Maintaining the brand of the business throughout its digital marketing campaign should be a priority alongside promoting the unique message of the campaign. This might be the launch of a new product, a drive to attract a new kind of target market, or a special offer.
Whatever the case, a campaign message should be compatible with the overall brand image and tone of voice while maintaining unique specificity in each campaign.
Research and Reach Out to Appropriate Content Creators
An ever-growing method of online promotion involves recruiting the assistance of digital content creators. People with large online followings, such as professional YouTubers, Instagram influencers, and bloggers, can make it easier for a business to communicate more directly with their target market.
This approach involves identifying influencers and content creators who share an audience with the business and are willing to promote the brand through their channels.
Improve Your Website
The more user-friendly and attractive a company’s website, the more likely a digital marketing campaign will achieve its desired results. Therefore, a valuable part of your campaign should be to update your website with relevant information and visual assets that complement the rest of the strategy. It should also be maximally easy to use and simple to navigate on any device.
Invest in Quality Design
One of the best ways to take full advantage of digital marketing is to invest in high-quality design for your online assets. Bespoke visuals will help to add professionalism and, therefore, trustworthiness to a campaign.
There are many different kinds of software available for anyone to create their own designs, and these are becoming more refined and user-friendly. However, the help of a professional designer will always make your campaign stand out from the crowd.
It is also useful to be aware of the many different size requirements for images on various platforms so as to avoid mishaps with visual assets distracting from the professionalism and goals of the business.
Create a Detailed Campaign Timetable
A big part of a marketing campaign is the project timeline. Knowing when to publish specific posts, when to analyze feedback, and when to bring the campaign to a close is how you keep a digital marketing campaign neat and effective.
Make sure you have all the necessary assets and copy text ready beforehand so that you have time to check for errors and fit them together in the most effective order. For example, posts at the beginning of a campaign should be tailored to generate excitement, and posts at the end should remind the audience of the promotion before it finishes.
Monitor Your Progress
Unlike traditional marketing methods, digital marketing benefits from the advantage of virtually instant feedback as the campaign unfolds. By using analytical tools to monitor the progress of your marketing campaign, you can better respond to changes and communicate more directly with the audience.
You should include milestones within your timetable so you can measure the success of your campaign along the way. If you notice that it is lagging behind where you expect it to be, you can course-correct before the end of the campaign.
Listen to Feedback
As mentioned previously, one of the advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing is the ability to collect immediate feedback from an audience throughout the course of the campaign. The feedback may come in a variety of forms, such as user comments, analytics data, or a change in the number of followers on the business’s social media accounts.
Whatever form it takes, it is essential to pay close attention to the feedback you receive from the very beginning of your campaign and check it against the timeline of future posts. If, for example, you notice that a particular style of post is attracting less engagement than the rest, make sure to adapt future versions to better meet the feedback.
Measure Results
It’s important that you regularly measure your progress during your digital marketing campaign. At the start of the project, you will have created a timetable of posts and a prediction of results referring to various key performance indicators.
Use your projections to measure results and keep track of how these compare to what you had anticipated. You can also use this information to create project timelines and milestone predictions for future marketing campaigns.
Apply Changes
The great thing about digital marketing over conventional marketing is that you can adjust posts that are already published. Of course, most platforms will show that a post has been edited and if you publish something with an error, chances are it will be seen – but this doesn’t mean that you can’t apply changes as you go.
Outright deleting posts or comments can be a controversial move, however, since people who have seen the deleted content might be inclined to question the business reasons and draw negative attention to the brand. This is why companies that find themselves making an online faux pas fare better when they accept responsibility rather than try to cover it up.
Adapt to Challenges
No matter how well you have prepared your marketing campaign, there is always a risk of the unexpected rearing its ugly head and getting in the way of success. You can’t predict every possible outcome, and being unable to roll with the punches will lead to your campaign becoming brittle and inflexible.
Since the online space is so open to change and growth, it is vital that your campaign takes advantage of these qualities for the benefit of the business being promoted.
Learn from Setbacks
At the end of your digital marketing campaign, you should gather all the data and evaluate your successes and your areas for improvement. Not only will this help you grow as a digital marketer, but it will also teach you more for future campaigns that you will create.
Don’t shy away from acknowledging losses or failures, as these are valuable for moving forward and learning what to do better next time.
No two online marketing campaigns are the same – nor should they be. When promoting a business, use the wide variety of digital techniques at your disposal to take full advantage of the remarkable technology at your fingertips to design a brilliant marketing campaign.
