This guideline will define the marketing strategy, state its traits, and explain how to start. The marketing strategy can be defined as a plan to decide what marketing steps you will take to reach your goals and objectives. Of course, you can change your marketing strategy as your business grows, and you decide to pursue higher goals. For businesses that offer some kind of products and services, the number one goal should be to reach prospects and turn them into buyers.

Outline the SMART goals

To decide what else you can focus on, consider using the SMART technique. SMART is the acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based. If you make your goal too broad, vague, and somewhat "irrelevant," you won't be able to assess how successful your efforts are. Noticing what is not working for you can save you tons of money and time.

Start with buyer persona

Think about the ideal customer you want to reach. If you have a clear picture of who they are and what they are looking for, we can state that they are your buyer persona.

The buyer persona is a made-up personality to which you assign a specific description. Descriptions include a name, age, job, location, marital/ family status, income data, and interests. Once you have basic information, think of your buyer persona's problems and how you can help. For example, a tech company that offers specific software solutions will probably focus on a person who is a decision-maker, has a high job title, and has managing responsibilities. You can make a few buyer personas if you want.

It is not very complicated to visualize and build a buyer persona, but it can help you a lot. Many suggest that the buyer persona should be the core of your marketing strategy. In that way, all your actions are with one or a few people in mind.

You've probably heard of many techniques that work, and you may be thinking of how to implement all of them into your business. The first advice we would offer is not to immediately try out all of the techniques and methods. Think smart and make it simple - start with one or two strategies that you find most suitable at the moment. Test it or them and see how does it work and if it works in the first place. What works for one doesn't work for the other. Always check how a certain strategy fits into your list of goals and what can work for your buyer persona.

Here we made a list of 7 digital marketing strategies that you can apply:

• Invest in a website
• Blogging for your web, SEO
• Social media marketing
• Paid marketing
• Video marketing
• E-mail marketing
• Go where your audience is

Invest in your website

If you have a business, you should make your website a top priority, at least in your business's beginning stages. Think about it as having a house that you bought for your business, and you have full control of how you want to design it. Website is the basis of the internet presence.

Whenever a prospect searches for something, they will first search it by using search engines. When they do that, you want them to find you in your house - your website. A well-structured website is the best indicator of your professionalism. It should contain all valuable information about your services and products and, of course, contact information. Whether you are getting leads through social media platforms or e-mail campaigns, you should lead them to your landing page or other pages on the website.

Another reason why the website is so important is that it represents your brand. User friendly, professionally done page that showcases everything your brand is can make a difference in the eyes of the potential prospects, especially if you are in a competitive market!

A webpage can be done for a fair price by a professional web designer. The price will depend on your site's complexity, but it is a long-term and much-needed investment. Like it was already mentioned, your house is yours only, and you can manage it on your terms. Take, for example, other platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. They change the regulations and algorithm every now and then. In order to use those platforms in your marketing strategy, you have to be up to date.

Also, paid ads last only for the time of your campaign. Your content is there forever with the website, which means your prospect can always look for what is important to them.

Blogging for the website, SEO

As we were saying, having a website should be the basis of your marketing strategy. One of the greatest benefits it has is the opportunity to blog. Blogging has been an amazing tool for making your business visible and more "out there." You should always write a blog post with your prospects in mind. Write about your business, but make it educational. In other words, be friendly, be approachable, be detailed, and, most importantly - professional and useful.

Today's consumer takes a fair amount of time for research before opting for a purchase. Put your personal opinions on the side and focus on creating interesting, educational, and easy-to-read content.

Another major benefit of having a blog is search engine optimization. To get Google or other search engines to recognize you and show your page in searches, you need to use some SEO techniques. SEO includes on-page, off-page, and technical optimization.

For now, we will focus on on-page optimization, which is all about adjusting your website content. This is where the blog comes in hand. High-quality content on your blog posts will let the search engines know what your business is about.

Before you start writing a post, there are a few steps you need to take:

1. Research the keywords and choose an interesting and relevant topic. When you do the keywords research, you'll get a sense of what your prospects are searching for.
2. Don't incorporate the keywords just to have them there; use them where needed, and make them seem natural.
3. Use your valuable time to write about topics that are helpful and can solve your buyer's problem.
   

Social media marketing

Social media is a powerful component of a marketing strategy for businesses. It has three effective roles:

• distributing the content
• reaching a broad audience and building community
• easy two-way communication with the audience

When you are just starting with social media marketing, it is highly recommended to use only one to two platforms. The reason for this is that you don't spend your time managing too many profiles while neglecting the quality of your content. It is not easy to gain a following on social media. Large platforms change algorithms because the market is crowded and competitive; they expect constant quality if you want to stay on the top. It is better to stay away from a network than to have a mediocre presence. It can hurt your brand image, and it represents unnecessary time and money waste.

Start by deciding what a good platform for your business is. It is helpful to think about your buyer persona. If you are selling something for a younger audience, think about a popular network among young demographics. Keep in mind what type of content you can make according to what you're selling. If you sell software products, what is the point of having an Instagram business profile? However, you can find your prospects on LinkedIn, where the businesses in need of your service are.

Don't chase the likes and followers that are not valuable to you. Those are called vanity metrics. Sure, it's nice to be liked, but what does it mean if it doesn't bring you traffic?

It is called social media for a reason. It is meant to connect, to be social, so don't be afraid to reach out. Look for ways to communicate and engage with your audience. Answer the questions and ask how you can help. It is more likely you'll get loyal customers when people have reason to follow you.

Paid advertising

Having a website with a blog and investing in SEO is the organic way of getting traffic. Social media marketing can be organic and paid. If you have a new business or you have a tight budget for marketing, you might think the organic way is the right way.

Organic traffic is built with time; it requires a lot of effort and energy. Paid advertising will get your traffic up instantly. If you want to implement paid ads in your overall marketing strategy, consider that once your budget is used, traffic generated by paid ads will also stop.

But many advantages come with paid ads. The first one is targeting. You get to choose your audience and narrow down who you want to reach. Another reason is the ability to test and see what kind of campaign works for your business. With the paid ads, you get a lot of data, such as who is clicking on your ads.

After someone clicks on an ad, it should lead directly to the landing page. A landing page is made to sell; therefore, a buyer doesn't have to go through your whole page. This kind of advertising and search saves time and nerves, so that's always a plus.

Video marketing

For the last couple of years, video marketing has become the center of overall marketing strategy, and its popularity is not declining. According to research that was conducted by HubSpot, the type of content that users want to see from brands comes in the form of a video. A video is more likely to be shared than any other type of content. Videos have that visual power (attractiveness) that triggers one of our most valuable senses – eyesight or vision.

Creating a video for your marketing plan doesn't have to be difficult and overwhelming. The more authentic it is, the more your audience will believe it.

Do you want to see how we do it? Check out here.

When it comes to videos, you can choose from different types of videos, depending on your business and marketing plan. If you need to build awareness about your products and services, create a short video with your brand story. It can serve you as an introduction to your customers.

Demo videos are great if you are looking for a way of how to use your product or if you want to demonstrate the new product that you're just launching on the market.

Check out here the cool assembly video we did for our client.

E-mail marketing

Don't sleep on e-mail marketing. You might have heard that it is outdated and it doesn't have the same strength as years before. We can assure you it is still great for one reason - it is personal. With the e-mail, you know who is getting your messages.

Usually, it is used for contacting existing customers to share valuable information, such as special offers and newsletters. Don't use the e-mail marketing technique only to sell because you will end up on the spam list. Be considerate and focus on building connections and relationships with your audience.

To start an e-mail campaign, you need to have an e-mail list. Start making the e-mail list from the very start. Even if you don't decide to go with e-mail marketing initially, you can always start later when you have a sense of what your buyers need and what you can offer.

Go where your audience is

Marketing efforts are not only about taking action by reaching to your potential clients. Start listening in the places where they are. Think of forums such as Reddit and Quora or join Facebook groups. One thing is important: don't sell your products and services deliberately. For example, if you are tech-savvy and happen to work in that field, you have the knowledge that you can share. Join a forum where people discuss problems with which you are familiar and be of help. If the opportunity arises, share what you offer but in a natural, non-aggressive way.

However, make sure to check the terms and rules of the forum. If it's forbidden to advertise in any way, you can still join the group and take it as a learning experience.

And there you have it, seven effective marketing strategies from which you can choose the one that works best for you. Start with SMART goals, build your buyer persona, implement a strategy.

Are you thinking about implementing videos in your marketing strategy? Or you need a new website or content for your website? Contact us for a discovery meeting!