We can describe an online or digital marketing plan as a map that we have to follow to reach the objectives that we set for ourselves as a company. The difference between a traditional map and this one is that we create it ourselves and it is different for each company.
Having a good digital marketing strategy is essential to prosper today for companies of all sectors and sizes. The problem is that many launch to create campaigns and implement actions without having that planning. These end up with sub-optimal results or stopping all engines to conserve resources.
So that this is not your case, we are going to review everything that is needed to create a good inbound marketing plan, or what is the same, a complete digital marketing plan.
First of all… What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a little known term for its importance. It has its subtle differences with digital marketing, but to make it easier to talk about this topic, we will say that it is about all the actions that we launch in order to achieve our marketing objectives. Those actions cover various channels, audiences, platforms, etc. But, even though they are focused in different directions, they are part of a general action plan that includes everything.
Therefore, when we talk about inbound marketing, we are talking about a series of initiatives that work to achieve small objectives that are part of a whole, which is our main objective.
5 steps to create a digital marketing plan
1. Situation analysis
Before making a plan, we need to see how the company is doing, what they have done and what they have going. We have to find out who the buyer person is and what they look at when buying a product or service and what the buying process is like.
Once we have the bases, it is time to see which campaigns have worked, which ones are there and which ones have failed miserably. This will help us define a SWOT if we haven’t already done so.
With this analysis of everything that is being done, we can start thinking about how to get closer to our ideal client
2. Analysis of the competition
Benchmarking is another of the basic points when creating a digital marketing plan with face and eyes. We have to see who we are going to face. We will have to see the presence that competitors have in social networks, their online stores if it is the sector in which we work, how they work in each channel, what content they publish and a long etcetera of points.
This step is important to know how to differentiate ourselves and stand out from the crowd. If you don’t know how to do it, hiring an online marketing agency may be the solution. They have tools designed specifically for this type of analysis
3. Definition of objectives
Here we enter the most analytical and perhaps the most important part of the marketing plan. We have to define the objectives and the metrics that we are going to pursue with our campaigns and actions.
We can follow the methodology we want, look at success stories to see what others have done, we can do whatever we want, but we have to define some objectives that are:
- Easily measurable: you have to be able to see how close or far you are from reaching them and you have to be able to say precisely what percentage of the objective has been achieved with each action.
- Relevant: we are not served by metrics that we cannot use for decision making. This means that if you sell a service, a goal of getting potential customers will be more useful to you than a goal of having more visits to the web. In another article we will see that both are important, but for very different things.
- Achievable: you have to be realistic with what you propose. An easy example is that you cannot expect to have 10,000 more visits to your website in a week without investing in that growth.
- Uniforms: although this step is optional, the ideal is to create a marketing plan that allows us to define uniform objectives and indicators for all campaigns. In this way we can assess how they are working and what actions need to be optimized or stopped for optimum overall performance.
- Temporary: all objectives must have a time limit understood as a deadline to achieve them. These dates also have to be realistic as we talked about before.
- Specific: Although this point is already described above, all our objectives have to be as specific as possible. “Improve branding” is not specific, for example it should instead be something like “increase Facebook followers by 10%”.
4. Action plan
Finally we reach the most interactive part, in which we will define, on the one hand, which channels we want to attack with our digital marketing initiatives and, on the other hand, what these actions will be specifically.
If we talk about a digital marketing plan, we will have to differentiate mainly between the following channels:
- SEO : It is organic traffic and is achieved with updated and quality content on our website. We talk about keywords, how search engines like Google or Bing index us, the structure of our website, backlinks, landing pages and content marketing in general. It is a channel that requires considerable effort, does not require investment per se (although it does require human resources) and gives results in the medium-long term. It allows us to know how and when potential customers find us and optimize our page accordingly.
- SEM : It is the traffic that comes to us from search engine ads. It translates to Search Engine Marketing and it involves advertising on platforms like Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and others. The main difference with the previous one is that here we are talking about advertising that requires an economic investment and offers us certain advantages such as the possibility of segmenting the target audience.
- Content Marketing : The truth is that although it is considered a separate channel, we at Arcomm Design usually include it in the SEO part, since, in essence, it is the creation of relevant content that attracts our target audience and has a high value. for SEO.
- Social media marketing : At this point we can talk about organic and paid growth, just like SEO and SEM. But this time on networks like Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok or Instagram instead of search engines. They will bring us “referral” traffic or payment traffic to our store or website depending on the action we have taken. Here we can also include the influencer marketing part.
- Affiliate marketing: it is about involving other people and companies in your sales process. An example would be the Amazon affiliate program , which multiplies its sales thanks to people recommending the products on the platform.
- Email Marketing: in combination with other channels, it can be a very powerful tool to build loyalty and convert potential customers or retain existing customers. It is about the creation of newsletters, promotions and others that arrive directly to the inbox of our potential client.
- Display Marketing: Although its conversion rates are usually very low , this type of marketing allows us to generate very high brand visibility and allows us to position ourselves on many web pages with a wide variety of formats and creative assets.
5. Review of results and optimization
This is the last part of your marketing plan and the longest. It will require monitoring the results of each of the actions planned in your digital marketing plan. In this way, you can optimize, stop or change them according to each channel, the situation and the available resources.
The easiest thing is to have regular reviews with a subsequent follow-up in order to have everything as optimized as possible.
Advantages of hiring a digital marketing agency in these cases
Obviously, the easiest thing, if you do not want to invest time and resources in this planning, is to hire an agency specialized in digital marketing or inbound marketing.
It has many benefits from various points of view and you will have a group of experts in the sector who will know how to advise you and will accompany you all the way. Both in planning and implementation and monitoring of all defined actions.
At Arcomm , a digital marketing agency in Barcelona, we also offer a marketing consulting service . We help you all the way and accompany you at every step of the process so that you have an optimal digital marketing plan. This way you get the results your business needs. If you have questions or want more information, you just have to contact our team and we will be happy to assist you.
