digital marketing strategy guide for 2014

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY GUIDE DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY GUIDE























We released our first digital marketing strategy guide in the summer

of 2013. Now as we’re fast approaching the summer of 2014, we’ve

decided it’s time for an update.

Since that first guide, we have embraced a new planning system

known as S.O.S.T.A.C (situation, objectives, strategy, tactics, actions

and control).

One benefit of S.O.S.T.A.C is that it captures a good digital marketing

strategy as a continuous cycle of planning, testing, monitoring and

adapting.

We hope you find this guide useful.

The Cloudspotting Team.

http://www.slideshare.net/Cloudspotting/digital-marketing-strategy-guide?qid=db9b9da2-cf23-4fec-91dc-b48952800419&v=qf1&b=&from_search=6

S = situation, where you are

O = objectives, what you want

S = strategy, how you get there

T = tactics, tools to help you get

there

A = actions, details on how to get

there

C = control, how to measure

performance

IMAGE: http://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/capability-performance-review/sostac-marketing-plan-infographic/

http://i.marketingprofs.com/assets/images/daily-chirp/20-captivating-marketing-statistics-that-will-drive-2014-infographic.jpg

Of all marketers

have found a

customer through

Facebook in 2013.

Of all marketers

have found a

customer though

LinkedIn

Inbound marketing

delivers 54% more

leads than

traditional outbound

marketing.


At 89%,customer

testimonials have

the highest

effectiveness rating

for content

marketing.

B2B companies

that blog gain 67%

more leads than

those that don’t.

Videos on landing

pages increase

conversions by

86%

http://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/social-digital-mobile-around-the-world-january-2014

http://realbusiness.co.uk/article/19058-40-stats-about-mobile-that-every-ceo-should-know

Globally, mobile

penetration stands

at 93%

By 2017, there will

be 8.6bn mobile

ready devices in

use and global data

traffic will have

increased 13 fold.

The UK downloaded

approximately 275m

apps in February

2013 alone.

http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/search-engine-marketing-what-marketers-need-know-re-2014-seo-trends/1

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/12/21/5-top-seo-and-online-marketing-trends-for-2014/2/

20% of searches on

Google are related

to location and 56%

of mobile phone

users use their

browser for local

searches.

Organic search

traffic produces

35% higher

conversion rates

than traffic driven

by equivalent paid

search traffic.

75% of search

users are not

clicking past the

first page of search

results.

*S.E.O is the acronym for search engine optimisation


Based on these statistics, it is a given that for any digital marketing strategy

to be effective and successful, you must include a combination of:

1. Great content production

2. Social media marketing

3. Mobile marketing and

4. Search engine marking and S.E.O.

Your digital marketing strategy is just a content plan that is highly tailored to

your audience. That means you provide them with useful, valuable content,

through the channels they want, on the devices the use for the search terms

they enter.

And you inform this content plan (digital marketing strategy) with in-depth

research and data.

SITUATION ANALYSIS

Situation analysis should be the first tactic when planning your digital

marketing strategy. You need to understand your current

performance before you can set attainable and relevant objectives.

Analysing your current situation will give you the benchmark against

which all future progress and achievements can be measured.

This should include looking at:

• The demographics and behaviours of your existing audience

• Traffic referral from and engagement levels on social media

• Traffic from mobile devices and operating systems

• Most popular landing pages, bounce rates and visitor flow

• Performance and tactics of your closest competitors

SITUATION ANALYSIS

S - strengths

W - weaknesses

O - opportunities

T - threats

OBJECTIVES

They are the part of your strategy through which you can measure

success. To increase the likelihood of arriving at your final

destination, set objectives that are attainable and relevant to your

business’ capabilities.

Objectives need to be specific, it’s not enough to simply state where

you want to be at the end of your journey you need to include time

frames indicating when you expect to fulfil these objectives as well.

Setting objectives defines the end destination of

your digital marketing journey so they need to be

STRATEGY

Once you have an understanding of your current situation and have

used that information to inform SMART objectives you can begin

planning your strategy. At this point you should identify:

• New target markets your business could benefit from reaching

• Areas were you can improve your existing strategy e.g.

working to improve landing pages with higher than average

bounce rates.

• The relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you need to

monitor in order to understand any progress you make

STRATEGY

Awareness

Interest

Trust

Action

Complete

Search & Social

“Successful Conversion”

Identifying areas where your existing marketing

strategy and content can be improved AND

identifying new target markets to engage with

are two distinct strands of any good digital

marketing strategy.

Streamlining your conversion funnel by

improving your content and strategy can take

effect quickly where as engaging new

audiences can take more time and effort.

These two strategies are most effective when

they are implemented together.

STRATEGY

TIME

CO

NV

ER

SIO

N R

AT

E

Increasing the

effectiveness of the

conversion funnel

by improving any

existing marketing

strategy and

content.

Increasing

traffic to the

website by

engaging new

target markets

Fastest growth

occurs when these

two improvements

coincide

TACTICS

If you think of your initial strategy as a skeleton, developing your

tactics is where you start adding flesh on to those bones. Your

strategy tells you generally how you’re going to achieve your

objectives, your tactics tells you exactly how.

At this point you should be focusing on content:

• What content you will produce and when: plan and schedule

• When you will broadcast content: time of day, weekends etc.

• Where you will share content: social and mobile platforms

• How you will tailor content to suit different audiences

It is here that your initial situation analysis and broad strategy

planning will begin to pay off.

ACTIONS

Planning your actions is the point when you decide who will be

responsible for which aspect of your strategy and when they will be

implemented.

You should outline the systems, processes and tools you will use

throughout the duration of your marketing.

Identify your internal capabilities and capacity for handling your

strategy and tactics and if necessary set up working relationships

with relevant external agencies.

CONTROL

Keeping control is essential for keeping your digital marketing

strategy streamlined and efficient, ensuring it generates the highest

return on investment.

It is important to decide when and how reports will be generated and

assign responsibility for doing so to avoid gaps in data collection.

Processes and tools you will use to collect data should also be

specified to make data sets reliably comparable.

Different measurement tools can differ in their results, to handle this

collect data from several different analytics tools and take an

average.

CONTROL

Things you should include in your performance reporting:

• Consistently and constantly measure all the KPIs relevant to

your objectives. That means taking data snapshots at regular

intervals to allow data comparisons as well as tracking over

time.

• Regularly run user testing on your website and content to

ensure it is providing the best user experience possible.

• Monitor your conversion rates (these should be tied to your

objectives) and make sure this is linked to dates, allowing you

to map cause and effect. This will inform your conversion rate

optimisation (CRO) efforts.

CONTROL

One of the best tools available to help keep control of your digital

marketing strategy is Google Analytics.

This is a completely free resource that only requires the simple

addition of a tracking code to your website in order to enable data

collection.

This platform offers real time tracking, constant tracking and as

recommended, enables data comparison over time.

The amount of data available in Google Analytics is vast so it’s worth

taking the time to ensure you set up your campaign properly. You can

find some useful tips, advice and links on how to use Google

Analytics right here on our blog.

http://blog.cloudspotting.co.uk/2014/02/06/mastering-google-analytics/

The Met Office needed a way to monitor vast amounts of online data

in order to demonstrate ROI which they measure in terms of reach,

revenue and reputation.

Gathering analytics and data enabled the Met Office to transform its

content marketing strategy through data driven insight, allowing them

to create digital personas and better understand their audience

behaviour and content preferences

With this insight, the Met Office can invest in marketing resources

and provide relevant content that is better aligned with customer

interests, and can syndicate the content to other authority newswires

and syndication partners to attract more relevant traffic to the Met

Office website.

http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/case-study/the-met-office-webtrends.aspx

We provide “data doses” for our retainer clients and when requested

can deliver bespoke digital marketing strategy audits, tailored to

providing the relevant analytics our clients’ need based on their

chosen objectives.

In one case, by providing this tailored digital marketing strategy audit

and identifying key actions points, our client was able to increase

traffic to their site by 60% in a single year.

http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/case-study/the-met-office-webtrends.aspx

+CloudspottingCoUk

/company/cloudspotting

@leedswebagency

[email protected]

+44 (0)113 234 1542

digital marketing strategy guide for 2014

Marketing

existing marketing

digital marketing

conversion

collect data

target markets

met office

current situation

google analytics