Where do you start if you want to develop a digital marketing strategy? Well, this question has been put up to us at Opus Communication a Leading Digital Marketing Agency in Pakistan. We think it should not be a gigantic report, a strategy must be precise – linking digital marketing strategies your organizations objectives.
But what if you’re one of the companies that do not have a digital strategy? Well, we believe it’s time to create one.
Our Community Managers, Digital Media Associates and Digital Strategists at Opus have come up with 10 reasons why a client may need a Digital Strategy.
1. The client is directionless
We find that companies without a digital strategy do not have clear strategic objectives for what they want to accomplish online in terms of gaining new customers or building relationships with existing ones. And if a client does not have goals they likely do not put enough resources to reach the goals and then they do not evaluate through analytics whether they are achieving those goals set.
2. Clients do not know their online market share
Customer demand for online services may be underestimated by the client as it not researched. Perhaps more importantly they will not understand their online marketplace: the dynamics will be different to traditional marketing channels with different types of customer profiles and behavior, competitors, propositions and options for marketing communications.
3. Existing and start-up competitors gain higher market share
If they are not devoting enough resources to digital marketing in house or via digital agency or they are using an ad-hoc approach with no clearly defined strategies, then the competitors will have a competitive edge over you.
4. They don’t have a powerful online value proposition
A clearly defined online customer value proposition will help them differentiate their online service encouraging existing and new customers to engage initially and stay loyal.
5. They do not know their online customers well enough
It’s often thought that digital is the “most measureable medium ever”. But Google Analytics and similar tools will only tell you volumes and not sentiments. You need to use other forms of website user feedback tools to identify your weak points and then address them.
6. Their marketing strategies are not integrated
It’s all too common for digital to be completed in silos whether that’s a specialist digital marketer, sitting in IT or a separate digital agency. It’s easier that way to package digital marketing into a convenient chunk. But of course it’s less effective. Everyone agrees that digital media work best when integrated with traditional media and response channels.
7. Digital doesn’t have enough people/budget given its importance
Insufficient resource will be devoted to both planning and executing digital marketing and there is likely to be a lack of specific specialist digital marketing skills which will make it difficult to respond to competitive threats effectively.
8. They are wasting money and time through duplication
Even if they do have sufficient resource it may be wasted. This is particularly the case in larger companies where one can see different parts of the marketing organizations purchasing different tools or using different agencies for performing similar online marketing tasks.
9. They are not agile enough to catch-up or stay ahead
Looking at the top online brands like Amazon, Dell, Google, Tesco, Zappos, they’re all dynamic – trialing new approaches to gain or keep their online audiences.
10. They are not optimizing
Every company with a website will have analytics, but many senior managers do not ensure that their teams make or have the time to review and act on them. Once a strategy enables you to get the basics right, then you can progress to continuous improvement of the key aspects like search marketing, site user experience, email and social media marketing.
So that’s our top 10 problems that can be avoided with a well thought through strategy. What have you found can go right or wrong?