Everyone is talking about going digital nowadays. Most likely, you already have. Still, many companies chose to skip an essential part of the subject: How am I supposed to do it? Still, there is nothing in the way of starting over with a more optimized strategy.

1. Who am I serving?

The first thing any business should ask is: Who am I serving? Many people misinterpret this as: "What age group should we target," which is relatively natural considering the digital marketing Ads-platforms give you the option of targeting specific age groups. It can be a mistake leading to the exclusion of people you could have profitably served, without having to sacrifice other age groups. What you have to consider is the wants and needs of your customer - who would benefit from the product and what are their Psychographics.

In many cases, the Psychographics of those you wish to serve are in the same age group and should be targeted, but don't start with demographics. With the detailed targeting of today's ads, focusing on Psychographics is readily available in today's market. It's an essential component when you choose your digital marketing strategy.

Persona

Personas have become a trendy way of visualizing who you are serving and those you want to target. Personas are essential to get right, not just for the User experience, but for the entire customer experience. If 52% of customers leave your website because of the aesthetics, you shouldn't care. However, if 52% of the people you target leave your page, you should care! Your persona should dictate your customer experience. If 100% of the people who don't need your product leave your website, don't be sad. It's the ones you wish to serve who should dictate the User- and customer experience. Read more about personas here.

2. Identify your goals

The next thing you have to figure out is the goal of your digital marketing strategy. You have to decide your Digital Marketing Strategy's goal based on overarching marketing- and sales goals. An example can be: A physician's office wishes to increase the number of clients by 20%, they can have a digital marketing goal of increasing the number of digital bookings by 50% by next year. To optimize the performance and guidance of the goal - Make it SMART. It has to be:

1. Specific - Your goal should be specific enough to know where you should focus your effort.

2. Measurable - You have to be able to track your performance and see how you perform.

3. Achievable - Make sure it's realistic! If not, it's easy to get demotivated when you don't achieve it as expected.

4. Relevant - The goal has to matter to your business.

5. Time-bound - You have to have a time-frame or deadline to know what you are working towards.

The goal you decide should also decide which tools you should use. There are 8000 tools to choose between, so luckily not complicated to navigate AT ALL. I have my favorites, though. Reach out if you need some advice regarding what your business need.

3. Choose your budget

Wait? This early in the process? Yes! And I am not talking about "200$ for Facebook Ads, 300$ for Google Ads, 150$ for content creation". I'm talking total budget. One of the challenges about Digital Marketing is choosing where to allocate your resources with all the different channels to choose between, but the beauty is that you will realize where you get your ROI. Digital Marketing is easy to measure with the correct usage of tools, and you will see which channels are most useful for your purpose as you try the different tools. Start by figuring out how much you are able- and willing to spend on digital marketing and start testing what works afterward. An easy rule-of-thumb is 80-20. Spend 80% of your resources on channels you know work and 20% on new or unfamiliar media.

4. Paid, owned, and earned media.

Now to the big question - where do we allocate our resources?

Paid media

Paid media is the fancy term for 'Ads.' Any media that you have to pay for directly goes as paid media. Includes Facebook Ads and Google Ads, which is the most popular in Europe and America. Still, it is not the only ones, with several other paid channels having potentially good ROI depending on the type of business you are. For instance, Pinterest Ads if you are an eCommerce company or Twitter Ads if you target high-income households.

Owned media

Owned media is the content you or your company are in control of. Digitally, this means mainly your website and social media accounts. In general, this accounts for all your organic material and includes articles, ebooks, whitepapers, newsletters, and posts. The great thing about owned media is that it's yours, and you chose how it portrays you and your business. It's 'free' and is a great way to show the companies personality and authenticity. I say 'free' because chances are it's not. Today, you need high-quality content to ensure your Owned media is shown at all.

Facebook will give you approximately 2,2% reach and is an illustration that going entirely Inbound is a short-term strategy that ended years ago. Looking at Search Engine Optimization, it is getting more and more of a science in trying to optimize for snippets, voice search, visual, and the standard text. It is more challenging than ever with search engines being harder to track, but more rewarding for those who succeed in creating useful, SEO-friendly content. Inbound is no longer 'free," and it will require resources to create value-adding content. Also, ignoring outbound in your strategy will most likely lead to a challenging meeting with changing algorithms and profit-seeking Google and Facebook.

Earned media

Earned media is the most challenging, but also most rewarding media of them all. It is all types of content your company hasn't written or paid for themselves. This includes customer reviews, mentions on social media, or Word-of-Mouth. The good thing about earned me you dia is that it provides you with credibility your content cannot provide. A great PR-tactic is falling into this strategy, which again is a great way to create backlinks to your website.

Another part of Earned media is the very famous Influencer marketing. Thinking it's still just a fling? If done correctly, it is very efficient. However, micro-influencers continues to be the strong card when it comes to converting sales, but perhaps macro influencer has a strong branding influence, just like TV-ads still have to this day. Not very digitally still? I would say Over-the-Top marketing still has its benefits if you have strong video-libraries.

What to do?

So what works for you? It depends. I'm not too fond of the answer, but it depends on the business. When you work on your digital presence, we can provide a rapid response on what would be the best practice in your industry, but good research can provide you with excellent and accurate information. It is an essential part of your digital strategy, and not starting with useful knowledge regarding how you should begin could have fatal consequences, depending on your business. Starting with a poor website or a flawed interpretation of what works for you will provide you with a poor start, and your A/B-testing will provide you with 'a less poor' result than what already was, instead of a better one.

A great way of identifying your customer journey is to use digital tools. Most CRM-tools have some form of analysis of it, and if not, Google can provide you with data. If you are thinking that mapping the customer journey is a waste of time?

• 85% of customer journey mapping practitioners said that it had a positive impact, according to the CJ Mapping journing report.

• 75% of consumers expect a consistent experience wherever they engage.

• Companies that focus on Journey optimization experience 10-15% increase in revenue, 20% increase in customer satisfaction and 15 to 20% lower cost in Customer service.

4. What channels to choose

I continuously hear: "I love Google Ads.". But why? Let's start with creating a good email list, then we can think about anything else. I mean it as a joke…To some extent - There are no channels that will ever get close to email in ROI, so let's start with that. Then to everything else.

The correct answer to what channel to choose leads us back to the Customer Journey. The journey should dictate where you are visible, but marketers continue to make mistakes in our mission to optimize our Google Ads or Facebook Ads. We continue to exclude channels that could convert leads into customers. This could cause you to lose a lot of money, excluding or forgetting channels that could be important.

You have to consider the Customer Experience. What is best for your customer. And if you ever tell yourself: "I believe this is better," remember that believing is what you do in the church. Most likely, the answer to your question is just a Google search away, and it is likely to be more accurate than you and provide you with a higher ROI.

If you wish to get some more information regarding what is more precise for your situation, reach out and hear my opinion.

5. Pivot like you've never done before

While your initial test might be way worse than expected, the beauty of digital marketing is that there is little that is permanent. While your strategy and message should be consistent, your tactics should not. Allow your campaigns and efforts to provide you with quantitative results so you can pivot, and optimize your spend towards the channels that offer the best ROI and Customer Experience.

It is essential to realize that the decision-making process is more complicated than a Google search, and you'd need to see the entire journey as a process where you need to take every part of the journey into account and optimize your budget spend. Still, if you follow these guidelines, the chances are that the right choices are just a Google click away. Don't be afraid to test out new channels, and don't be worried that the results aren't as good as expected. Give the campaign some time. Every case is individual, and a rookie mistake is to listen to what someone who hasn't been successful in your industry tells you about marketing. Things aren't similar from one business to another, and things have to be adapted.