Planning your content strategically will ensure your digital marketing activities all support your goals.
Step 3. Create a content planning grid
So far, you’ve established your customers’ process, and where/how they interact online — time to plan how you can fit into this equation specifically.
Fill in the cells where your customers’ purchasing process and your digital media meet. Put the phases in the process across the top and the media/channels down the left hand column (Ex. Process: Trends, Ideas, How To, Products, Comparison, Buy; Ex. Media: Site, Blog, Social, Mobile, Video). Start filling in the general topics, questions, resources. These will serve as the themes for the content and pages you will create to meet your customer’s needs. This will help you see the bigger picture of how to implement an integrated digital marketing plan effectively to serve your audience(s).
Later, you will should prioritize the contents/themes of the grid and assign it to an editorial calendar. Having this framework will save you time and ensure that all of the content you create will be strategic. Figure out what the customer process and channels mean to your brand and brand strategy — and plan accordingly.
Your digital marketing efforts will be significantly easier to measure when you understand why you’re doing it, what you should measure and how it all fits into the bigger picture. The purpose of any page, discussion or post related to a cell in your grid, should be clear to you and to your audience. Once you meet the customer need with the content, remember your goal… what is the next logical step? The call to action and goal should be to move users to the next phase and closer to a purchase. This also gives you some specific ways to measure each element.
You may find that you already have many of these elements, but realize you need to reorganize the information and resources in a more logical way. You also may find that you have some of these resources offline, but need to create electronic versions to use online. Another thing to think about is what media/channel you’re using for something that is successful for you now — how can you use it in other media/channels as well to magnify this success? If it’s a download, maybe make a video, create a blog series, start some social media discussions around it and create a mobile-friendly version. For more on reimagining content in different ways, I recommend reading Content Rules by Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs.com.
Of course every person does not have the same needs and preferences, though they will follow a standard general process the vast majority of the time. That means you need to figure out what different types of shoppers or personas are your consumers, and plan your content to meet those different types. Try to keep this in mind when filling out your grid. You can probably glean this from available market research in your industry.
Also do a competitor analysis and see what pieces of your grid they have covered and where the gaps are. You may want to prioritize some of the gaps to exploit your advantage in the search space, or social media space specifically.
By the time you have finished this content map, you will be well prepared to move forward. The next step, is analyzing keyword trends at each phase to assess where your focus should be for SEO when creating the content you have just laid out. This may also make you aware of some additional content you will need to create based on trends you uncover.
The Bottom Line: Don’t spin your wheels creating content on a one-off basis. Know how each piece fits into your integrated digital marketing strategy, what the purpose and goal is, and how you can measure it.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, for more on keyword research.
Your Digital Marketing Strategy Starts with Understanding the Customers’ Process
Step 1. Map your customers’ purchasing process
There is usually a logical progression of steps a customer (whether B2B of B2C) must go through to finally end up purchasing your product, service or solution. Think of yourself as the GPS to the destination – the purchase. You need to figure out the path, find your customers on the path (more appropriately help them find you) and lead them step by step in a very natural manner using your digital marketing activities, including: social media posts, your Web site, social networking tools, blogging, videos, images and other elements that will fall into your digital marketing plan.
Typically, it will start with a research phase. What type of research would they be doing? What is the business or personal problem your product, services or solutions solve?
From there is usually gets more specific at each phase. Do they need ideas, case studies, how-to information, product information, comparison information, local business information? You will use these phases to align your digital marketing strategy with the customer’s process as closely as possible. By understanding the “need behind the need” you can attract customers earlier in the purchasing process and stay engaged with them down the sales/purchasing funnel.
The Bottom Line: Know your customers’ process so you can align yourself to make the journey with them!
Read tomorrow’s post for Step 2 for getting started on your digital strategy: Find your customers online.
Digital marketing strategy for business must start with the customer!
It seems like an appropriate place to start my blog is where every business must start – with a plan. Each business need to make many decisions about their digital marketing priorities, but many struggle with where to begin. This doesn’t need to be an overly complicated endeavor. Ultimately, it comes down to attracting the right traffic, engaging your audience effectively, driving behaviors down the purchasing funnel in a natural, helpful and non-threatening matter, and measuring your results for ongoing optimization.
But how do you know what traffic you need to attract? How can you attract it? What will be engaging for these people? Which social networks should you utilize? How do you drive user behavior? How can you measure results? These will be the topics of my blog in various levels of detail over time, but taking the first steps is the most difficult.
Put together what you know from experience, from market research and from common sense. A few online tools and some basic planning will help you do the rest.
Here are the five steps I recommend for getting started with your digital marketing strategy.
Step 1. Map your customers’ purchasing process
Step 2. Find your customers online
Step 3. Create a content planning grid
Step 4. Do keyword research
Step 5. Put it all together, prioritize and start creating!
Once you have laid this foundation, the rest will come together very simply and you can easily determine exactly how all of your digital marketing efforts support your business strategy and goals. You will be able to identify the purpose and goal for every page and post on your site, blog and social media pages very simply. Knowing this allows you to use the right methods and content, employ the best keywords, use the best calls to action and multi-media elements to engage and drive behaviors, and finally to know what you should be measuring each step along the way to determine success.
Over the next five days, I will walk you through more details on each step to get you rolling, starting with mapping the purchasing process tomorrow.
The Bottom Line: Have a strategic plan, so you spend your time and money on the right activities to build your online presence and drive revenue using digital marketing.
If you have questions, feel free to post them in the comments area below.
Marketing Consulting, Web Design & Strategy
Developed a comprehensive strategic integrated marketing plan for the online casting video database company (Launching in July/August, 2010). Consulted and managed the design and development of the front-end for PIXME2.com’s Web site, including the logo design and integration of video as well as social media tools and pages.
PIXME2.com’s Web site and online actor’s video database tool set to launch in July/August of 2010.
Email or call 248-854-4822 for the password to view work samples from this and other projects.
Integrated Marketing Consulting
Online Marketing Sub-contractor
Business Development Consulting
www.ArtBinaire.com
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Integrated Marketing Consulting
Search Engine Marketing
Pay-Per-Click Account Creation and Management
www.RemarkableAffordableMassage.com
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New e-commerce Web site
Marketing Consulting
SEO/SEM
Branding
www.HerbalSongstress.com
Email for the password to view work samples from this and other projects.
