You know that you need a proper internet marketing plan and strategy for your small business. But have you ever wondered what should actually go in it? In this guest post, Obi Orgnot, Founder and CEO of OrgNot covers the different components your strategy plan should cover.
The Internet is rapidly changing the way we do business. Mobile technologies are emerging and new ways of reaching customers are occurring all the time. As a small business owner, you need a digital marketing strategy to reach new customers. Without a good strategy you could be losing money for your business.
What’s in a Marketing Plan?
The first thing you need is a good marketing plan that addresses the following…
- Your audience and the problems you need to solve for them
- Assessment of your current customers
- How your brand is different from the competition
- An analysis of your competition
- Feedback from customers and what they want from you
Targeting Your Customers
You need to find out what your target audience is going to be; you may need to focus on a small niche or a large group – it all depends upon what you’re marketing. Try to focus your strategy on your individual customers, as specific targeting can help you make the right choices. Look at:
- Their buying habits
- Internet habits
- What they do
- Other products they use
- Why do they buy from you?
Of course this is just very basic you can go more in-depth than this to target your audience; a specific approach will help you reach them better.
Understand Your Customer
Once you’ve determined your ideal customer, it’s now time to be sure you know exactly what your customer wants. The Internet can provide you with tools to understand what customers are looking for when they buy brands. Fulfill the needs of your customers and you can succeed with your digital marketing. Forums, focus groups, social media, and other technologies can help you understand your customers better and help you make the right decisions.
Check out free and cheap ways to do marketing research for more ideas for sources.
Your Brand
For your digital marketing to work you need to differentiate your brand from the competition. What do you have that your competition doesn’t? The more you can make your brand stick in the minds of customers, the more likely your marketing plan will work. Look at a company like Apple and you’ll see how a brand can stick out with unique features. Keep your messages focused so people don’t get a distorted picture of your company and drive those messages of how your brand is different.
Competition
Figure out what your competitors are doing and then do it better or differently than they are. Doing a thorough review of your competitive environment is crucial to understanding how your small business will fit in the marketplace. Your digital marketing strategy will flow from this understanding.
Starting Your Plan
Now that you have done your thinking and research, you are ready to start selecting your internet marketing strategies. Your plan should take advantage a number of technologies such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, email campaigns, SEO optimization for your website, and so on. There is no one size fits all internet marketing strategy so you need to find out where your customers are online and then implement your strategies on those channels to reach them in the best way. Do your own research and planning or hire someone to help with an internet marketing plan.
Feedback
Once you begin a campaign you need to get feedback from customers to see how it’s going. The feedback can help you tweak and redesign your marketing plan to make it more effective and expand its reach. So many companies drop the ball here – it’s important to constantly keep on top of what’s working and what’s not.
Author Bio: Obi Orgnot: Founder and CEO, OrgNot Ltd. Author of the Exponential Growth Manual. As a social entrepreneur he helps small businesses to grow through his company’s digital marketing service.
Comments, likes and tweets are always appreciated! Did I mention that I LOVE your feedback?
Image courtesy of 89studio FreeDigitalPhotos.net
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Obi
As a small business marketing consultant on the other side of the world in Australia I found your article very thought provoking. In my opinion, there was just one thing missing – search engine optimisation. With 1 Billion Google searches everyday its now more important than ever before to get found online.
Keep up the great articles!
Damien
Thanks Damien! Great addition.
Hi Martina, this is Arfin I am planning to start a small digital marketing business, thank you for your content helping me.