The Importance Of A Digital Marketing Plan In 2021

When it comes to marketing in 2021, creating and deploying an effective digital marketing strategy is essential to ensure growth in today’s fast-paced world of digital transformation. But, where do you begin when it comes to creating an effective digital marketing plan? The truth is that many businesses know the power of mobile and digital channels for reaching new audiences and growing a base of repeat customers, yet creating a profitable digital marketing plan remains a common struggle. An integrated plan, however, is essential for increasing engagement and driving sales.

Without a detailed marketing strategy and deployment plan, your business is destined to suffer from an array of issues that we’ll highlight in later sections of this piece. Furthermore, your business will lose customers to your digitally savvier competitors. This is why you should invest in professional local SEO Hampshire services.

It’s important to first understand what digital marketing broadly encompasses, which is the use of online media and digital technologies to achieve marketing goals. Some examples of digital technologies and media are mobile apps, online search engines, social media company profiles, business websites, online advertising, email automation, and symbiotic digital partnerships. In order to be most successful, however, businesses must integrate digital marketing channels with traditional marketing media, including direct mail, TV adverting, and print.

The RACE (Reach, Act, Convert and Engage) planning framework separates each part of a customer’s journey in the digital space.

Common Digital Marketing Challenges

One of the most common setbacks businesses have when creating a digital marketing plan is knowing where to begin. For many, fear that a huge report is necessary holds them back, but we are strong believers in lean planning. Your marketing plan doesn’t have to be a 100+ page report. In fact, a good digital marketing strategy can often be outlined on just two sides of A4 paper when presented in a table format that links strategies to SMART goals using the aforementioned RACE planning framework.

Newbies To Digital Marketing

Are you one of the thousands of businesses across the country that still doesn’t have a digital marketing strategy in place in 2021? If so, let’s talk about two simple alternative methods for devising a plan.

To begin with, create a separate plan outlying the digital transformations needed in your company and the benefits of making an investment in each one. After that, and following budgeting approval for each change, draw up a digital plan that is integrated with your business’s overall marketing strategy going forward.

Carrying out digital marketing techniques without a planned approach remains common practice for many businesses. While many of those businesses may be seeing some successes from their use of digital media tools and platforms, such as email, search, and social media, it’s likely they are missing out on lots of opportunities for better optimisation or targeting of their ads. It’s also possible they will be experiencing some of the other challenges listed below.

What is your digital marketing strategy?

We’ve conducted an informal poll since 2012 to monitor how widely adopted digital marketing plans are. The results collected over the years reveal that some big improvements have occurred with the passage of time. Between 66.66% and 75% of businesses did not use a digital marketing strategy a few years ago while the latest figure is now 45%. Although 45% represents an improvement, it does still mean that almost half of all businesses are still using digital media without a marketing strategy.