The key element of Digital Marketing Strategy

The key strategic decisions for digital marketing are in common with traditional business and marketing strategy decisions. As we will see in DM strategy, which defines a process for developing a digital marketing strategy, customer segmentation, targeting and positioning are all key to effective digital marketing. These familiar target marketing strategy approaches involve selecting target customer groups and specifying how to deliver value to these groups as a proposition of services and products. As well as positioning of the core product or brand proposition, online development of a compelling extended product or Online Value Proposition (OVP) is also important.

This defines how the online experience of a brand is delivered through content, visual design, interactivity, sharing, rich media and how the online presence integrates with the offline presence. All of the famous companies in the world have a clear, compelling OVP. Strategic decisions about the future OVP a company offers is a key part of Internet marketing strategy.

Key features of Digital Marketing Strategy

The interaction and integration between Internet channels and traditional channels is a key part of digital marketing strategy development. Digital marketing strategy is essentially a channel marketing strategy and it needs to be integrated with other channels as part of multichannel marketing. It follows that an effective digital marketing strategy should:

● Be aligned with business and marketing strategy (for example, many companies use a rolling three-year plan and vision), with more specific annual business priorities and initiatives.

● Use clear objectives for business and brand development and the online contribution of leads and sales for the Internet or other digital channels. These should be based on models of the number using the channels.

● Be consistent with the types of customers who use and can be effectively reached through the channel.

● Define a compelling, differential value proposition for the channel which must be effectively communicated to customers.

● Specify the mix of online and offline communication tools used to attract visitors to the company website or interact with the brand through other digital media such as email or mobile.

● Support the customer journey through the buying process as they select and purchase products using the digital channel in combination with other channels.

● Manage the online customer life-cycle through the stages of attracting visitors to the website, converting them into customers and retention and growth.

RACE model defines customer life-cycle

RACE describes the range of tactics needed to reach, interact with, convert and engage online audience across the customer life cycle from generating awareness, conversion to sale (online and offline) and retention and growth of customers.

The figure shows the range of different marketing activities or operating processes needed to support acquiring new customers through communicating with them on third-party websites and social media, attracting them to a company website, converting website visits into sales and then using online media to encourage further sales. You can see that applying social media is a part of RACE and therefore is one of the key management

Creating a written strategy forces companies to tackle these crucial questions, as well as formulate a powerful online value proposition, narrowly define the target audience, and carefully consider all the other building blocks for an effective digital program.

Another challenge with digital marketing is that there are so many activities you could be working on, that you may spread yourself too thin, or miss key activities. A strategy helps you choose focus on priority strategic initiatives.

Digital Marketing Strategist must know that

Digital marketing is the application of technology to achieve marketing objectives, defined by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as: ‘the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.’

Digital marketing can be considered a subset of digital business and is equivalent to sell? side e?commerce. for further information, kindly refer to e-commerce strategy books.

A typical digital marketing plan framework

A digital marketing plan is often developed separately from a digital business strategy.

The SOSTAC framework is used to introduce the elements of a digital marketing plan.

1 Situation analysis (Internal & External) – involves a consideration of the external environment with the emphasis on levels of customer access to the Internet, benchmarking of competitors and new entrants.

2 Objective setting – a key objective is setting the online revenue contribution or the percentage of sales that will be achieved online. For companies where direct sales are not practical because of the nature of the product companies may set objectives for how the web will affect marketing communications, customer service and cost reductions.

3 Strategies – through evaluating the suitability of product for direct sale a company may define a replacement (product suitable for direct sale, e.g. airline tickets) or complementary strategy (product unsuitable for direct sale, e.g. FMCG or consultancy services). Replacement strategies may involve changing distribution networks.

Complementary strategies will involve using the Internet as an additional marketing communications channel.

4 Tactics – digital marketing tactics can be reviewed through varying the elements of the marketing mix: Price, Place, Product, Promotion, People, Processes and Physical evidence.

5 Actions – the planning of digital marketing strategy by identifying resources and timescales.

6 Control – control can be achieved through monitoring customer satisfaction and channel performance via the website and traditional channels.

Digital Marketing Strategy - Exact definition and meaning

A?digital marketing strategy?is needed to provide consistent direction for an organisation’s online marketing activities so that they integrate with its other marketing activities and support its overall business objectives. The digital marketing strategy has many similarities to the typical aims of traditional marketing strategies, in that it will:?

• ?provide a future direction to digital marketing activities;??
• ?involve analysis of the organisation’s external environment, internal resources and capabilities to inform strategy;??
• ?define digital marketing objectives that support marketing objectives;??
• ?involve selection of strategic options to achieve digital marketing objectives and create sustainable differential competitive advantage;??
• ?include strategy formulation to address typical marketing strategy options such as target markets, positioning and specification of the marketing mix;??
• ?help identify which strategies NOT to pursue and which marketing tactics are not suitable to implement;?
• ?specify how resources will be deployed and how the organisation will be structured to achieve the strategy.

Digital Marketing Strategy?Definition of the approach by which applying digital technology platforms will support marketing and business objectives.

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Digital marketing strategy as a channel marketing strategy?

Digital marketing strategy is primarily a?channel marketing strategy?which defines how a company should set?channel-specific objectives?and develop a?differential channel proposition?and?channel-specific communications?consistent with the characteristics of the channel and end user requirements. Note that digital channel strategy has two components – many may see it simply as a digital communications strategy,?but it should also define changes to the proposition enabled by digital channel (reviewed on the marketing mix) including Product, Pricing, Place, Promotion and changes to customer service.

The digital strategy determines the strategic significance of the digital channels relative to other communications channels that are used to communicate directly with customers at different customer touch points. Some organisations, such as low-cost airlines, use virtual channels,

such as websites and email marketing, for delivering service sand communicating with customers, whereas others may follow a strategy which uses a mix of digital and offline channels – for example, retailers which use face-to-face, telephone, mobile, direct mail communications and the web. the ROPO (research online–purchase offline) behaviors and ‘Click-and-Collect’ services remain important.

So the focus of digital marketing strategy is decisions about how to use the channel to support existing marketing strategies, how to exploit its strengths and manage its weaknesses, and to use it in conjunction with other channels as part of a multi channel marketing strategy.

Customer touch points: Communications channels with which companies interact directly with prospects and customers. Traditional touch points include face-to-face (in-store or with sales representatives), phone and mail. Digital touch points include web services, email and, potentially, mobile phone

This multichannel marketing strategy defines how different marketing channels should integrate and support each other in terms of their proposition development and communications based on their relative merits for the customer and the company.

Indeed, Keith Weed, Head of communications at Unilever, predicts that omni-connectivity is a major technology trend and suggests that in the future connections will not only be between computers, phones and tablets but also home appliances, heating controls, smart watches and health monitors?.

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