Step 1: Set your marketing goals<\/h3>\n
The first thing you need to do is figure out why you\u2019re running a digital marketing campaign in the first place.<\/p>\n
The options are nearly endless, but if you try and pursue too many goals at once you\u2019re not going to achieve any of them. For example, do you want to improve your conversions, grow your email list, improve your traffic, rank for more keywords, get more followers?<\/p>\n
There are a handful of different types of goals, brand awareness, increase in sales, lead generation, and social follower growth. Some of these goal types are easier to quantify than others.<\/p>\n For example, it\u2019s much easier to see if your email list has new subscribers than to see if more people are aware of your brand. However, you\u2019ll want to try to ground these goals with data as much as possible.<\/p>\n Here are some examples of attainable goals:<\/p>\n Each goal you set will have a plan of action. For instance, if your goal is to increase organic traffic<\/strong><\/a>, then this will include evaluating your existing content, doing keyword research, updating older content, writing new posts, and even doing backlink outreach and promoting your content across social media.<\/p>\n You can run as many online marketing campaigns as you want. Overall, you\u2019ll want to create a specific measurable outcome for every campaign you run.<\/p>\n This allows you to dig into your data to see what\u2019s working, so you can refine your digital marketing strategy<\/strong><\/a> moving forward.<\/p>\n Do you know your audience? Before you start a marketing campaign you\u2019ll need to define the exact audience<\/strong><\/a> you\u2019re going to target.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t know this exact person yet, then you\u2019ll need to spend some time thinking about and researching who this person is.<\/p>\n One of the best ways to do this is to create what\u2019s called a buyer or customer persona. This is a description of your ideal customer, and will include information like:<\/p>\n When creating an ideal customer persona you should also include:<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve never done this exercise before, you can actually pull information about your target market from existing data.<\/p>\n One of the best sources of this will be Google Analytics. If your website has been getting traffic, then you can pour through your data to pull out information like:<\/p>\n All of this should be combined into a document or user profile, you can even include images, so anyone working on the campaign can visualize this person.<\/p>\n If you have multiple different audience segments, then you\u2019ll want to do this process multiple times and create customer avatars for each segment of your audience or market you\u2019re targeting.<\/p>\n By now you should have a clear idea of your ideal result and you\u2019ll have a detailed view of the type of people you want to target.<\/p>\n By uncovering the right keywords you\u2019ll know exactly what potential readers and customers are typing into Google to answer their questions, or find the products and services you offer.<\/p>\n Regardless of the channel, you should do keyword research<\/strong><\/a> to uncover topics<\/strong><\/a> and keywords that your readers want to hear about.<\/p>\n No matter if you\u2019re creating an SEO, PPC, email, Facebook, or an entirely different campaign, keyword research can help to move you in the right direction.<\/p>\n The goal with keyword research is to put yourself in your customer\u2019s shoes and think about the kinds of keywords they\u2019ll be typing into Google (or another platform) when searching for your products and services.<\/p>\n Spend time brainstorming keywords that fit this description and then run these keywords through keyword tools to find SEO keywords<\/strong><\/a> and phrases that have decent volume and not much competition.<\/p>\n Other ways to brainstorm keywords:<\/p>\n Once you have your initial list you can use these seed keywords and run them through a tool like SEMRush<\/strong><\/a> for detailed keyword analysis.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to be running a paid advertising campaign your keyword search will be a little different. You\u2019ll also have to compare the cost per click of each keyword and group these keywords into different groups.<\/p>\n When you run PPC ads<\/strong><\/a> you pay whenever a visitor clicks on your ad and visits your website. So, your goal is to keep your cost per click (CPC) low, while still reaching a solid volume of people.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve found the keywords you want to target for your PPC ads, you\u2019ll use these to help create your ads. For example, you can include your target keywords in your headline and body copy.<\/p>\n With an understanding of your customer, you\u2019ll also need to figure out where they hang out online and what your competitors are doing.<\/p>\n This will help you better plan a campaign and give yourself the best chance of your campaign succeeding.<\/p>\n You can also model your campaigns off of what has been successful for your competitors. This allows you to shortcut the process and give yourself a greater chance of your campaign succeeding.<\/p>\n Here are a few questions to ask when researching your competitors:<\/p>\n You can also use tools like Buzzsumo<\/strong><\/a>, and even a simple Google search to find content that\u2019s incredibly popular in your space. It can be helpful to study content that\u2019s been incredibly popular since it\u2019s tapping a deep need in your niche and successfully speaking to a large portion of your market.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to be running a Facebook ad campaign there\u2019s a tool you can use called Facebook Library Ads<\/strong><\/a> which allows you to search through ads related to your niche that have been successful in the past.<\/p>\n As you start to execute digital marketing campaigns you\u2019ll probably create campaigns across a wide range of digital channels<\/strong><\/a>. However, when you\u2019re first starting you\u2019ll want to focus on only one or two channels.<\/p>\n For example, you have Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest in the social media space. You have Google ads, content marketing, onsite and offsite SEO<\/strong><\/a>, email marketing, and a lot more.<\/p>\n Chances are you\u2019re going to be using a combination of different channels. But, you\u2019ll have one main channel that ties into your goal.<\/p>\n If your goal is to increase your email subscribers<\/strong><\/a> by 500 in 30 days there are all kinds of tactics you can employ the achieve that goal:<\/p>\n As you can see there are a lot of different overlapping channels you can utilize to help you achieve your main goal of growing your email list.<\/p>\n Before you start creating your campaigns you\u2019ll want to define the channels you\u2019re going to utilize.<\/p>\n For any digital marketing campaign you\u2019re running you need to come up with a budget. Digital advertising is the cheapest form of advertising, but you\u2019ll still need to set aside a budget.<\/p>\n Even running organic campaigns will require an investment of time or money. For example, you can do keyword research, write your content, and do backlink outreach yourself, or you can pay someone else to do it for you.<\/p>\n Other forms of digital advertising will cost right from the start, like paid advertising.<\/p>\n Your budget needs to take into account anything you\u2019ll be spending within your company, plus costs to any external companies or contractors you\u2019ll be using to create creative materials, or even manage your campaigns for you.<\/p>\n Depending on the campaign you\u2019re running, there are different content assets you\u2019ll need to create.<\/p>\n Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n All of the previous steps will help you create content assets that will serve the campaign goal you decided on early on.<\/p>\n Some content assets, like blog posts<\/strong><\/a>, and videos will be relatively static once you create them. However, you\u2019ll be more creative with how you choose to promote and will refine your strategy based on which promotion tactics get you closer to your goal.<\/p>\n However, if you\u2019re running a digital advertising campaign, your content assets will evolve based on the data. Maybe you\u2019ve found that a certain type of image performs better than the rest, or that a certain headline results in 10% more sign-ups. Your audience targeting will stay relatively the same (targeting your ideal customer), while your ad creative will evolve based upon what your market responds to most.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re running advertising campaigns or any kind of paid media campaigns, you\u2019ll want to run test campaigns first, so you don\u2019t blow through your entire budget.<\/p>\n With your test campaigns, you\u2019ll start with a small budget and make refinements as you get feedback and data. For example, when you\u2019re creating ads you could test different headlines, different images, body copy, CTAs, and more.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll want to strike a balance between keeping your initial budget small, while still getting enough data to refine your ads.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re doing paid advertising, even something as small as $1-10 per day will give you enough data to work with if you let it run for a month.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re paying for content it\u2019ll be more difficult to see instant feedback, however, you can see how your audience reacts to your articles via the comments section, social shares, sign-ups, and clicks (if you\u2019re promoting your blog posts to your email list).<\/p>\n With digital marketing campaigns, there\u2019s no shortage of data available. Whatever platform you\u2019re utilizing, you\u2019ll be able to find all kinds of data.<\/p>\n For example, email marketing tools have built-in analytics, every advertising platform has its own ad dashboard, and there are a variety of third-party tools you can use for website statistics, and more.<\/p>\n However, before you start pouring over data you\u2019ll want to refer back to your goals. This will help you zero in on the numbers that actually matter. Once you can analyze those numbers you can figure out what\u2019s working and what isn\u2019t, so you\u2019ll have insights you can take action on.<\/p>\n By looking at the right data points you\u2019ll be able to answer questions like:<\/p>\n There\u2019s a good chance that a lot of your digital marketing campaigns won\u2019t generate positive results. However, it\u2019s important not to get disheartened, instead, look at conducting campaigns as an experiment to find what does and doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve been able to see which campaigns are generating the most results, it\u2019s time to double down. By now you know that you won\u2019t be wasting your money on certain activities, and they\u2019ll be able to generate a verifiable return.<\/p>\n However, you\u2019ll still want to scale your investment up slowly instead of spending all of your remaining budgets right away. It can be tempting to invest everything, but as you start to allocate more of a budget you\u2019ll still continue to get data.<\/p>\n Then, you can use that data to further refine your campaigns. Eventually, you\u2019ll reach a point where your campaigns are about as optimized as possible. When you reach this point and you\u2019re getting the highest ROI and conversion rates possible, then it\u2019s really time to scale up.<\/p>\n Remarketing is something you should be using throughout your entire campaign, especially if you\u2019re using digital advertising.<\/p>\n Remarketing is the process of running ads to visitors who have already visited your website. These ads will appear wherever else your visitor is online including, watching YouTube videos, reading a blog, scrolling through social media, or browsing the web.<\/p>\n This allows you to generate more sales than you otherwise would have missed out on. If someone is looking at one of your products, or visits a certain page on your site, but doesn\u2019t make a purchase, you can target this person with a variety of ads. The most common are Facebook ads<\/strong><\/a> and Google ads.<\/p>\n These ads will essentially follow this person around the web and direct them back to your website to complete their purchase. You can even add a coupon to these ads to make your visitor\u2019s purchasing decision much easier.<\/p>\n Remarketing ads are available across every big digital advertising platform including, Facebook ads, and Google ads.<\/p>\n![\"digital](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/digital-marketing-goals-example.png\")
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Step 2: Identify your target market<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/define-target-marketi.png\")
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Step 3. Carry out a keyword and topic research<\/h3>\n
![\"Topic](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/topic-research.jpg\")
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PPC keyword research<\/h4>\n
![\"PPC](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/keyword-impressions.png\")
Step 4: Do market research and competitor analysis<\/h3>\n
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![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/facebook-ad-llibrary.png\")
Step 5: Choose your delivery channels and set your budgets<\/h3>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/digital-marketing-components.png\")
Step 6. Create your content assets<\/h3>\n
![\"Content](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/different-content-types.png\")
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Step 7. Run pilot campaigns first<\/h3>\n
Step 8: Monitor the campaigns and analyze their performance<\/h3>\n
![\"Digital](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/digital-marketing-metrics.png\")
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Step 9: Allocate more budget to profitable activities<\/h3>\n
Step 10: Set up remarketing campaigns<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/how-retargeting-works.jpg\")