11 Digital Marketing Strategies Every Marketer Must Know

An effective digital marketing strategy helps you drive business growth by expanding and strengthening your customer engagement in the most competitive online arenas. However, each strategy has its own advantages, drawbacks, and return on investment. We’ll examine specific examples and show you how to create a comprehensive digital marketing strategy with measurable outcomes.

Understanding digital marketing strategy versus marketing tactics The term “digital marketing strategy” is frequently used interchangeably with other related concepts. On the other hand, a genuine marketing strategy is a comprehensive game plan that outlines how you will reach your target audience and convert them into paying customers. It serves as a blueprint for achieving your business’s distinctive marketing objectives.

The steps you’ll take to implement your marketing strategy are called marketing tactics. Some examples include:

I wrote blog posts, interacted with customers on social media, sent emails, designed advertisements, and more.
Marketing strategy vs. marketing campaign: While a marketing campaign and your marketing strategy are both important, knowing the difference is important. A marketing strategy focuses on the big picture.

It identifies your company’s objectives as a whole, those of your clients, and the strategy you intend to use to achieve both. A promotion is a marketing campaign if it focuses on achieving a single objective under your strategy rather than your overall business goals.

Most of the time, a marketing campaign has a start and end date. You could start a campaign to promote a new product, increase traffic, or attract a new group of customers.

11 kinds of digital marketing strategies

There are many different kinds of digital marketing strategies. Because some produce better results, we’ll look at the 11 most successful strategies used in our current industry.

Number 1

1. The ecosystem of strategies, tools, and tactics that a marketer employs to turn a website visitor into a paying customer is referred to as inbound marketing. It contains:

SEO marketing automation, content marketing email marketing, lead nurturing website optimization, website analytics
Inbound marketing is an all-encompassing strategy for attracting, qualifying, sustaining, and delighting customers and prospects. It is not a one-time use or something that is only used for a short period; rather, it is centred around a drawn-out relationship with clients.

Why should I use inbound marketing?

It’s reasonable. Inbound marketing can help you save money while increasing your return on investment. In the hope that you will be successful, you will target a specific group of people rather than everyone.

Credibility and confidence Your company is positioned as a trustworthy industry expert rather than just a sales-hungry entity when customers and prospects conduct their own research and discover that your content answers their questions.
Focus on relationships. Through inbound marketing, you can build trusting relationships that lead to repeat business and sales. Content for inbound marketing brings qualified visitors to your website and provides them with useful content that motivates them to purchase at each marketing funnel stage.

Number 2

2. Instead of interrupting people with unwelcome promotions, content marketing focuses on answering questions and providing genuine assistance through content. Blog posts, landing pages, videos, podcasts, infographics, white papers, eBooks, case studies, and other content are included.

Most of the time, content marketing has multiple objectives. It can be used for:

Convert and nurture leads, educate your target audience, and raise brand awareness and loyalty.
Content that is suitable for multiple user personas at various stages of the sales funnel is created by smart marketers. For instance, a prospect almost ready to buy requires different content than a user unfamiliar with your brand and discovered your website through organic search. You’ll need to know about your customers’ journeys and create original content that meets their needs at every stage.

Why make use of content marketing?

Strong connections with clients. You can establish long-term relationships with customers and prospects through content marketing. It also pushes them closer to the finish line, increasing the likelihood that they will choose you over your rivals when they are ready to buy.

Enhanced SEO. Your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) will be significantly improved by high-quality content, allowing you to enjoy more organic traffic that converts into sales.

Inreased status as a brand. You can establish yourself as an authority in your field if you create content that is engaging and instructive. The people you’re trying to reach will then turn to you for help with their issues.

Number 3

3. ABM, or account-based marketing, is a potent business-to-business marketing tactic that focuses on specific accounts you choose. Its goal is to speed up prospects’ progress through the sales funnel for marketing and sales teams. ABM lets you focus on the accounts that matter most to you.

Why should you use account-based marketing?

Personalization. ABM does not use a standard marketing strategy. Instead, it makes messages that are just right for the target accounts. You use the information you have about your client to tailor your campaign to meet their specific requirements.
Collaboration. Sales and marketing teams collaborate with ABM to identify key accounts and create individualized campaigns for them. As teams focus on moving accounts through the sales pipeline, ABM encourages teamwork.

quicker sales cycles Due to the multiple stakeholders involved in making a final purchase decision, the B2B sales process frequently takes a long time. ABM speeds up the sales cycle because the primary decision maker and all other relevant prospects can be nurtured simultaneously with content created specifically for them.

Number 4

4. SEO is the process of optimizing your website and content for search engines in order to achieve higher search engine rankings and boost organic traffic to your site. It involves several strategies, including:

These are all important steps: creating high-quality content, organizing it around keywords and user requirements, including meta data, and making sure your website is optimized for search engines.
In the end, SEO aims to increase leads and sales by organically bringing in the right visitors.

What are the benefits of SEO?

Higher rates of conversion. An optimised website is quick, simple to use, and works on all devices. As a result, it has a better chance of converting users into paying customers.

Increased interest in the brand. You can increase visitors’ trust and awareness of your brand if your content appears highly in search results. They won’t be as likely to buy your goods and services if you don’t have a strong online presence.
savings over the long term. When a piece of content is made, it should get more and more visitors over time. You will still need to produce high-quality content regularly, but you will be able to target users who are actively looking for your products and services without having to invest money regularly.

Number 5

5. Utilizing social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, social media marketing:

Promote your content, products, or services to increase brand visibility, gain fans or followers, and engage current and potential customers.

It necessitates spending money on advertising on an ongoing basis as well as, most of the time, a website landing page created just for users from that advertising budget. Your website’s traffic, likes, and followers all end when your advertising budget runs out.

Why use marketing on social media?

Marketing that saves money. You can use social media marketing to reach your audience even when they aren’t thinking about it and with a relatively low budget. However, if you want to get the most out of your advertising budget and achieve high conversion rates, you will need to incorporate A/B testing or another kind of optimization.

Interaction with the crowd. Roughly 45% of the world’s population uses social media, with the majority spending approximately three hours per day on it. Take advantage of this opportunity to interact directly with your audience by selecting the appropriate channel(s), researching the advertising platform’s operation, and selecting the appropriate channel(s).

increased brand adherence. According to research, 71% of people with a positive social media experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to friends and family.

Number 6

6. Email marketing sends promotional and informational emails to your audience to build relationships, turn prospects into buyers, and make once-buyers into devoted fans of your brand.

These emails may represent your company and discuss exclusive deals, website content, upcoming sales, or general messages.

Why use marketing via email?

visitors to your website Links to pages on your website should be included in your emails. The open rate (the proportion of recipients who opened your email) and the click-through rate (the proportion of recipients who clicked on a link in the email) are two key performance indicators.

A good value. Email marketing typically has a lower price tag than other marketing methods like direct mail, search engine marketing, and social media marketing. Your investment will include the cost of a person to manage the program and a subscription to email marketing software that can send thousands of emails simultaneously.

It focuses on specific messages. Every person on a list of email addresses has chosen to receive information, which implies that they need your feedback! By further segmenting your list, you can send highly targeted and likely to be well-received information.

Number 7

7. PPC advertising is a strategy in which you, as the advertiser, pay for each time a user clicks on one of your online advertisements. It’s usually done with Google Ads, Bing Ads, or other search engines. It can help you reach people who are looking for terms that are related to your business.

However, depending on the size and scope of your campaign, costs can range from relatively low to thousands of dollars per month. Additionally, the traffic that was generated by a campaign ceases when it is terminated.

Pay-per-click advertisements direct users to specific landing pages that prompt them to perform a specific action:

Complete a form, make a purchase, download a report, or do something similar.

Increased sales or leads will likely be your primary objective if you run a PPC campaign.

Why utilize PPC?

Simple tracking. You will be able to monitor the number of people who see your ads, the number of people who click on them, and the percentage of those who make a purchase using a PPC platform like Google Ads. How successful your campaigns are will be immediately apparent.

Spending under control PPC advertising costs nothing upfront. You won’t have to commit to a specific advertising budget, and you won’t have to change or pause underperforming campaigns.

Quick results. SEO and content marketing are two other marketing strategies that take time to work. On the other hand, PPC advertising gives you a quick way to start a campaign and start seeing results immediately.

8. Video marketing Product demonstrations, interviews with thought leaders in your industry, customer testimonials, and how-to videos are all examples of types of video that can be used to promote your products, services, and brand.

Videos can be included on your website, PPC landing pages, and social media platforms to increase sales and conversions.

KPIs could be:

Engagement: Engagement duration of viewing the video.

Views total: The number of times it was viewed.

Rate of click-throughs: How many people went to the website after clicking on it.

Rate of Conversion: Number of customers, prospects, or leads generated by the content.

Why use marketing via video?

Enhanced SEO. If a marketer uses a video on their website, they are 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google results. This is because including a video on a website improves SEO, raising page rank.

Increased rates of conversion. A landing page with video can help marketers boost conversion rates by up to 34%.

Enhanced brand recognition. After watching a video, brand association rises 139%, in addition to higher conversion rates. 92% of viewers share videos they watch with others.

Number 9

9. Online and in-person events Nothing beats an event to get people talking about a product. Trade shows, like the International CES tech show, have always existed. However, Apple’s series of high-profile iPhone and Mac launches throughout the 2010s and 2020s, which were frequently viewed by up to 1.8 million people, redefined such events for an online audience.

Whether you’re using an event to launch a new product, service, or business, lessons remain to be learned. Although it’s unlikely that you’ll reach such levels of engagement,

Why use events online?

Arouse anticipation. Before the live event, promote your potential launch through social media posts. Consider how Apple has teased little details about its new iPhone, such as a photo of a small device section.

Present your product. If you have chosen to focus on a single product during your live event, people will pay attention to that product. Use this attention to tell stories about its features, similar to how Steve Jobs used to talk about Apple products.

Engage in conversation. To get people talking about your product, host a live stream of the launch, distribute a press release, and create a hashtag for the event. Think about how Apple uses Twitter trending hashtags like #AppleEvent.

Number 10

10. Marketing with chatbots and live chat Chatbots and messaging apps are now viewed as useful tools for marketing and customer service as well as live chat. Chatbots are a hit with the 1.4 billion people who use messaging apps[1]. Brands use chatbots to:

Deal with customer complaints, answer questions about products, and promote live events. Despite these different uses, research from the chatbot platform Drift is worth considering. It states that “getting a quick answer in an emergency” is the most anticipated use of a chatbot, so perhaps keep your bots simple.

Why are chatbots used?

Give quick responses. People use the internet with a goal in mind. They require a quick response. Chatbots can expedite responses and resolve complaints, which can boost brand sentiment.

Enhance the experience of customers. Drift received feedback from individuals saying that they would use a chatbot to “get detailed explanations” and “find a human customer services assistant[3]. Both contribute to enhancing a customer’s brand experience.

Promote your goods. It might appear odd to convert sales through a chatbot. However, 22% of people would use a chatbot to explore purchase ideas and 18% would purchase a basic item [4].

Number 11

11. Simply put, earned media is coverage of your company, products, or events written by a third party without your permission. In digital marketing, the best way to describe it is as public relations outreach to the media. Earned media occurs when a publication publishes and edits the content for its website.

Earned media examples include:

Traditional press releases on company news are tactical forms of PR, as are infographics based on survey data and creative assets like an interactive website.

Why rely on earned media?

It is free. If you pay your staff or an agency to spread your content, any coverage you get from websites is free. Because of this, it is a digital strategy that saves money and frees up money for future campaigns.

It can be scaled. Any budget can be used to distribute earned media. From a small tactical piece like giving quotes to a newswire about a current topic to a larger creative campaign like building a website or polling people.

It has great SEO. Getting backlinks to your website from reputable organizations and publishers can be worth a lot. Google ranks websites based on their DA (Domain Authority), and websites with higher DAs, like news and college websites, can help you build your authority.

How to construct a digital marketing strategy Now that it is time to construct a digital marketing strategy, you must bring everything together. It doesn’t matter which of our 11 digital marketing strategies you choose—setting goals, defining audiences, and figuring out what you need to create is important.

1. Prior to selecting a digital marketing strategy, establish and document your short—and long-term objectives. After choosing a strategy, outline and record specific goals to determine whether it is working. Ensure that your objectives and goals are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, pertinent, and timely).

Goal. Increase our target audience’s awareness of our widgets.

Methodology (how you’ll get there) By creating content for at least two user personas at each stage of the sales funnel, you can use content marketing to convince customers that our widgets are the best available.

Objective (how you will determine whether the strategy is successful). Boost quarterly downloads of our widget whitepapers and eBooks by 25% and email subscribers by 50% in just six months.

When it’s time to evaluate your progress, it’s a good idea to write down all of your objectives, strategies, and goals.

2. Consider buyer personas. Without an understanding of the people you want to reach, developing an effective digital marketing strategy is impossible. Buyer personas help with this. Buyer personas are fictional characters who embody the characteristics of customers you want to sell your products or services to.

Research and data should be used to build personas. Without any data to back it up, creating personas based on your intuition can result in the wrong focus. Therefore, you must conduct in-person, online, or telephone surveys and interviews with your clients.

Factors that should go into your personas:

Location. You can see where your customers are shopping by utilizing tools for web analytics.

Income/occupation. Ask customers if they are comfortable disclosing specifics about their occupation and income.
Hobbies/interests. Using focus group-style sessions or online forms could show what interests people. However, you could also investigate popular pastimes among particular demographics by utilizing search trends.

Goals/aspirations. What do they want from you? What keeps them going? This can be established with the help of focus groups and surveys. Another good source is data and consumer reports that already exist.

Obstacles and trouble spots. What prevents them from achieving their objectives? You can better understand this by speaking with customers and members of your sales teams.

Once you have created multiple personas, it will be easier for you to market to different kinds of buyers and meet their needs.

3. Document your current digital assets to gain a comprehensive understanding of what your company already possesses. The next step is to examine each one in depth and place them in order of effectiveness. When you do, you can tell which assets need to be upgraded and which need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Let’s look at an example of a content audit focusing on SEO. Important aspects include:

Explore the site. Collect all of the URLs for your categories, blogs, and other relevant pages.

Find any voids. Based on your personas and campaign goals, try to identify any obvious content gaps from the list of URLs.
SEO knowledge. Work with an SEO to evaluate the current URLs’ performance and discover new opportunities through keyword research.

Gather the data. Put all of this data into a spreadsheet so you can compare and contrast the most important details.

Set up tasks. Make a plan for the new pages you need to create as well as suggestions for enhancing the pages you already have.

4. Plan your content creation resource To continue using the example of a content marketing campaign, you will need to decide how the work will be carried out and delivered once you have established what needs to be created. This typically indicates considerations regarding:

Budget. Which amount of money do you have available for this campaign? Is it sufficient to create all of your audit’s assets, or do you need to make concessions?

Resource. Do you possess the necessary skills to produce this internally? Or do you have to hire a company?

Tech. Is specialized software required for the campaign, such as a personalization tool or content management system?
Deadlines. How soon must this content be produced? Will they have time, even if you have internal resources?

You can finalize your plan for exactly what content you will create and any additional resources you will require once you have taken into account the aforementioned in addition to your objectives, personas, and audit.

5. The next step is to decide how you will distribute your content after establishing your personas, creating content, and establishing a resource. The most important factor is whether you think the content is:

Owned. Your own channels include your website, blog, email, and social media.

Earned. content that other people write about, share, like, or comment on.

Paid. content that you paid to promote, like PPC and influencers.

The majority of digital marketing strategies will employ a combination of these methods. For instance, they use SEO-focused blog content on owned channels like their website, PR-focused content earns social shares and coverage, and they put money behind paid influencer content.

6. Determine your key performance indicators (KPIs) Every digital marketing strategy should be continuously evaluated. Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are measurable values that measure how well your strategy and tactics are working. KPIs include, for instance:

Cost per lead for digital conversions, website visitors who return, click-through rates, and customer lifetime values.

You can hold a wash-up meeting with all relevant parties after your digital marketing campaign is finished to share data about its successes and failures, which can be used to plan your digital marketing strategy in the future.

Strategy for digital marketing: Last words of advice Because digital marketing is always changing, it can be hard to keep up with the latest trends. Engaging content and breaking through the clutter can also be challenging. After all, your intended audience may be served by dozens or even hundreds of different brands.

To guarantee that your digital marketing strategy produces outcomes:

Utilize your network and expertise to create content that addresses the needs or questions of your audience. Keep an eye on what your rivals are doing by subscribing to digital marketing industry blogs and Google Alerts.

Also, try something new or get rid of something that doesn’t work. The fact that a digital marketing strategy can be measured right away is one of its best features. Keep doing what is working and get rid of what isn’t.