Congratulations! You made it to the end of 2020. The bulk of your year probably went one of two ways; you already had an established digital presence and were able to build upon it this past year. Or, you had to jump into an online presence head first and have been treading water to stay afloat.
Now is the time to get a strategy in place for Q1 if you have not done so already. The clearer your plan, the easier it will be to notice if something is not working and make necessary adjustments to get back on track. It’s easy to push thinking about your marketing strategy until after the holidays, but we all know how that goes. January will come and go, the smarter strategy is to start with one.
Between content creation, paid ads, social media and general brand management, there is so much to consider when it comes to building a digital marketing strategy. Once upon a time it was an afterthought. But in this age and going forward it is an important part of business.
Let’s take a look at 4 key factors to consider for your digital marketing plan in the upcoming year.
1- Assess & Analyze Inventory
If you have been diligent about things you have a collection of content that will be valuable in determining your next course of action. It’s easy to push out content and then forget about it. But the key is to determine what has already been working and building your audience and sales and build on that.
You want to look at both your paid assets as well as your organic social assets. Notice what was working and what wasn’t. This is a good time to make note of assets that had better responses and interactions. These will have a role in future content.
2- Question Your Approach
As you review what worked and what didn’t you want to dive a little deeper to see why. Did a particular topic conjure up more interaction that surprised you? Are you not getting the responses you thought you would? Why? Maybe your target audience needs to be adjusted. If you don’t have a customer avatar, now may be the time to create one. And you may have more than one depending on your products and services. It’s important to know that. You may be surprised at what you find once you go through this exercise. In fact, your past content may not have resonated with who you thought the target audience was at all. You may have even missed your target altogether.
3- Repurpose
Take the most responsive content and reuse this. Build upon it and pay close attention to the results. Remember that just because something worked on one platform does not mean it will perform as well on others. Don’t force it. Your target base may shift from platform to platform. Be sure to take note of this and revisit it often to be sure you are getting your message across. A social post that had great interaction may very well become the best content for a paid ad as well. Test, test, and test some more. The best part of digital marketing is the ability to test and change your approach as you need to.
4- Tech & Specs
Be sure to follow SEO/SEM best practices. Platforms are constantly changing their specifications for posts and ads. If you are using PPC advertising, you want to make sure you are getting the most for your money. And when it comes to your social presence, you want to make sure you utilize each platform as much as possible. Don’t forget about your website in your marketing plan. This is your online presence, make sure it has a spot in your customer experience.
Of course, we can drill down further into each of these topics, but this gives you a great digestible place to start so it is not so overwhelming. These four steps can lay the foundation for a year of successful digital marketing within your organization. The biggest mistake a company can make these days is thinking their digital presence is not important to their business model. As we’ve all seen this past year, it’s imperative to have a digital strategy.
