The first stage of building a successful digital marketing strategy is to perform market research to gain an in-depth understanding of your target audience, competitors and the market in which your business operates. When it comes to market research, there are 4 key areas to consider:
Business analysis: before you start worrying about your competitors and your target audience, you need to first understand your business. To do this, there are several questions that should be answered, including who are you and why do you exist? What are the key values that drive your business? What is your ultimate goal? Are there any areas of weakness that should be addressed? How do you measure your success?
Competitor analysis: it’s important to be aware of your competitors and have a good understanding of what they are offering and how they are positioning themselves in the market. Competitor analysis is not only useful for identifying gaps in the market, but can also help to identify opportunities for your business.
Audience analysis: you may have the best product or service on the market, however if you don’t have a good understanding of who your target audience is, you’re not going to get very far. With competition becoming increasingly fierce, it’s essential to have an in-depth understanding of your audience to be able to clearly communicate the value of your offering to them in a way that is specific to their needs and cuts through the noise.
PEST analysis: the last stage of the market research process is to analyse the broader market, including political, economic, social and technological factors. This will help you to gain an insight into the external factors that could impact your business, including changes in trends, new opportunities and possible threats.
Content is king. It’s what can really differentiate your business from your competitors and help you to build stronger relationships with your customers. Your content should be engaging and educational, offering value to your audience about the topics they care about the most. An effective content strategy will have a clear framework in place which segments the content by subject, format, objective and channel and should be managed using a frequently updated content calendar.
Each channel will offer different benefits and fulfil different roles and objectives, so it’s important to understand exactly which ones to use and when. Some examples of marketing channels include:
Social media: including platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
SEO: search engine optimisation is what will help to increase organic traffic to your website and get you ranked above your competitors in the search engine results page. The key elements of SEO are on page optimisation, link acquisition and technical SEO.
Email: this channel is great for building relationships with your audience and encouraging sales. Your email marketing campaigns can include anything from subscription newsletters to welcome emails.
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