How important is it to have a digital marketing plan?

You have done the research, heard the success stories, spoken to your friends and decided that in order to bring in new business you need to switch your digital marketing efforts from beginner to expert status.

It’s dawned on you that it is no longer okay to have a mediocre online presence and even though you have a great product or service and it’s only a matter of time until customers find their way to you, you must be able to expedite the process, but where do you start?

It all starts with a digital marketing plan! You might be wondering why this is so important? Well…this plan is where you’re going to document your goals, targets and timelines, giving you the direction and focus you need to achieve your digital goals. This is just the first step, the plan goes a step further by breaking down these goals into daily, weekly and monthly activities offering you a step by step guide to achieve your goals. By doing this the plan feels less intimidating and the idea of reaching and achieving your goals more manageable. 

The plan gives you direction on what platforms you’re going to be working on (i.e. Google Ads, Facebook & LinkedIn etc.) and what budgets you want to assign to each platform, according to the goals you want to achieve, which helps you plan your budgets in advance. 

It will help you identify who you want to be talking to (persona), within which region and what you’re going to say to them. The more focused you are with your messaging the more specific the results you’re going to see. 

Lastly, having a plan in place allows you to track performance so you can report against your goals. It benchmarks the results you started with compared to the results after implementation. This gives you insight into which platforms are working well, what activities need to be tweaked and which activities need to be cut so you can adjust your budgets accordingly. 

Digital marketing is beneficial to small businesses as it levels the playing field. You may not be able to invest the same amount of budget as your larger competitors, but if you consistently stick to your plan and know who your audience, you can focus your campaign and be heard over the noise of your big-player competitors. 

The Internet is interlinked with everything we do and online marketing has become an integral part of business today that digital marketing is now essential to businesses in the modern economy.

Take your digital marketing efforts from beginner to expert status. Find out how we can help you put your digital marketing plan together and assist in the day-to-day execution.