Promoting a new product or service? Started a new business and want to get your name in the competition? Trying to increase sales or brand recognition? In any of these instances, an effective digital marketing campaign is the solution. Digital marketing is the process of advertising a brand through digital or electronic mediums.
If you’re going to make it in business, you have to have a strong internet presence. A marketing campaign is essentially a series of activities or techniques that will be used on digital platforms to advertise your products and services, increase brand awareness, and increase sales.
1] Developing a Campaign Involves Many Parts
Since the invention of things like the internet, smartphones, and other mobile devices, the landscape of marketing has changed. Though businesses still utilize channels like television commercials, print ads, and other offline avenues, the goal now has become to learn how to successfully integrate the two for enhanced results.
As marketing involves the continual need to learn new concepts on multiple platforms, many entrepreneurs decide to outsource these efforts to a digital marketing firm. Digital marketing agencies like HigherVisibility offer services that include link building, content marketing, email marketing, website design, and more.
Their services are designed to help business owners save time, save money, gain exposure, and grow. Whether you decide to outsource or not, knowing what goes into an authentic digital marketing campaign is crucial. Below are some elements to consider.
2] SMART Goals and Objectives
What’s a plan without any idea where you’re headed? When creating a marketing campaign, you want it to be aligned with your goals and objectives. Business owners must be able to clearly outline the purpose of their marketing efforts.
Are they looking to build an audience from scratch, teach existing followers about a new product and service, boost sales, or increase their following? Once an objective has been determined, this information can be used to create actionable, realistic, and measurable steps towards meeting those goals.
3] Competitive Analysis
A successful digital marketing campaign requires a full competitive analysis. In order to achieve your goals, essentially you must get to know your “enemies”. You’ll need to look at 3-5 of the top competitors in your industry to determine things like their strengths and weaknesses, the current marketing methods they’re using, and which platforms they’re most engaged on.
You’ll also want to assess which of these methods seem to be working and which are so that you can position yourself a step ahead of the rest.
4] Understand Your Audience
You may have a general idea of the types of people you’re trying to advertise to, but how much do you really know them? If your marketing efforts are going to reach those you’re most interested in turning into customers, you have to get a true understanding of who they are, how your products/services related to their lives, which mediums they use, how they shop, and what their needs are.
Learning your audience will involve a lot of parts. It involves extensive keyword search, demographic research, social interaction, and other analytical research. Essentially, you’re building marketing personas or fictitious characters that closely identify various personalities your actual audience has. This information can then be used to draft better content and make better connections.
5] Choosing the Best Marketing Channels
Now that you have an understanding of what you want to accomplish, how you can be a great contender, and how to identify or connect with your target audience, you’re ready to determine which digital marketing channels are best suited for your campaign.
There are a lot of options to choose from, and you’ll need to incorporate more than one platform to maximize your results. From social media and email marketing to mobile messages and pay-per-click ads, there are a lot of channels to tap into for success.
6] Determining Content Types
Next up, a thorough review of content types is necessary to discern which are best for your audience and brand. You’ll need to decide whether you’ll focus on blog posts, videos, infographics, social media posts, or a combination of these content forms. Then, you can begin drafting content and schedule for publication.
7] Monitor and Change as Need
As you execute your digital marketing campaign you’ll need to pay close attention to its success. Using a multitude of analytical and measuring tools, you’ll need to have an idea of which tactics are bringing you the most success, and which ones aren’t working at all.
Those that are doing so well may need to be nixed from your campaign or improved upon for a better return on investment.
So you see, there is a lot that goes into developing a successful digital marketing campaign. Each component requires extensive research and planning to work together efficiently to meet your marketing goals.
Though this can be done on your own, with so many different facets of digital marketing, many entrepreneurs eventually rely on the expertise of a digital marketing agency to help push their campaign forward.