Digital Marketing Strategy

What Is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

In the modern age of business and technology, a strong digital marketing strategy is absolutely crucial to organizational success. Companies that thrive in the digital world typically allocate significant resources to the development of digital marketing strategies. In the process, organizations can reach customers across various digital platforms, driving positive revenue gains and improved conversion rates.

From a higher-level standpoint, marketing strategy is the process of identifying specific marketing goals. An overall marketing strategy will highlight achievable goals for both traditional (print, radio, broadcast) and digital channels. Using established strategies and goals, compelling marketers will evaluate various marketing tactics necessary to achieve those strategic goals.

What Does a Digital Marketing Strategy Look Like?

Digital marketing strategy involves an assessment of specific goals that are achievable through online channels. In an era when many consumers transact business on their mobile devices, a well-executed digital marketing strategy can be crucial to organizational success.

In this context, it is important to audit the current state of an organization’s media assets. Viewed through a macro lens, this means that marketers need to evaluate their organization’s owned, paid, and earned media:

• Owned Media — Owned media represents any communication channels that an organization owns and operates under their complete control. From websites and blogs to podcasts and video channels, organizations can leverage owned media to fit just about any marketing strategy or tactic.
• Paid Media — Paid media refers to content that third parties display in exchange for compensation from the owner. From sponsored content to influencer marketing and digital advertising, paid media is prevalent in many digital marketing strategies.
• Earned Media — Earned media refers to third-party content that is completely separate from the company or brand. In the digital world, this type of exposure often occurs in the form of awards, testimonials, reviews, or user-submitted content.

Ultimately, a digital marketing strategy will seek to maximize the impact of owned, paid, and earned media in the digital world. Consequently, these marketing strategies will encompass multiple channels and approaches — spanning website content and blogs as well as online advertising, testimonials, and reviews. At the end of the day, a digital marketing strategy will change based on the type of business and industry in question.

How Is Marketing Strategy Different from Marketing Tactics or Campaigns?

Whereas marketing strategy involves identifying goals, marketing tactics represent the specific steps or actions needed to achieve those goals. In the process of creating a marketing strategy, it is necessary to create tactics as well to delineate the plan and the timelines. Otherwise, it may be difficult — if not impossible — to properly execute a marketing strategy and achieve marketing goals.

Digital marketing campaigns are also vital to evaluate in this discussion. These digital campaigns involve the execution of marketing strategies across all of an organization’s digital channels. The marketing tactics used to execute these campaigns often vary by channel, audience, and other factors. But an effective digital marketing campaign will reflect a substantially similar message across multiple channels.