With the explosion of digital communication channels, it can be complicated to find your way around. How do you know which channel to use to reach your customers and your goals? Creating a well-thought-out digital strategy can help you overcome this problem.
In this article, we define digital strategy. We present the 10 steps to follow to build a digital strategy. Finally, we close the article by explaining how much a digital strategy costs and why to create one.
What is a digital strategy?
The term “digital strategy” refers to the mechanisms a company uses to create value with digital tools. In other words, it is the actions it takes to improve its online sales, to develop its digital advertising, to create its online identity, to build a community, etc.
Thus, the digital strategy concerns all your actions intended to develop your business online.
The main focuses of digital marketing are the following:
- The development and maintenance of a website
- The adaptability to the mobile support
- The creation of one or more contact email addresses for your company
- SEM (Search Engine Marketing), which refers to search engine optimization
- Web analysis (web analytics)
- Digital advertising (especially display banners)
- Content marketing, which corresponds to the creation and distribution of media content on the Web
- Viral marketing, which corresponds to a kind of “virtual word of mouth” through social networks
- As you can see, it is more than necessary to build a good web-marketing strategy for your company. It is this strategy that will guide your presence on the Internet. The use of the Web is essential to stand out from the competition. You should never neglect your digital marketing.
To build your digital strategy, we give you the 10 steps to follow to develop it. Then, we will explain to you the budget that you will have to foresee and the reasons that should push you to create your digital strategy now.
How to build a digital strategy?
Let’s see the 10 key steps to build your digital strategy:
1. Do a strategic audit
It allows you to assess the current performance of your company’s strategy. Before launching yourself on the Web, it is important to have a solid base. Do a strategic audit to verify the relevance of your strategy, operations, and budget.
This analysis allows you to take a step back and approach your digital project with a clear understanding of your capabilities and goals.
2. Think your digital strategy is in coherence with your company’s global communication
Your presence on the Web must be an extension of your company’s communication. Indeed, your presence on the Internet must allow you to develop your company’s identity and strategies, and not to create new ones that will slow down your projects. Consistency allows you to coordinate the actions of your digital strategy with that of your overall communication.
3. Define the objectives of your digital strategy
From the beginning of your reflection, you must think about your digital strategy according to your objectives. These are a line of sight for your company. Pre-established objectives that are coherent with your means and your identity will allow you to build a viable strategy for your company. Your objectives must be measurable, precise, concrete and defined in time.
You must take the time to think about your objectives: you will save time and avoid losing money.
4. Identify the target of your strategy
How can you define a strategy without considering the target audience? A company can develop very different strategies depending on the target it has identified. To do this, establish the typical profile of the clientele for which your digital strategy is intended.
5. Choose the most relevant digital communication channels for your target
Your strategy must take into account the communication modes of your target. This allows you to optimize the efficiency of your strategy. By selecting the right communication channels, you avoid building a strategy in a communication mode that does not correspond to your target.
6. Develop an inbound marketing strategy
The inbound strategy is designed to attract customers to you. It consists of creating a strategy around an innovative idea to attract customers to you rather than going out to find them.
It complements the traditional techniques of outbound marketing. A good inbound strategy is profitable in the long run. Think about it from the beginning of your strategy so that it pays off as soon as possible.
7. Build an editorial plan and an editorial charter
Creating an editorial plan allows you to define where you want to go based on your goals and capabilities. This is a significant asset to consider before creating your content. The editorial charter is a document that describes the terms of your editorial communication.
It serves as a reference to coordinate your content. The editorial charter establishes your brand’s identity and allows you to stick to it.
8. Define the budget of your digital strategy and allocate it
The distribution of your budget is an important element. To function properly, the teams in charge of each component of your strategy must have enough funds to work properly.
The budget should be based on the needs of each component, proportional to the expenses related to them: salaries, materials, maintenance, etc.
9. Choose the right tools to measure the results of your strategy
Once your strategy is underway, don’t leave it unattended. You must have feedback on your performance and strategy. There are many tools to measure the performance of your actions on the Web.
Find the ones that fit your strategy.
10. Track your performance and goals
Finally, all this data collected is useless without analysis. Once you have measured your results, it is necessary to know how to exploit them to conclude objectives are being met? If not, are they on track? Performance monitoring also allows you to analyze the weaknesses and strengths of your digital strategy: try to improve your shortcomings to optimize your results.
How much does a digital strategy cost?
If you want to build a complete digital strategy for your business, it is obvious that you will have to invest. You can think of your digital strategy budget in three parts: your content costs, your space costs, and your time costs.
Content costs
Your content budget is the money needed to develop your product, your ads, your brand, etc. In other words, content is the money you need to develop your product. In other words, content is the essence of your strategy. It’s about both its purpose and its communications.
The cost of space
Next, the space. It concerns the budget allocated to your installation and to theanine or maintenance your presence on the Internet. It is associated with your ads on other web pages and social networks, your website, your application, your blog, your pages on social networks, etc.
Time-related costs
Finally, don’t forget that setting up a digital strategy requires an investment of time. In theory, you will be more efficient and have a better chance of success if you have a large team, if they work well together. Dividing the tasks allows you to associate each member to his skills and to divide the time needed to develop your strategy.
Big and small budgets
A digital strategy costs depending on the investment you can allocate to each of these three parts. With a bigger budget, you will save time by building a big team or by outsourcing some tasks.
On the other hand, if you have a small budget, you will have to spend a lot of time to get the same result.
To give you an idea, a small company can hope to establish an interesting digital strategy in a few months with a budget of 3 000 euros.
Why create a digital strategy?
Nowadays, it is becoming more and more obvious that a company must be present on the Internet if it wants to stand out, or even remain competitive.
The digital strategy must be developed according to the marketing you are already doing. You don’t start from scratch. However, by developing your online presence, you are entering a new marketing universe, with its possibilities and opportunities.
Don’t neglect your digital strategy. This expertise tends more and more to supplant the traditional communication strategy because of the scope of the audience it can reach. So take care of it. A good digital strategy is not a step, but a staircase to success.
Would you like to get more information about digital strategy? Contact us today.
