Digital Marketing Strategy Checklist

Learn how to build a digital marketing plan to reach new customers online

• Understand digital marketing
• Learn about digital marketing channels
• Build a digital marketing plan

Key Channels To Consider For Digital Marketing

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Optimising your website so it shows up more often in search engine results.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Paying for advertising to appear in search engines.
• Social Media Marketing (SMM): Using social networks to gain traffic, attention and reach new people.
• Display Marketing: Online advertising in many different formats on many websites across the internet.
• Email Marketing: Collecting and using email addresses to communicate with users.
• Content Marketing: Creating and sharing different types of content such as blog posts, videos, guides, infographics to attract attention and drive traffic.

How To Get Started With Search Engine Optimisation

• Sign up for the Search console: submit your content to Google, monitor how you’re doing in search, send alerts on critical issues.
• Help Google find your content: submit a sitemap, promote your site on & offline, share new content.
• Help Google (and users) understand your content: create unique, accurate page titles, create good titles and snippets, use heading tags to emphasise important text

Search Engine Optimisation Tips for Success

• Run keyword research
• Publish useful, high-quality content
• Make web pages search-friendly

Show People You Are Active

• Update your business info
• Add photos of your business and team
• Maybe add a virtual tour
• Always respond to reviews (good and bad)

SEO vs SEM

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

• Search listings are free.
• You ‘optimise’ keywords.
• Can take time to rank on the first page of Google

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

• You pay for search listings.
• You bid on keywords.
• You can get onto the first page straight away.

How To Get Started With Search Engine Marketing

1. Create a campaign in Google Ads

• Login to Google ads
• Select the “Search’ campaign type
• Select your campaign goal

2. Pick the right keywords

• Align keywords with business goals
• Manage match types
• Refine with negative keywords

3. Write a compelling ad

• Focus on user benefits
• Copy that appeals across devices
• Focus on your headlines imagery
• Implement all ad extensions

Search Engine Marketing Tips For Success

• Optimise your keyword list
• Boost your ads with extensions
• Connect your analytics account

How To Get Started With Display Advertising

1. Create a campaign in Google ads

• Login to Google ads
• Select the “Display” campaign type
• Select your campaign goal

2. Choose the right targeting

• Use the display planner
• Keyword targeting
• Demographic targeting
• Placement targeting
• Topic targeting
• Interest targeting

3. Create ad creative

• Right language
• Catchy copy
• Clean and simple imagery
• Compelling call-to-action

Display Advertising Tips For Success

• Understand your customers
• Enhance with remarketing
• Test and optimise

How To Get Started With Social Media Marketing

1. Identify your target audience

• Demographics
• Location
• Profession
• Interests
• Behaviour

2. Choose your social media channels

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• YouTube

3. Post engaging content regularly

• Photos
• Videos
• Blog articles
• Infographics
• Live broadcast

How Social Media Can Help Grow Your Business

• Generate more sales
• Add value to your brand
• Improve your marketing

1. Organic social media

• Free
• You will only reach your followers and their friends

2. Paid social media

• Pay for views, actions or clicks
• Can reach anyone (people don’t have to follow you)

Social Media Marketing Tips For Success

• Set yourself a goal
• Understand your audience
• Consistency and regular updates

How To Get Started With Email Marketing

1. Select Email marketing platform

• Free platforms (e.g. Mailchimp)
• More advanced Email platforms (ActiveCampaign, SendGrid, Drip)

2. Build a list of relevant contacts

• Make sure you have permission when contacting people
• Use your content to generate new contacts
• Invite to subscribe
• Segment and group the list

3. Create relevant and useful content

• Treat your users like VIPs
• Personalise your emails
• Keep it useful

Email Marketing Tips For Success

• Segment and group the list for the relevant content
• Keep it simple and test, send it to 2 or 3 devices such as tablets and mobiles
• Measure the open and click rate to optimise campaigns

How To Get Started With Content Marketing

1. Build customer example profiles

• Persona profiles (demographics, job position, industry, interests, needs, etc.)
• Create different profiles for each customer segment

2. Create a customer journey map

• Identify the steps users take from awareness to purchase
• Think of questions or information required to make a purchase decision

3. Use content to generate business

• Facilitate the customer journey
• Distribute the content on the right channels to reach the target audience
• Include a call to action

Different Forms Of Content Marketing

• Videos
• Blogs
• Case studies
• Guides

Content Marketing Tips For Success

• Use content to facilitate the sales process
• Use storytelling to engage the audience
• Distribute the content to maximise reach
• Measure performance and optimise

Six Steps To Building A Digital Marketing Plan

1. Business goals and objectives
2. Budget and resources
3. Audience
4. Decide what channels
5. Plan your activity
6. Measure (SMART)

01. Business Goals and Objectives

What do you want to achieve? Hi, I am Max. I am a hairdresser. My business goals are to get more customers through my door (new and past) and make more people in my area know my business exists.

Online objectives

• Increase traffic to a website
• Increase online sales
• Increase social media page likes / follows from my customers
• Increase online reach and awareness
• Increase customer loyalty

Business goals (Business goals should align with online objectives)

• Make more people aware you exist
• Sell more products
• Get found by more people
• Get more returning customers

02. Budget and Resource

What is possible? I don’t have a website yet as it’s too much of an investment right now.

03. Audience

I am targeting females in my local area. My most valuable customers are females above 30 years old. They normally have children and work part-time. Most of them use Facebook.

04. Marketing Channels

Which of the following Marketing channels are right for you?

• Display
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
• SMM (Social Media Marketing)
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Content marketing
• Email marketing

05. Plan Your Activity

Focus on the detail and get strategic: my online objectives are to reach more people in my local area and get more returning customers. I don’t have a website yet as it’s too much of an investment right now.

How could I use digital to help me?

• List your business on Google My Business and create a free website.
• Set up a Facebook page, collect reviews and post pictures of customer hairstyles.
• Use Facebook advertising to target people in your local area with an offer to attract new customers.

06. Measure (SMART)

Set SMART objectives (objectives are ‘SMART’ if they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant or realistic and time-bound or timely) to help you measure the success of your activity.

How will you know if you’ve succeeded?

Broad objective

• To increase online sales.
• To increase brand awareness.

SMART objective

• To increase online sales by 20% within three months.
• To increase our brand awareness on Facebook by growing our audience with new people by 40%.

Creating A Digital Marketing Plan For Max (Hairdresser)

I don’t have a website, I can’t afford one right now. My online objectives are to reach more people in my local area and get more returning customers.

1. Business goal

• Reach more people in my local area
• Get more customers through my door

2. Channel

• Local SEO
• Facebook

3. Online objective

• Increase online reach
• Increase returning customers

4. Audience

• Females, 39–45
• Local area Past customers

5. Activity

• Build a website and boost visibility on Google
• Use Facebook advertising to target people in my local area

6. Smart objective

• Increase Facebook Page likes from new people by 50% within the next month
• Increase bookings from past customers by 20% in the next quarter