Why is digital marketing strategy in an enigma?

From where should you start to build a Digital Marketing Strategy – Most of organizations does not understand it that is why it is became in an Enigma.

Well, you start by understanding your company’s short term and long term goals related to Revenue and Brand.

For example, consider that your company is looking at a% increase in revenue for the upcoming year. The question you then need to ask as a Digital Marketer is – what part of that% is going to be driven by Digital Marketing initiative? Assuming%, the next set of questions are – how much more traffic you need, what kind of conversion rate and what should be the Average Order Value. If you are a B2B business, you need to figure out how many new leads are required and how many can be closed?

Alternately, if your organization’s goal is to enhance Brand equity, from a Digital Marketing’s perspective what would be your strategy and how do you measure it? Well, start from your current Digital reach. How many people is your Brand able to reach in a month. What is the engagement level you have at the moment (Engagement level can be derived from dwell time, likes, comments, shares, re-tweets, email open rate, CTR, earned content etc). Once you know the baseline you can then define your new target and make sure your management team is in agreement with those numbers.

Now that you have derived your Digital Marketing objectives from your business goals, it is time to come up with a Digital Marketing Strategy and Plan. From a strategy perspective, decide the products / services you are going to market, the geography, target segment and how to do it differently from your competition? Going to the same market with same product and the same digital marketing strategy can be a recipe for failure.

For example, if your competition has already gone long and far in terms of establishing themselves as thought leaders by providing educational content about the industry, then you should not take that path. You can perhaps think about building your positioning on best after sale service or best product design and then build content around those areas of differentiation.

So now you have your Digital Marketing strategy and your objectives in place. It is then time to plan your yearly campaign calendar, execute them and track the results against your goal.

Let us have a look first on what is digital marketing:

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach and convert leads into customers and retain them. The key objective is to promote brands, build preference and increase sales through various digital marketing techniques. It is embodied by an extensive selection of service, product and brand marketing tactics, which mainly use the Internet as a core promotional medium.

Now back to your Question:

The answer is there is no ‘one size fits all’ in Digital Marketing.   You need to think Where should you start to build a Digital Marketing Strategy? It depends on your company’s short term and long term goals related to Revenue and Brand.

For example, If you are looking at an increase in revenue for the upcoming year. The question you then need to ask as a Digital Marketer is – what part of this increase is going to be driven by Digital Marketing initiative? And  how much more traffic you need, what kind of conversion rate and what should be the Average Order Value. If you are a B2B business, you need to figure out how many new leads are required and how many can be closed?

Once you have objectives from your business goals, it is time to come up with a Digital Marketing Strategy and Plan. From a strategy perspective, decide the products / services you are going to market, the geography, target segment and how to do it differently from your competition? Going to the same market with same product and the same digital marketing strategy can be a recipe for failure.

Last but not the least since you have your Digital Marketing strategy and your objectives in place. It is then time to plan your yearly campaign calendar, execute them and track the results against your goal.

I don´t consider Digital Marketing a enigma.

The only enigma that I take in consideration are the constant changes of social media (like Facebook, for example) policies and the codes regarding the leads and the reach of our messages to our customers/visitors/likers/viewers/etc. The strategies about the improvement/efforts to make our "page rank" better/higher are demanding more different and new actions to overhead more these narrow filters.

All social media sites have metrics that help us to gather information and act strategically.

Of course companies need to understand each of one and make a formal marketing/communication plan what to do, check the plausibility of the ponderated actions (tests), get the best storytelling/content for those types of followers, improve or make the engagement strong and make a good segmentation analysis.

Thanks for the invitation

Digital Marketing sometimes is an enigma because organizations are uncertain about where to start. Should you focus on Brand awareness? Should you focus on Demand generation? Should we first talk to the Consumers about their Journey? Should you focus on market share? Should you focus on creating some thought provoking content? Should you ideate on changing the brand image? Should you add more marketing Channel

For digital marketing experts its not enigma at all because they can answer all above mentioned questions and can make a professional plan as per data base they gained

but

for candidates who are not qualified in digital marketing they will face many problems then it will become big enigma for them

Most of modern and newly established industries/companies prefer to adopt digital marketing because it is a very effective way for marketing also costs less.

From my personal experience in digital marketing I found that Linkedin is the most effective website for marketing such as goods - services - consultancy - recruitment etc .....

Thanks

Nothing to add , You  covered the question

Digital marketing cost less than traditional marketing, that's a start. With digital marketing, businesses now able to design cookie files that follow your search trends and show up on your screen to advertise for products you looked for before. That cover Direct marketing which has a higher rates of success than traditional marketing. 

With direct marketing, firms advertise to a certain group of people (despite demographics as in traditional marketing)  that get attracted to said product and are willing to pay the price. 

Steps:

1. Identify what kind of digital technology can reach your customer. In other words, for this specific purpose its a KYCT (Know Your Customer's Technology) rather than a KYC (Know Your Customer)

It can vary from a simple website to a mobile app or something that you may have to associate as a partner with (indirect marketing)

The drawback in digital marketing is, if the customer is not welcoming any kind of marketing on digital platform, then this cannot be used at all.

2. Build the strategy based on your competitive edge and the customer's requirement timelines.

Start this from thinking

  a. Why would someone use this product or service. 

  b. Where does my product or service fit in for the customer?

  c. What additional benefits can the customer derive?

  d. What additional benefits can my company derive by having a specific customer? 

ln agreement with Mohammed Ashraff

Digital marketing is an  enigma , because some person not clear and no forget its new

Primarily because it's a new platform, and secondly because different audiences react to it quite differently.  

Digital Marketing is a new approach to marketing which offers a unique two way communication in contrast to one way communication of traditional marketing channel. The internet is the main hub of digital marketing. Computer, Smartphones, Tablet Computer has been widely accepted as digital marketing channel. Social Media has emerged as a good platform for digital marketing

The complexity of digital marketing is that in the rapidly growing digital market, the marketer face unique challenges to decide which channel (PC, smartphones). platform (face book, linked in and other social media) and main contents  to use; and at what time to use. Even, it is challenge to marketer to clearly understand the consumer behavior and put the digital advertisement accordingly. In this sense, we may call that “digital marketing strategy in an enigma”