Digital Marketing Plan 101- The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

By Imeru Wambui

What is a Digital Marketing Plan

• It’s a document that defines details for all the planning for your digital marketing actions and what you want to accomplish within a given time frame so you can meet a set of business objectives.

• A digital marketing plan is a strategic document that takes the current situation of a particular business to set some midterm goals and determine the strategy and means to accomplish them.

A digital marketing plan describes the following

1. Responsibilities

2. The time frame

3. Control tools for monitoring activity in the digital environment

4. The What, How, When, Who, and Why (6 Ws) of Web presence.

The Digital Marketing Plan details the following,

1. Short and Long Term Business Goals

2. Strategies to Achieve Goals at The Digital Level

3. The Channels to Use

4. Action and Development Plans

5. Investment and Budget

6. Timing and A Road Map

Creating a Digital Marketing Plan

To create a successful digital marketing plan, you have to consider the following factors

1. SEO- it’s the process of improving your sites to increase their visibility for relevant searches

2. Analytics – it’s the approach of collecting data from social media sites and websites and evaluating the data to make business decisions

3. Web positioning – a marketing strategy designed to promote and influence your website for the top position in search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo

4. Strategies –it’s a general plan or direction to achieve overall goals in the future

5. Goals – defines the general intentions or ambitions of the business

6. Social Media – it’s a digital that facilitates users to create and share content through the building of virtual networks and communities

7. Metrics – it’s a quantifiable measure that is used to track and assess the status of a specific process

Structure of a Marketing Plan

1. Situation Analysis

The starting point of any situational analysis is to define the mission, vision, and values of the business or brand

• The mission defines the chore of the company, its essence.

• The vision must describe the future goals of the business in a short and concise way.

• The values are the principles that guide the business culture and that the business must fulfill in all its activities.

This analysis allows for the development of an action plan that is reality-based and shall therefore minimize the risks in the development of a strategy.

2. Goal Setting

Goal setting offers an idea of where the business is going and it enables adjustments to the marketing strategy. Setting goals is one of the key phases in any marketing plan.

Goal setting must follow SMART criteria

• Specific: simple and easy to understand.

• Measurable: they can be measured through any kind of quantitative or Qualitative unit.

• Assignable: they can be assigned and implemented by a member of the company.

• Realistic: with accessible resources, goals can be achieved in a realistic framework.

• Time-related: they must have a time frame to achieve them.

3. Planning a Strategy

In order to accomplish the planned goals, a specific strategy must be defined.

A strategy is the implemented scheme to achieve such goals, this strategy materializes in activities that are the ways planned to achieve such goals.

4. Action and Control

In the process of setting up a strategy, a large number of actions are defined, and the possible theme areas for the development of content or keywords are listed in the Social Media Plan. The development of each strategy requires time planning for program implementation.

An essential part of any digital marketing strategy is the scheduling of tasks and timing for each of them. Scheduling means assigning tasks in the digital marketing strategy, with a clear indication of who is responsible for each action.

How to Develop a Digital Marketing Plan?

1. Conduct a situational analysis

2. Define your goals for your digital marketing strategy

3. Identify your target audience

4. Define your market and content strategy

5. Define the digital strategies and tactics you will use

6. Establish a budget for each digital channel