Digital Strategy That Works

Many businesses believe that investments in digital technologies—social, mobile, analytics, and the Internet of things—will provide a competitive advantage. Still, most companies aren’t finding their investments are paying off by providing an ongoing competitive edge.

So what is going wrong? Well, at ITCC we believe that “the advantage comes when the RIGHT technologies are tightly integrated to support and satisfy an organisation’s unique core business strategy”. Without that focused strategy, companies don’t have a real digital transformation.

The way people socialise and interact has changed drastically in last decade. Our daily lives are completely different than they were ten ago and you, as a CEO or Manager, have to adapt to the modern situation.

“Traditional” marketing techniques aren’t enough to take your business to the top. You will need web marketing to take your business to the next level. If you try to do a little bit on your own, you may notice that your ads, facebook page and website aren’t getting quite as much attention as you hoped for. Some people just throw up their hands in disappointment and swear off the digital marketing, but the online marketing isn’t the obstacle here. The issue is that, while you might be doing some kind of web marketing, you have got no strategy to speak of.

Here is why having a solid digital strategy is vital to achieving success on the web for your business.

You’ve Got No Direction

You go online, you look up what this “digital marketing” stuff is all about, and you try to dabble a bit here and there. You make some social media profiles, try to write some blog posts, and maybe make a PPC bid or two. Nothing happens.

Dabbling a little bit here and there is a complete waste of your time and money. Your business needs to have a digital marketing goal to work towards, whether that be driving viewers to your site, improving your search engine rankings, establishing your business as a thought leader among your competitors, or directly driving conversions. Depending on the capacity of your campaign you could have one or many objectives; the important thing is that every action has a specific purpose that is working toward meaningful, measurable and realistic goals.

Your Effort Isn’t Integrated

Now that you’ve got goals and a measurable way to determine success you might find that you’re still not getting anywhere, and that’s most likely because you’re spreading yourself thin, and not finishing what you started. A blog post, a webinar, and some social media interaction aren’t going to do much if they’re each aimed in different directions. If you want it to make a difference, your marketing effort needs to be fully integrated and cohesive so that every digital marketing action is connected to, and amplifies, the effectiveness of the next.

You’re not Adapting and Evolving

A great marketing strategy looks to the future while being connected to the current reality of your campaign. That means being intentional about which target demographics your campaign reaches out to and ensuring that you’re talking to the right people at the right time. It means doing your research and adapting to the preferred medium of your target demographic, and then changing with your demographics when their preferences change. We spend hours each day on the Internet on our phones and computers, and that time isn’t all spent on Facebook. You should be knowing who your potential prospects are, how they use the web, what devices they like, and what they want from the Internet, so that we can find them where they already are.

You’re Depending on Unreliable Factors

Even if what you’re doing makes sense on paper, it might fall flat because it relies on factors that are unreliable and beyond your control. Such factors are usually passive and rely on luck or tertiary agents like random website owners that many off-site SEO services focus on to build links.

You Need a Consistent and Reliable Source of Leads/Sales

In a nutshell, a well-designed digital strategy is to produce a strong and uniform flow of leads to your business. The old adage that the best clients come from referrals still holds true for digital marketing today just as well as it did for old traditional methods.

You have a choice to make, of course. In today’s digital-centred world, you either have to get serious about Digital Marketing and Digital Strategy or risk being left behind. Not doing anything is not really an option.

Digital Marketing is, by definition, ever-changing and complex. That can be discouraging and more than a little overwhelming, but with the right direction and some solid advice, you can absolutely make it happen. Digital Marketing experts can help you a little or a lot, as needed, to make your digital marketing efforts a success.

Source: Marcin Ladowski’s article

Written by: Naman Bhatt, Digital Marketing Manager @ ITCC