Creating Your Digital Marketing Strategy

 Developing Your Overall Digital Strategy

Companies have recognized what their customers have always known. If they can’t find the content that makes your product easy to use and enjoy, they are off to seek out your competitor. You’ve missed

 This chapter covers what goes into creating a digital marketing strategy. Without it, you can’t get the traction you need to beat the competition. You also discover each of the “Six Cs” that you must include to make your strategy complete.

 Understanding the Components of a Digital Marketing Strategy

 To understand how the pieces of a digital marketing strategy fit together, the components are organized into a framework called the Six Cs. They are (1) company strategy, (2) customer experience, (3) clicking with artificial intel ligence (AI), (4) content creation (5), channel promotions, and (6) check-back analysis.

Working with the Six Cs framework helps you cover all the bases as you create your digital marketing strategy and implement your plan

Determining the company strategy

 The first C is company strategy. To create a digital marketing strategy, you need to begin by looking at your company’s business goals. The question to ask yourself and your team is, “What do we want the company to achieve and how do we make it happen?” Additional questions include

 What do our customers need from us?

 What is the goal of this marketing strategy?

 How can we beat our competition?

 You should direct your attention to your goals and business case for undertaking this effort. To that end, Book 1 covers the following topics:

» Creating a digital marketing strategy. Several components go into a successful marketing strategy. Keep reading this chapter to find out more as well as the subsequent chapters in this book.

 » Getting and keeping your customers’ attention. Marketers are fiercely competing for your customers’ attention. Find out how to capture it in Book1, Chapter 2.

 Understanding your business model and your brand. Find out about a variety of business models and how to determine what “job” your product does. You look at brand components in Book 1, Chapter 3

Deciding which marketing campaign to create. After you understand your goals, you can choose the right marketing campaign. See what to consider in Book 1, Chapter 4.

 Developing the strongest offers. You look at how to turn leads into custom ers by crafting winning offers in Book 1, Chapter 5.

 Planning for B2B campaign success. Discover which metrics to use when you want to measure your campaign success in Book 1, Chapter 6

Uncovering the customer experience

. The second of the Six Cs is customer experience, covered in Book 2. You need to learn what your prospects will think, feel, and do when interacting with your brand. The question for your marketing team to ask is, “Who are our prospects Developing Your and how will we serve them as customers?”

 You must define your audience and analyze the customer experience. You do this using the following approaches:

 » Collect and analyze customer data. Before you define your audience, you need to evaluate the kind of data you will use. In Book 2, Chapter 1, you look at the benefits and challenges you may face when dealing with big data to analyze your audience

 » Create personas. You define the characteristics of your perfect audience by investigating several different types of information. Find out what actions you need to take in Book 2, Chapter 2

 » Develop the buyer’s journey. You want to understand the journey your prospect takes, starting from being interested in your product to being sold on it. Book 2, Chapter 3 looks at the buyer’s mindset and gives you a model to help you document your customer’s touchpoints.

» Assist with sales enablement. Your sales team is facing an empowered customer. Find out in Book 2, Chapter 4 how your content can assist in making the job easier and more powerful. You can also determine where your company falls on the content maturity scale

Clicking with artificial intelligence (AI)

The third of the Six Cs is clicking with AI, which is covered in Book 3. Using AI to deal with huge volumes of data is just the beginning of its value. You want to become adept at using it to help you understand and reach your customer in a more targeted way.

Chapter 1 in Book 3 takes you through these important topics:

 Concepts and use cases related to AI and marketing: You see the concepts that you need to know and learn what tools are available to help you meet this challenge.

 Utilizing AI with advertising: You see how you can use AI in advertising without having to be an expert

 Leveraging chatbots for conversational marketing. You can’t afford to make your customers wait for answers that other competitors are ready to

give them right away. You see how to provide your customers with the immediate answers they expect using conversational marketing.

Developing content using AI apps. You know you need to create quality content on a very regular schedule, but sometimes you don’t have the written content you need. The chapter also covers the development of AI content apps that “write” content for you

Creating quality conten

The fourth C is content creation, which is covered in Book 4. You need to focus on creating quality content (based on your story) that you know your customers want and need. The question to ask is, “How will we create quality content, who will do it, and what will that content be?”

You need to develop a strategy for content, define your messaging, and establish your systems and governance rules. The chapters in Book 4 show you how to do the following:

» Create a content strategy. You should have both a content plan and a content marketing strategy. In Book 4, Chapter 1, you see how to take an audit of your content to determine what you have and how you can leverage it to develop a true corporate asset.

» Develop content types. You want to ensure that you take full advantage of all the types of content available to you. Book 4, Chapter 2 covers various types including long- and short-form original content, curated content, and visual content

» Know what your customers want. You learn how marketing funnels help you reach your entire audience. See how in Book 4, Chapter 3.

» Write and storytell. You have a story to tell that will connect with your audience. How do you incorporate it into your content? See Book 4, Chapter 4 to get a feel for the science behind why stories work and how to develop your own powerful corporate stories.

» Create processes and systems. You know that without a documented workflow and procedures, your content marketing efforts fail. Book 4, Chapter 5 spells out the roles and responsibilities of your content team and shows you the benefits of using an editorial calendar

» Target content for each audience. Your company needs to build a resource library that customers can access without contacting you. Find out what you should put in that library in Book 4, Chapter 6 

 Communicating Your Mission

 When you hear the term mission statement, you probably want to skip to the next section in this chapter. Completely understandable. At some point while you were in school, you were taught about mission statements and probably found it boring. But the good news is that now, when you look at communicating the reason your company exists, a mission statement becomes important and per sonal. Customers are very interested in things like product sustainability and may choose to leave you for a competitor if you don’t clearly state your commitment to the wider society

 The target audience: Before you determine the characteristics of your personas (Book 2, Chapter 2 covers personas in detail), you have to identify the niche(s) that work best for you. Aside from doing market research, you need to pick a very narrow group to target. When defining their niche, some companies are afraid to rule out anyone. They think that they may eliminate an important customer segment. But narrowing down the target is exactly what makes this tactic so powerful. By defining your niche carefully, you know that you’re speaking to the people who are interested in hearing your message. You can always add segments later, but remember this: When you target everyone, you don’t connect with anyone

Establishing Your Goals

 After you’ve established your mission statement, you can focus on your company goals. In Book 1, Chapter 3, you take a close look at your business model and cre ate a business model canvas. Doing the exercises in that chapter should prepare you to articulate your goals. The following sections give you a brief look at how to formulate goals

Picking KPIs

 After you establish your goals, you need to develop key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are the measures you choose to help you determine whether you’re reaching your business goals. You need them to keep your strategy on track. If you don’t measure yourself against your business goals, you won’t know whether your content marketing strategy is working and supporting your larger business goals.

 To help you think about how to craft your KPIs in relation to your marketing goals, check out Table 1-1. You can apply the table to your marketing plan as well. List your goals and then choose some metrics. Then refer to this list when you check your progress

 Expanding Your Corporate Mindset

 Every company has its own culture. The culture dictates how and why tasks get done. If your culture is a positive one, you’re probably focused obsessively on serving your customers, and you’re proud of your reputation. Have you thought about how your culture, reputation, and customer service impact your content marketing strategy? You can examine that next

Creating a culture of content

 Does your company have a culture of content (CoC)? Content creation and mar keting is front and center in today’s businesses, so it’s no surprise that it could become part of an organization’s DNA.