PAN AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR DEVELOPMENT – WEST AFRICA

P.O. BOX 133, BUEA, CAMEROON

DIGITAL MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

CHAPTER 3: DIGITAL MARKETING

STRATEGY
By:
Mr. NGANG PEREZ
MAJOR 1

04 February, 2020.
 3.0 Brief Introduction:

• While traditional marketing might exist in print ads,

phone communication, or physical marketing, digital
marketing can occur electronically and online.

• A number of endless possibilities for brands including

email, video, social media, or website-based marketing
opportunities.
 3.0 Brief Introduction:

• The best digital marketers have a clear picture of how

each digital marketing campaign supports their
overarching goals.

• And depending on the goals of their marketing strategy,

marketers can support a larger campaign through the
free and paid channels at their disposal.
 Brief 3.1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this session, students should be able

to;
•Vividly define digital marketing strategy
•Craft a marketing strategy
•Explain how to create a digital marketing strategy
 3.2 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

(a) Digital Marketing: Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use
an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as
search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current
and prospective customers.

(b) Digital strategy: The series of actions that are going to help you achieve your
goal(s) using online marketing.

(c) Digital Marketing Strategy: Your digital marketing strategy is the series of
actions that help you achieve your company goals through carefully selected online
marketing channels. These channels include paid, earned, and owned media, and
can all support a common campaign around a particular line of business.
 3.3 MAIN CONTENT

• The term "strategy" might seem intimidating, but building an effective digital
strategy doesn't need to be difficult.

• In simple terms, a strategy is just a plan of action to achieve a desired goal, or

multiple goals.

• For example, your overarching goal might be to generate 25% more leads via your
website this year than you drove last year.
 3.3 MAIN CONTENT

• Depending on the scale of your business, your digital marketing

strategy might involve multiple digital strategies -- each with
different goals.

• Despite our simplification of the term "strategy," there's no

doubt it can be difficult to get started actually building one.
 3.3.1: What is a digital marketing strategy
• Digital marketing strategy builds on and adapts the principles
of traditional marketing, using the opportunities and
challenges offered by the digital medium.

• The strategist is offered:

• A plethora of new tactical possibilities and

• An unprecedented way of measuring the

effectiveness of chosen strategies and tactics.
 3.3.1: What is a digital marketing strategy
• The fact that digital marketing is highly empirical is one of its
key strengths.
• Almost everything can be measured:
• From behaviors to actions and
• Action paths to results.

• Built into any strategy should be a testing framework and the

ability to remain flexible and dynamic in a medium that shifts
and changes as user behaviors do.
 3.3.1: What is a digital marketing strategy
• If we defined strategy as ‘a plan of action designed to achieve a
particular outcome’,
• Then the desired outcome of a digital marketing strategy would be
aligned with your organization’s overall business.
Example:
• Overall objective: Acquisition of new clients by 20%
next quarter

• Digital marketing objective: Increasing brand

awareness online by 30%
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy

• Any activity with an end goal should have a blueprint in place

for every person in the organization to follow. Clarity of
purpose.

• There is no single definitive approach – each business must

create its own roadmap.

• However, the good news is that there are questions you can
use to guide the process.
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy

• A strategy needs to cover the questions of who you are, what

you are offering and to whom, as well as why and how you are
doing so.

• The steps and questions below cover what an organization

should be aware of when creating and implementing a strategy.
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
1. Context

• What is the context in which you are operating (PESTLE factors)

and how is this likely to change in the future?

• Who are you, why does your brand matter and what makes
your brand useful and valuable?
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
1. Context

• Who are your customers, and what needs, wants and desires
do they have?

• Who are your competitors? These may extend beyond

organizations that compete with you
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
2. Value: value proposition or promise:

• What unique value can your organization add to that market?

• What extras, beyond the basic product or service, do you offer

to customers?

• However, the definition of what is ‘valuable’ depends

largely on the target audience,
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
3. Objective:

• When setting your digital marketing goals, there are four

key aspects to consider:

• Objectives,
• Tactics,
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) and
• Targets
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
3. Objective:
• Objectives
• What goal, purpose or outcome are we looking for?

• What are we trying to achieve?

• How will we know if we are successful?

• Objectives need to be SMART:

 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
3. Objective:
• Tactics (tools)
• Tactics are the specific tools or approaches you will use
to meet your objectives.
• For example, a retention-based email newsletter, a Facebook
page, or a CRM implementation.
• As a strategy becomes more complex, you may have
multiple tactics.
• Tactics may change (and often should), but the objective
should remain your focus.
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
3. Objective:
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• KPIs are the specific metrics or pieces of data that you
will look at to determine whether your tactics are
performing well and meeting your objectives.

• They can either be signals such as red flags or green flags

• KPIs are determined per tactic, with an eye on the

overall objective
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
3. Objective:
• Targets
• They are the specific values that are set for your KPIs to reach
within a specific time period.

• Athletes need to reach targets to advance their careers

• Come in the top ten to qualify for the final,

• or run 10km in under 27 minutes.

• If you meet or exceed a target, you are succeeding; if you

don’t reach it, you’re falling
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
Figure 3.1 Example of Digital Marketing Objective
 3.3.1.1: Crafting a marketing strategy
4. Tactics and evaluation:
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.1: Build your buyer personas

• For any marketing strategy -- offline or online -- you need to

know who you're marketing to.

• The best digital marketing strategies are built upon detailed

buyer personas, and your first step is to create them.

• Buyer personas represent your ideal customer(s) and can be

created by researching, surveying, and interviewing your
business's target audience.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.1: Build your buyer personas

• This information should be based upon real data,

• Making assumptions about your audience can cause your
marketing strategy to take the wrong direction.

• To get a rounded picture of your persona, your research

pool should include a mixture of customers, prospects,
and people outside your contacts
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.1: Build your buyer personas

• What kind of information should you gather for your

buyer persona.

• It depend on whether you're B2B or B2C, or whether

your product is high cost or low cost.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.1: Build your buyer personas

• 3.3.2.1.a: Quantitative (or Demographic) Information

• Location: web analytics tools like Google Analytics can tell what
location your website traffic is coming from.

• Age: May or may not be relevant depending on the biz.

• Income: Gather sensitive information like personal income in

persona interviews.

• Job Title: Most relevant for B2B companies

 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.1: Build your buyer personas

• 3.3.2.1.b: Qualitative (or Psychographic) Information

• Goals: Speak to customers, as well as internal sales and customer service team, if
you goal is objective

• Challenges: Speak to customers, sales and customer service representatives to

get an idea of the common problems .

• Hobbies and interests: Speak to customers and people who align with your target
audience

• Priorities: Speak to customers and people who align with your target audience to
find out what's most important to them in relation to your business
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.1: Build your buyer personas

• 3.3.2.1.b: Qualitative (or Psychographic) Information

• Goals: Speak to customers, as well as internal sales and customer service team, if
you goal is objective

• Challenges: Speak to customers, sales and customer service representatives to

get an idea of the common problems .

• Hobbies and interests: Speak to customers and people who align with your target
audience

• Priorities: Speak to customers and people who align with your target audience to
find out what's most important to them in relation to your business
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.2: Identify your goals and the digital marketing tools you'll need.

• Your marketing goals should always be tied back to the fundamental goals
of the business.

• Whatever your overarching goal is, you need to know how to measure it.

• Measuring the effectiveness of your digital strategy will be different for

each business.

• Reporting add-ons on your software brings your marketing and sales data
into one place, so you can quickly determine what works and what
doesn't.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.2: Identify your goals and the digital marketing tools
you'll need.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.3: Evaluate your existing digital channels and assets.

• The owned, earned, and paid media framework helps to categorize

the digital 'vehicles', assets, or channels that you're already using.
• 3.3.2.3.a: Owned Media

• This refers to the digital assets that your brand or company owns:

• whether that's your website, social media profiles, blog content, or

imagery,

• owned channels are the things your business has complete control
over.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.3: Evaluate your existing digital channels and assets.

• 3.3.2.3.b: Earned Media

• Earned media refers to the exposure you've earned through word-of-
mouth.
• Whether it is content you've distributed on other websites (e.g., guest posts), PR
work you've been doing, or the customer experience you've delivered.
• Earned media is the recognition you receive as a result.

• You can earn media by getting press mentions, positive reviews, and
by other people sharing your content on social media, for instance.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.4: Audit and plan your owned media campaigns

• At the heart of digital marketing is your owned media.

• Owned Media always takes the form of content.

• Every message your brand broadcasts can generally be

classified as content:
• whether it's your 'About Us' page, your product descriptions, blog posts,
eBooks, infographics, or social media posts.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.4: Audit and plan your owned media campaigns

• Content convert your website visitors into leads and customers.

• Genuine content raises your brand's profile online

• Whatever your goal, you're going to need to use owned

content to form your digital marketing strategy.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.4: Audit and plan your owned media campaigns

• To build your digital marketing strategy, you need to decide

what content is going to help you reach your goals.

• If your goal is to generate 50% more leads via the website, it's
unlikely that your 'About Us' page is going to be included in
your strategy -- unless that page has somehow been a lead
generation machine in the past.

• A product on your website may drive far more leads

 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.4: Audit and plan your owned media campaigns

How to work out owned media Campaign

• Audit your existing content

• Identify gaps in your existing content

• Create a content creation plan

 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.5: Audit and plan your earned media campaigns

• Evaluating your previous earned media against your current

goals can help you get an idea of where to focus your time

• Look at where your traffic and leads are coming from

• Rank each earned media source from most effective to least

effective.
 3.3.2: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
• 3.3.2.6: Audit and plan your paid media campaigns

• Involves much of the same process as the first two

• You need to evaluate your existing paid media across each platform
(e.g., Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

• If you've been spending a lot of money on AdWords and haven't seen

the results you'd hoped for, maybe it's time to refine your approach.

• By the end of the process, you should have a clear idea of which paid
media platforms you want to continue using