The purpose of a digital marketing strategy is to enable your company to win in the battle for attention online. So many small NI companies enter the market haphazardly, trying different things here and there, hoping to succeed. But relatively few of them actually create a document that sets out how they’re going to win and beat their competitors. Often, the concept doesn’t even enter their collective heads.
The number of digital channels is tremendous. The average business communicates through the following touchpoints:
- Websites
- Social media
- Apps
- PPC advertising and remarketing
- Third-party sites, blogs, and companies
- Partner sites
The problem is that there’s no overarching strategy to bring them together. Around 45 percent of firms have no digital channel strategy at all.
In this post, we take a look at the ten reasons businesses in Northern Ireland need a digital channel strategy. It’s not just about reaching your audience; it’s about winning them too.
You Need To Target Your Audience
Trying to create a digital channel strategy when you have no idea who your audience is is close to impossible. If you don’t know the type of person you need to target, you don’t have a way to discriminate between channels. You could wind up putting all your effort into reaching people on Facebook when the vast majority of them are most active on Twitter.
Your People Don’t Understand The Importance Of Digital Channels
Sometimes, people in your organisation, including managers and executives at the top of the pile, don’t understand the importance of digital channels for reaching customers. Thus, a proper strategy document can be a critical piece of persuasive literature that gets them on your side.
It Helps You Create Powerful Online Value Propositions
Does your firm offer customers something valuable? If so, then your digital channel strategy needs to reflect this. It should lay out a plan that will ensure that customers are engaged and loyal. And it should provide mechanisms to ensure that you retain your value advantage over your competitors.
It Helps You Integrate Your Marketing Approach
Brands in NI that do the best are those that present themselves consistentLY across all their channels. Customers love it when firms present them with the same message over and over again, irrespective of the touchpoint. It’s less confusing and it helps to build trust. With a brand strategy, you can get all your people – and channels – on the same page so you deliver the same message everywhere.
It Gives You Direction
Being consistent is one thing, but having an overall vision for your brand is quite another. A digital channel strategy, however, can help with this. It allows you to link your overall brand goals to the type of channels that you use. Visual companies might want to focus on social media platforms, such as Instagram and Pinterest, for instance.
It Lets You Determine Your Audience Share By Channel
Be honest with yourself: do you really know which channels are funneling your audience to you? Most of the time, you don’t.
Part of your digital channel strategy, therefore, involves discovering how people are finding you. And the rest of it is then creating a marketing strategy around those channels.
It Prevents Rivals From Gaining Market Share
If you’re not conducting channel research, you can bet that your competitors are. Everyone is looking for the low-hanging fruit, so if you’re not on the right platforms, you’ll lose customers.
It Helps You Optimise
When it comes to digital marketing, you have a finite quantity of cash. Often, you can’t afford to reach out to customers via every platform. You need to narrow it down.
With a brand channel strategy, you can. Here you’re just targeting the most lucrative platforms so you don’t waste money elsewhere.
You’re Duplicating
Duplicating is another way your brand is wasting money. You’re spending your budget on PPC ads while at the same time sending marketing emails to the users clicking on them. You want to avoid that kind of thing if you can – it’s wasteful.
It Helps You Stay Agile
We’ve all heard about brands going out of business because they failed to keep up with the times. You don’t want to be one of those.
Having a digital channel strategy in place, however, transforms this equation. You’re no longer playing a game of catch-up. Instead, you’re actively participating in the most lucrative platforms and keeping your audience engaged. In short, you’re meeting them where they are.
