By Tessa Febiani
In the rapidly evolving digital era, small businesses need to learn about digital marketing to be able to compete and grow. This article will explore the meaning of digital marketing, how to conceptualize digital marketing strategy, and how to plan effective marketing operations and activities.
Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the Internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium. In other words, digital marketing is about achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media. Digital marketing is important to today’s business because it offers higher conversion rate, increases trust in brands, and helps to create huge growth options for any business.
A digital marketing strategy is a set of planned actions performed online to reach specific business goals. It includes what actions or activities need to be taken, identifying the target audience, and choosing suitable online channels. The aim is to drive revenue and increase customer relationships.
The marketing mix, also referred as 4Ps, is a framework to conceptualize business offerings to customers. It helps businesses determine the way to bring their products or services to market and meet customer needs. To make an effective marketing strategy, the 4P’s should be aligned with business goals and the market needs. The 4P’s are price, product, place, and promotion. Product is the item that satisfies the customer needs or wants. Place refers to access for customers to consume the product or service. Price is the amount a customer pays for a product. And promotion refers to marketing communications to promote the product or service.
For a product to get its way to customer or end-user, business needs to decide which channels they are going to use. Marketing channels are the places and/or activities necessary to transfer the ownership of goods from the point of production to the point of consumption. Each social media, ecommerce, online advertising and marketing plays a unique role in a brand's digital presence. Understanding each channel will make the process more effective.
It is important for businesses to follow a marketing planning process to ensure a proper implementation of digital marketing. The following stages outline the steps to develop a comprehensive marketing plan.
1. Identify Your Vision and Mission
Vision is an expression of your desired future state that illustrates the big picture of what you want to achieve, while mission describes your current state or something you do to achieve your vision.
2. Establish Your Primary Goal
When establishing your primary goal, make sure it is relevant and fits your vision, resonates with your business’ values, responsive, adaptable, flexible, and easily recognizable.
3. Create Your Objectives and Strategies
Objectives are steps or milestones that need to be taken toward meeting your ultimate goal. To create objectives, use the SMART approach to ensure they are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. Meanwhile, strategies are specific things that will be taken to meet these objectives.
4. What is Your Action Plan?
Action plan defines the specific pieces of work to be done within each strategy.
By understanding and implementing digital marketing strategy small businesses can achieve higher conversion rates, build trust with their audience, and unlock significant growth opportunities to help them thrive in the competitive digital landscape.
To stay updated with more insightful contents about innovation in business, follow us on DKK Academy Instagram and subscribe to DKK Consulting newsletter.