For many companies, having an online presence is crucial for any business that wants to remain relevant and competitive. According to the eCommerce Foundation report, 88% of consumers search online before buying from any company.
Furthermore, according to linearity branding statistics, digital marketing helps increase brand awareness by over 80% and leads to a 45% spike in sales.
However, establishing an effective digital marketing strategy can seem productive to many businesses. This is where understanding the different stages of digital marketing is essential. A well-planned marketing process incorporating relevant online platforms and analyzing consumer behavior can boost a company’s visibility and better engage with customers.
This article will explain the key steps. It will show how to make goals and start campaigns online. It will also explore ways to improve your strategy and better understand your customers. Companies must also research new trends. Changing the plan based on what helps most is essential.
Stages of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is like a roadmap businesses use to promote their products or services online. It’s a step-by-step process that involves planning, putting plans into action, and then checking how well they worked. Here are the stages of digital marketing:
Stage 1: Laying down the Audience & Strategy
When we talk about the stages of digital marketing campaign, the first one involves developing a strategy. Before launching digital marketing strategies for startups, you must establish a plan that is made to your business goals and objectives.
To craft an effective initial strategy, determine your organizational aims by assessing potential challenges and defining the value you intend to offer customers through promotions. Ask thoughtful questions like:
- Who is your ideal customer?
- How do your products or services differ from competitors?
- What issues do you want to solve for clients?
- Which digital platforms are best for content creation and distribution?
- Do you have methods to gauge campaign success or failure?
- What types of materials will you develop and share?
This questioning aims to understand where to focus efforts to achieve goals by deeply understanding audiences and their journey. You want to design a content marketing blueprint aligned with this information to support targeted channels.
Setting SMART Goals
Making reasonable goals for your online marketing work is very important. Your goals must be SMART.
SMART means:
Specific – Your goal can’t be vague, like “We want more leads online.” It must be exact, like “We want 150 new leads.”
Measurable – You must be able to check your goal. Vague goals like more leads are hard to check. Exact numbers like 150 can be tracked.
Attainable – If a goal is not doable, it’s not good. If you only got 7 leads before, aiming for 1,000 is probably not real. Goals need to be achievable.
Relevant – Relevant goals really help your business. If you need leads, getting more Twitter followers is not a goal that helps. Set goals that make a difference.
Time-Based – Goals also need a start and end time. This lets you see if you truly succeeded. Goals without time can go on forever.
Making SMART goals for your online work helps you set yourself up for success.
Stage 2: Implementation
In the stages of digital marketing campaign, first, you create a strategy. Now, it’s time to do the work from your plan. Getting everything done fast is essential to start campaigns right.
But wait to expect things right away!
Some stuff like SEO can take months to help. Even Facebook and Google ads, used for faster results, need learning time first. It lets platforms like Google and Facebook improve your ads in the long run.
While online marketing means quick sales, being patient helps. Eyes on solution focus on the market research equally before directly launching the campaigns to join the bandwagon. They believe steady progress with a good plan sets any campaign up for doing well over time.
Stage 3: Conversion and Growth
A company does online marketing to turn potential customers into real buyers. You start by sharing company facts, brand facts, and what the brand believes (if any). Then, you act when interest is high. After getting people to pay attention for a while, you need to act while they care. This part lets you move a client to the next buyer step.
It depends on your business goals, like more sales, brand loyalty, or patients. It is when you need heavy changes in buyers. An excellent way to grow your buyer group is by letting them know the solution to their problem. Most brands use emails or ads made just for possible buyers. Lately, get-others-to-buy programs have gotten more popular to add to your buyer database.
Along with changes, you must stop and see how good your online marketing did. Look closely at all your numbers, think about what they show, and make choices based on your learning.
Stage 4: Understanding the Client’s Needs
Now you know if your online marketing did good or badly. If you did not do good, do not feel bad; look at what you did wrong and try to fix it. If it did good, do not think you know it all or that you will always do good.
As we said before, the numbers can show what customers want. Pay attention to where they stop in your buyer timeline, what channels do best, and any messages they like. If you spend the most money on ads but email marketing works better, email is what they want more.
Similarly, they may do most with your brand on social media, but emails get low opens.
In this case, using more for social may work better.
This is also an excellent time to ask customers what they think straight from them. Send a survey to see what new things interest them or what communication style they like. Ask for reviews to understand better how your online marketing is doing and what can get better.
Stage 5: Re-plan and Research
Now you have data, use it. Find what did not work and what worked well. In many ways, this stage is like stage 1 again. It lets you change your plan to make it better. Make sure the right people are still who you focus on.
Look again at what makes your products different and if that changed. See who liked some posts more than others. Use all the info you learned to change things up and play again.
Digital marketing uses tech, which is constantly changing. So this is when we see new trends too. Look at other groups to see if they offer value you do not but could. Look for new platforms that are making an impact you missed. See if search results for you are good or could improve.
Do research and change your online marketing plan to fit. Then, go back to stage 2 and play the game again.
Stage 6: Staying Ahead with Market Research and Trends
Previously, we have discussed the five stages of digital marketing campaign. This one is a bonus stage for you. How can you stay ahead of your competitors?
To do well with online marketing, groups must always be ahead of what’s new. Doing market research helps understand changing what customers like, the latest tech, and what others are doing. Keeping up allows you to see shifts in your business type and change how you market.
One essential part is watching what’s popular on social media. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram provide helpful information about what people do and like. Looking at trending topics and hashtags can help make content that people enjoy more.
Following these steps will optimise the online presence. Working with a company like Eyes On Solution can improve results. They can guide the steps and help with tools. Following the process step-by-step leads to success online.
Conclusion
You are going through these stages of digital marketing to set a business upright. Taking the time at each point is vital. Firstly, carefully map who you aim to attract. Then, launch campaigns planned smartly. Be sure to keep tabs on what’s working well to seal the deal or not so much.
Always listen closely to what customers say they want and need. Keep sharpening the plan accordingly as you go along. It’s important to constantly watch what’s new and hot in the space to stay ahead of the competitors. Following this process leads to success on digital platforms.
For even better results, partner with Eyes On Solution. Our experts provide guidance, tools, and backing through each stage for top performance.
