According to a study, 91% of clicks made following a search on Google are on the first page of results.
And when you know that Google represents more than 90% of traffic in Switzerland, you don’t need highly developed analytical skills to come to the following conclusion: you have to be visible!
On Google in particular, but more generally, on the internet.
Being present with your website is no longer enough, and has not been for a long time now.
Context
The Covid-19 pandemic has contributed to increasing the use of the internet, whether for entertainment of course, but also for information and for making purchases. And this is true for most sectors of activity.
Many entrepreneurs have understood this, sometimes at their expense. Realising this is the first step.
Wanting to adapt to these changes and being ready to develop your business in this direction is the second step.
But in concrete terms, how to do it? Where to start? What resources to plan? What results to expect? What are the deadlines?, etc.
There are many questions before moving on to the third step: the implementation of an effective digital marketing strategy to improve your visibility on the internet.
In the absence of a tailor-made approach, here are a few points to consider and to which you will have to find specific answers before establishing your strategy:
- What are your objectives?
- Who is your target/audience?
- What are your selling points?
- What resources do you have?
Today we are going to look at the first point: defining your objectives.
The following three points will be developed in future articles.
Defining objectives is an essential phase when developing the digital marketing strategy. But why is it so important?
Having clearly defined objectives will be essential for (at least) two main reasons:
- Allow to assess the budget and resources needed to achieve the objective. Depending on your ambitions, your sector of activity, your geographical targeting, the competition and many other factors, one of the challenges will be to assess a budget and the resources to be allocated to achieve your objective. The equation to be solved is to assess the appropriate resources, which allow you to be consistent with your market, your objective and the expected results.
- Define the strategy to be implemented and the action plan to achieve this objective. Once the resources and the budget have been defined, it will be necessary to establish the strategy that will be the most effective in achieving the objective. There are many channels and platforms in digital marketing. The key to an effective strategy is to select and combine these means taking into account their specificities in order to maximise the chances of achieving the desired objective. It will be equally essential to know how to adapt and adjust your actions in real time and according to performance.
Once the objective has been defined, it will then be easy to identify the indicators that will make it possible to monitor and measure performance and therefore ultimately to determine whether the objective has been achieved.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of indicators that can be monitored. The risk is therefore to disperse and focus on secondary or even useless indicators for achieving the objective.
Conversely, indicators identified and validated by the various players will make it possible to carry out relevant analyses and to implement coherent actions on the axes contributing directly to getting closer to the final objective.
Defining a marketing objective is therefore essential. But what are the characteristics of a “good” objective?
The SMART technique is often used by marketers because it allows you to precisely define the nature of the objective. Here are the characteristics:
Specific: a specific objective must be simple to understand, clear, precise and understandable by all.
Measurable: a measurable objective must be quantified and qualified.
Achievable: in other words, reasonable to promote the adhesion of the players to the latter.
Realistic: the level set must be a source of motivation and challenge for the greatest number.
Time-bound: limited in time, with a deadline.
To define each of these characteristics, you can base yourself on the history of your data, on the performance and objectives of the other channels used.
You can also try to determine the overall objectives of the company in terms of digital marketing, keeping a certain consistency between the resources allocated and the expected results.
Here are some examples of concrete objectives:
- Increase website revenue by 30% compared to last year
- Generate 30 requests for quotes per month via the website
- Obtain 40,000 views of the video presenting the new showroom in the canton of Vaud, for the period from 1 October to 30 November
- Decrease the cost of acquiring a follower by 25% compared to last year.
How to deploy the digital marketing strategy?
There are several alternatives for establishing your digital marketing strategy, or at least for defining the main lines, the structure, the skeleton.
- Delegate to your internal teams.
- Use an agency specialising in web marketing.
- Entrust the project to an external consultant or freelancer.
The idea here is not to compare these 3 alternatives, they each have their advantages and disadvantages. The main thing is to know which one, according to your objectives, your resources, your expectations and your digital maturity, will be the most suitable.
Conclusion
To conclude, the levers and channels offered by digital marketing are numerous. They each have very distinct specificities and features. Both implementation costs and expected returns are part of this.
Faced with such a range of possibilities, it can be destabilising or at least difficult to know which approach to adopt.
It is therefore by identifying the objective to be achieved through digital marketing that you can then assess the resources to be provided and define the outlines of your strategy.
A relevant and coherent strategy is one of the key factors for the success of your project.
At Suisseo, this is one of the essential steps in the collaboration with our clients.
Do not hesitate to contact us, we will be happy to discuss it with you.
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