Crafting a Winning Digital Marketing Plan for SMEs

Having a strong online presence is not just an advantage: It's a necessity. However, many small and medium-sized companies struggle to develop effective digital marketing strategies from scratch. Let’s change that! Take these steps the next time you are working on a digital marketing plan for your business.

1. Define Your Goals & Objectives:

Before diving into tactics, it's crucial to clearly define your business goals and objectives. At Keystone Click, we are big fans of SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, boost sales, or improve customer retention? Craft your objectives starting with a verb, including a metric and a due date.? For example:

We want to increase the number of quality leads that come through our website by 20% in the next 6 months.?

Understanding your goals will shape the rest of your digital marketing strategy.

2. Know Your Audience:

Understanding your target audience is key to delivering the right message. Conduct market research to identify your audience's demographics, interests, pain points, and online behavior. This will help you tailor your content and campaigns to resonate with your audience. Whitney, on the KSC team, wrote a great blog about How to Conduct Target Audience Research to Grow Your Scaling Business.

3. Create Compelling Content:

Content is the backbone of any digital marketing strategy. Develop high-quality, relevant content that provides value to your audience. This could include blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, and more. Consistency is key; aim to regularly publish fresh content that keeps your audience engaged. Some additional resources that you may find beneficial for your content-creating process:

• The types of content your business needs to be creating
• Creating compelling content for social media
• LinkedIn: Creating content that works

4. Optimize for Search Engines:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for improving your website's visibility in search engine results. Conduct keyword research to identify relevant keywords for your business, and optimize your website's content, meta tags, and URLs accordingly. Regularly update your website with fresh content to improve its ranking on search engines.

5. Leverage Social Media:

Social media platforms help to engage with your audience and drive traffic to your website. Choose the platforms where your audience is most active and create a social media strategy tailored to each platform. Consistently post engaging content, interact with your audience, and leverage paid advertising to amplify your reach.

6. Invest in Paid Advertising:

While organic efforts are important, paid advertising can provide a significant boost to your digital marketing efforts. Platforms like Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads and Facebook Ads allow you to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors with precision. We typically recommend starting with a smaller budget (around $1,000/month) and then continue to tweak, test, measure, and repeat until you get to a conversion rate at or above 2%. Continue to tweak, test, and measure to increase the conversion rate and then consider increasing the ad spend.?

7. Analyze and Iterate:

Regularly monitor and analyze the performance of your digital marketing efforts. Track key metrics that align with the goals you defined and the tactics that you are implementing.? Some metrics to consider include website traffic, conversion rates, engagement, and ROI. Use this data to identify what's working and what's not, and make adjustments accordingly. Digital marketing is an iterative process, so be prepared to experiment and adapt as needed.? Know that what has worked well one day, may not work well anymore.? This industry changes quickly, and leveraging your data helps to keep you in the know of what is and isn’t working.

8. Stay Up-to-Date:

The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, and trends, technologies, and algorithms change almost daily. Stay informed about the latest industry developments by following reputable blogs, attending webinars, and participating in industry forums. Being proactive and adaptable will keep your digital marketing strategy ahead of the curve.

Remember, digital marketing is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process of optimization and refinement. Stay focused, stay agile, and stay ahead of the competition.