The Internet has becomeย theย mediumย throughย whichย peopleย findย out about,ย interactย with, and patronize businesses. COVID-19 only accelerated thisย importantย pivot, and businesses of all sizes had toย adjustย to the digital shift in order to remain relevant.ย Largeย companiesย typicallyย hadย theย resourcesย availableย toย them toย invest and transform into the digital space.ย Whenย it comes to aย smallerย business,ย thisย type ofย digital transformationย canย beย aย bit more complicated.ย Thatย isย where your digital strategy comes in so letโs understand what a digital strategy is.
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What is a Digital Strategy
A digital strategy is a plan that outlines how your business uses digital channels to reach your target audience, achieve marketing goals, and increase sales. For small businesses, a digital marketing strategy can mean the difference between thriving and barely surviving. However, itโs not as easy as posting on social media. This strategy considers various aspects like your target audience, their user journey and experience, and your overall branding. You might struggle with questions like โWhat platform should I focus on?โ or โWhat type of content should I be making?โ Donโt fret, weโre here to explain and answer these questions!
Why Go Digital? How Can a Digital Strategy Help You?
Most businesses do not consider a digital strategy especially when they are in traditional markets. However, having a digital strategy helps your business in so many ways. I bet you are itching to find out how. We have broken down the different way this can help your business below:
1. Enhance brand visibility
A huge part of growing a business is getting people to know about your business. This is important if youโre just starting the business or expanding into a new market. It is also useful if your business has been existing for several years. A digital strategy is the best way to put your small business out there. It is also an avenue for people to start engaging with you, even if they donโt become customers immediately.
2. Cost-effective marketing
Imagine a business that engages several strategies: search engine optimization, email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, and influencer marketing with the intent of promoting your business, products, and services. This form of digital strategy technique has loads of advantages for your business. The foremost advantage is that it is less expensive compared to traditional marketing. But the interesting thing is, in the long term, it is almost more effective than traditional marketing. Digital marketing effectively advertises your products to the different segments of your target audience. It also has a wider, more global reach. This makes reaching your target audience easier wherever they may be in the world. With digital strategies, conversion rates tend to be high. You also get an easy way to change or edit your marketing at any time to best fit your audience or update new products. And itโs also makes it easier to measure your return on investment.
3. Improve customer engagement
An important part of your digital strategy is communication. Communication is a two-way thing with digital marketing, so youโre most likely communicating directly with your customers. Whatโs more, you can personalize these communications based on demographics like age, interests, customer behavior, and so on. This improves customer engagement rates, helps customers relate to and trust your business, and builds customer loyalty in the long run.
4. Make data-driven decisions
With a digital strategy, itโs easier for your business to track and analyze the data. Itโs also easier for you to measure your ROI. All digital marketing and social media platforms provide you with direct data on your target audience, campaigns, posts, etc. that show you how people interact with your brand online. Metrics like website traffic, social media shares and likes, open rates, and conversion rates let you know what your audience engages with and what they like. With this data, you can understand your target audience more, know what content they prefer engaging with, and make better business decisions based on that.
What Should Make Up Your Digital Strategy
In creating your digital strategy, there are so many areas to focus on. However, you need to ask yourself, โWhat are my goals? What do I want this digital strategy to do for me?โ Whether you want to grow a large audience on social media, sell out all your merch, or build an email list, your digital strategy is there to meet your objectives. You need to identify what those objectives are. Now, letโs explore the areas your digital strategy should cover.
So Davidโs direct target audience are content creators, i.e. people who need and use these tools regularly. To make this easier for David, we segmented the audience further (User preferences) according to their demographics and online behavior. Our research found that women make up a higher demographic of content creators, and people between 18 and 30 prefer platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Based on this, we crafted two user personas, alongside a detailed user journey. This digital strategy also detailed how David could use his audienceโs preferred social media platforms (TikTok and Instagram) to advertise his products and accompany them on their journeys. When we implemented this with David, his sales grew from 5 orders per week to over 10 orders per day.
1. Target audience
Youโve probably already identified your target audience as a business owner (if you havenโt, no worries! Check out our free guide on how to identify your target audience as a small business owner) Now, your digital strategy focuses on three aspects of your target audience; their user preferences, user journey, and user experience. Letโs take a look at Davidโs digital strategy to break this down further.
Our first step for Davidโs branding was to identify the common values he shared with his target audience. Both parties value reliability and swiftness, and so we decided that was the best way for people to perceive his business. We crafted a brand strategy that positioned Davidโs business as one that embodies these values. Our first step was to create brand assets and actions. His brand assets included a tagline, โReliable content Creation for you!โ, social media content, and his product packaging. His brand actions were customer-centric, ensuring that paying customers had direct access to a personal approach and that his customer support always put the customerโs needs first, especially when it came to customer complaints. We put out friendly social media content where David also explained how each product worked and how it would be beneficial to his user personas.
2. Branding
Branding in simple terms is giving an identity to your business. It is one way of differentiating yourself from the competition. It shows the stakeholders and customers what they should expect from your brand. And also helps customers understand that your product or service is a good choice. Your brand shows how people perceive you. It can affects the way people buy your product/service, interact with your business, and invest in or recommend your business. It also depends on things like your industry, experience level, location, etc.
Since David sells physical products, we set up a website for him that showcased his brand. The websiteโs most important feature was the e-commerce store. This contained everything that David was selling. For customers, it was a great way to get information on what was available, and for David, it was an efficient way to manage inventory and customer service, all in one place.
3. Website
A website can be an irreplaceable component of your digital strategy. As the centerpiece of your online presence, your website helps to increase credibility. It showcases your products/services, and also help your target audience finding you with ease. In my opinion it is the most efficient way to convert leads into paying customers. However, you need to be sure that you are attracting the right audience. Target digital strategies like SEO and content marketing would help you reach the right audience. At the end of the day a fast website with clear call to action can dramatically improve your sales and revenue.
4. Content strategy
The last aspect of your digital strategy we would talk about is your content strategy. A content strategy is a plan that details how you will create, distribute and manage content for your business. One of the major purpose of your content strategy is to engage your target audience and meet their needs. Its purpose is to help you achieve the objectives youโve set for your digital strategy and connect with your audience. With a fully-packed content strategy, you will have an idea of what to create, when to create it, and at what time you should post. Bear in mind that quality content boosts your brandโs visibility, amplifies your brand authority, and helps your target audience trust you more. Your content strategy involves your social media and blog posts.
The content that Davidโs business posts online consists of videos and articles on how to create content, the tools needed to create content, and an in-depth analysis of how those tools work. Once a month, as part of his Growth sessions with us, we carry out content audits from his digital metrics. What kind of content performed well? What did the audience engage with? Why? The results of the audit, alongside a content brainstorming session, influence how David set up his content calendar for the next month.
Final Thoughts
In todayโs digital world, online visibility is not an option. It is a prerequisite and tool for building a thriving, sustainable and profitable business. A digital strategy is key for your small business, the same way it was for Davidโs. If you canโt do it yourself, remember that thereโs professional support through digital and consulting agencies!
