4-Step Digital Marketing Strategy Plan Template For Small Businesses
Published October 11, 2022
Digital marketing has become an integral part of a modern business strategy. Considering over 60% of the world’s population now uses the internet, it’s no wonder it’s so effective. It works for all kinds of businesses—large companies, in particular, have reaped many benefits from digital marketing. That’s most likely why even small business owners nowadays try their best to imitate the strategies of these corporate giants but to no avail.
While it may seem like a sensible approach, one must remember that though both are a form of business, a small business is different from a large company in many aspects.
These differences include the size, legal structure, and, most importantly, the market. Hence, a digital marketing plan that works for a large company won’t necessarily work for a small business. You need a different digital market strategy template, hence this guide. Read on as this guide goes over a 5-step digital marketing strategy plan template for small businesses.
Step #1: Set Your Goals
There are different reasons why a small business owner might want to create a digital marketing campaign. These goals may vary according to your specific needs.
Examples of goals that a digital marketing campaign can help with include the following:
- To boost sales
- To improve customer engagement
- To provide value to customers
- To expand your reach
- To grow brand awareness
- To generate leads
A digital marketing campaign doesn’t necessarily have to always boost sales. There are specific types of campaigns, and each one focuses on different goals and objectives.
A giveaway event on Facebook, for example, may boost your sales, but more importantly, it can drastically increase customer engagement and loyalty. Similarly, an email marketing campaign focusing on your existing customers may encourage them to purchase more of your products, hence boosting sales, but it doesn’t grow brand awareness or generate leads.
For that reason, it’s essential to set your goals first and foremost. That way, you’ll know what kind of digital marketing strategy is suitable to accomplish your goal and which is not.
Step #2: Identify the Target Audience
Your business must have a target audience—a group of people that you want to reach through your digital marketing campaigns. Having a specific target audience is crucial because you can’t possibly cater to everyone when crafting a campaign. For example, if you run a home renovation agency, your ideal target audience would be homeowners. Granted, you can also target teenagers, but they most likely have no need for the services you render.
With a target audience, you can reduce costs since you’ll spend less money by narrowing down your target market. It also helps by allowing you to focus on the audience that matters.
There are several ways to identify your target audience. One particular method that many marketers use is creating personas. A persona is basically a fictional character with the characteristics of a person you think will be the ideal customer. When creating a persona, you must decide on their characteristics and information, such as their:
- Age
- Income
- Interests
- Job title
- Location
- Pain points
- Industry
With a persona, you can create digital marketing campaigns more easily since they often require you to input your target audience’s information and demographics.
Step #3: Determine Your Unique Selling Point (USP)
Every business has a unique selling point or USP. It refers to a characteristic in your product or business that sets it apart from your competitors. For example, the USP of the Zoom platform was that it’s relatively easy to use. Hence, even non-techies can use the app.
Furthermore, Zoom has far fewer glitches and bugs. That’s why despite being a relatively new telecommunications app, Zoom was able to surpass Skype in terms of user count.
That’s how significant a unique selling point can be, so you must determine your USP before crafting a digital marketing strategy. That way, when you create digital marketing campaigns, you can emphasize the USP and make your business stand out.
Step #4: Conduct a Competitive Analysis
Once you follow the previous steps, you should now have a strategy of your own. The last thing you need to do is ensure it has no flaws that may hinder its success.
One of the best ways to further enhance your strategy and eliminate flaws is to conduct a competitive analysis. A competitive analysis is when you look into your competitors’ existing digital marketing strategies. After all, while it’s good to learn from your mistakes, it’s better to learn from other’s mistakes, and “others” here refers to your competitors.
There are several ways to conduct a competitive analysis. Here are a few examples:
- Use an SEO audit tool like SEMRush to look into the metrics of a competitor’s website.
- Look into the kinds of posts they publish on their social media accounts and pages
- Identify the types of articles they post on their website
- Determine the pain points they emphasize in their digital marketing campaigns
Your next action would depend on whether the competitor is doing well or not. You can either follow in their footsteps or avoid using the same strategy. If their numbers are high, follow in their footsteps, but if their numbers are low, try to avoid their strategy as it likely has a lot of flaws.
Wrapping Up
The beauty of digital marketing is that you can very easily make changes to the plan according to your circumstances. Your goal may change, your niche may expand, or you may adapt a different unique selling point. That’s why having a digital marketing strategy plan template is crucial. You can immediately respond to changes to the market and your business itself since all you have to do is tweak your digital marketing strategy plan template accordingly.
(Related: How Can a Submark Logo Help Boost Your Brand?)
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About The Author
Lenard Arceo is an experienced writer who enjoys learning to code in his spare time. He has spent most of his teenage years blogging about a vast array of topics and has helped many websites grow over the years.
