Digital Marketing Strategy

If you enter a market where there is no behavior of buying things online, it means you will need to create and teach that market to have these behaviors and this will cost you a fortune!

There is nothing harder online (it's hard in the physical world too) than making people do new things that they are not used to doing. Because we are talking about changes in behavior, changes in their current lives, traditions, and beliefs.

You will need to go through the barriers of their current beliefs and make them, first of all, want to try your product and service, and, if you are lucky enough, get used to it and like it.

That's why it's important to do your "homework" before going into any market or niche. The online world, it's quite easy.

First find who, then what. Usually, business owners think vice versa. First, they create a product and service and then try to adapt it to the market or certain groups. If you think about yourself as an innovator like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, sure, you can try to create the vision and product first and make people love it. Just don`t forget to have very deep pockets of cash, as for both of these innovators it wasn't a cheap ride.

If your cash pile is not so big, it's smarter to think from the customer perspective first. Who’s your perfect client? What problems does he/she have? How are they solving these problems right now? What alternatives exist today? How can you help them on this journey to get to the dream faster, cheaper, or maybe even with more pleasure? It really depends on the customer profile.

You can sell the same product in a thousand different ways. But the more you know about your customer, the better you can communicate how your solution will change their lives and help them get what they want.

...and thank God it’s not yours or even your product/service! Because nobody cares about your story. What your customer cares about is his/her story. 

The story, he is telling himself in his heads. And the only thing he care about is that he can be supported and understood. 

The customer needs someone who can feel him, tell him his story and help him to go from that story to the ideal place he wish to live in -  the dream land.

Your goal as a business owner or marketing manager: to understand that story and repeat that story to as many as possible perspective and similar customers. Be emphatic. Be supportive. Understand what he/she is going through and then move to the solution you have and maybe then you can start sharing your experience because only then it does make sense.

If you have one offer online and put all the money on one bet, you will lose the game.

Deliver value in smaller packages, let users feel that value, and make them want more.

Online Business games are all in the UPGRADES, not the main product.

Then you can start delivering the right value at the right time. For example, if your users are not aware of the problem, you need to saturate the colors of it, get their attention and educate. If the user already knows the problem and they are looking for the solution, in this journey stage you can start delivering trials of your solution because they don`t know much about your way of solving it: free packages, free trials, discounts for the first weeks or even months can be good value. If your customer is already using your product, you need to know when they will need more and if you can deliver it without any distractions on time and with the best price and quantity, you will win.

One thing is to say is: “Here is the product/service you provide – click here and buy it.” Another thing is to make people want your product/service now like nothing else. The art is convincing people that this offer is the best deal they can ever get and if they miss out now – that's it. They will miss the only opportunity.

There are plenty of different methodologies you can use to create your offer, but those work great only if the second point on this list (knowing your customer) is correct. 

But... when everyone in the market has an irresistible offer, having one is no longer enough!

If you are in competitive or crowded marketplaces you need to make it easy for your prospects to see why they should choose you over any other option in the market.

Your possible customers have a crazy high level of doubt and skepticism today. So it takes extreme, extraordinary measures to move lots of people to spend money with you.

And.... Constructing the right offer is only half the puzzle.

You also need to understand how best to frame and present your offer after it's constructed properly. You need to have the "right offer" and the "right presentation" of that offer.

I see that marketers like to over-complicate everything and introduce new traffic sources or channels with really fancy words and give them very specific names, so no one from the non-marketing industry (and even from it) can understand what it means, but at least it sounds very smart and futuristic. But in reality, a new form of advertising means there is a new channel where you can reach people and there are some forms of how you can deliver your message to these people through that channel. That's it!

Everything else about digital marketing is just fancy words saying the same things.

Sure, every channel has some unique features, every channel works for different groups of people and has different forms of message delivery (text, image, sound, video, or interactive built-in form) and, of course, there are plenty of tools to control and act on these channels. Each channel has different audience filtering systems, different limitations on forms, and length of messages.

Also, there are two types of traffic: Organic and Paid. Sometimes business owners think that organic traffic is free traffic so they put all their effort in one basket. But in reality, it's better to have both. Also, there is no such thing as free traffic. Even with organic traffic and viral effect, you need to earn. The paid traffic gives you an instant stream of users, so you can check how your offer is working, basically in minutes. 

Not everyone is equal. Sort them out!

Any channel that brings you targeted traffic promise that everyone who lands on your landing page is your ideal client, it could be true... but only in your dreams.

Ask people questions about themselves and you will be really surprised how different people are – even if their goals are the same.

If you talk to everyone (outbound marketing), you talk to no one. If you talk to a person who’s interested and you know at what journey stage he/she is, you can talk directly to that person (inbound marketing).

Data is the most valuable asset in the world.

See whole digital marketing strategy on one page. Like a map. All the channels, pages, ads and customer journey on one page. All connected to real resources from one source. You don't need to read 60-100 pages long strategies, as you can see it all on the one screen. Some marketers call it a funnel. Others call it a process or customer journey. We call it just digital marketing strategy.

Different business models can require different strategic parts and your funnel will look different. Plus, every time you run your funnel, you gather data on how it works and you improve the funnel every time. I even mark funnels with versions as software developers do with their software. The Funnel is a dynamic "creature" and the more your run tests on your funnel, the more data you get. Based on your data, you change your funnel. Your "Creature" grows over time and becomes a more effective sales machine.

What are the funnel parts? It's basically everything: all possible landing pages, all emails, ads, links to different systems, screenshots of your objects, relation between objects, URL addresses of the pages, names of objects, social media accounts, pages, ad accounts, etc. All objects you need to have to fully launch your digital strategy. When you see it - it's just easier to imagine what you need to do and make a priority list.

We would never suggest you start from building the full funnel experience for your customers. It can look like a never-ending journey.

To avoid this big mistake we suggest building your Minimal Viable Process (MVP). Build just the first part of the funnel. Find out if you collect leads first of all. Are people interested in the offer you have? If just two out of 100 people will jump on your lead magnet offer, you might have problems with a traffic source, ad communication, offer page communication, or even some technical problems. If you can't make your funnel convert at least at a 20% rate, you need to change some parts of the MVF and make it convert better. Because if the MVP does not work, nothing else in your strategy will matter.

It's very important to know if your funnel works in mathematical theory before building anything. I mean, if you make everything right and people start converting at the conversion rate you expect, will you make money with that funnel? Can it be self-sustaining? Maybe your expectations are too high and in reality, these conversion rates you were expecting will never happen. Even if they happen, maybe in the end your funnel still won’t be profitable. I can't stress enough how important this step is and what surprises me a lot is that almost no marketers (even amateurs) do this before execution. Try to ask your digital agency about digital strategy simulation and take a photo of their faces.

First, you need to know your theoretical goals for each funnel step – the conversion rate of the step. This means how many people will take an action you expect and how many of them will leave the page without taking that action. Then it will be easier to compare it with the real numbers that you get when you start driving traffic to your funnel. You will know exactly what numbers you need to reach to make that funnel work.

Know your numbers. Know what KPI's you will track. Know how you will track them. Traditional software, for example, Google Analytics, is not really adapted for funnels and multichannel tracking. Yes, you can see it there, too, but you will need an advanced analytics account setup and even then it will be hard to see at a glance how good your funnel is performing at each step. Each ad network system usually provides different results as their calculation standards differ from each other. For example, Facebook Ads stats will differ from Google Analytics data. The difference will not be big (usually), but you will notice it. That's why it's important to set tracking standards at the beginning.