Developing a solid digital strategy is a must for all companies in the digital age. Indeed, the rise of the internet and social media is bringing new consumer trends, as well as societal demands and new consumer needs. A strong and consistent online presence is a guarantee of success to capture the attention of its target and make it take action.
So how can we develop a suitable digital strategy? How can we stand out in the digital age and evolve with market trends? The purpose of this article is to provide you with answers. It is up to you to adapt them to your context and your ambitions or we will help you!
Step 1: Analyze your digital environment
To know where you are going, you must first know where you are! Also, the first step in developing a digital strategy is to assess your digital presence.
Who visits your website, who shares your posts on social media? What are the results of your previous actions, your emailing campaigns or your articles? This review will help determine the strengths and weaknesses of your digital presence.
Also, look at your competitors’ actions on the web, digital trends on tools like Google Trends to see what the challenges and opportunities are in your market.
In the example below, we can see that the query «SEO» has been increasingly typed on Google, in France since 2004 (source: Google Trends). We can then deduct that the digital market is gradually moving towards SEO needs.
These trends, wether established or emerging, as well as the structural threats induced by new technologies (such as artificial intelligence) and the arrival of start-ups in your market are all opportunities to reinvent yourself in turn.
As you may have understood, this mirador work is a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), essential to develop a digital strategy.
Step 2: define the digital strategy
What is your goal?
At this point, you have to define your priorities in terms of digital. Is your goal to generate traffic on your website? Increase your awareness? Or perhaps you prefer to generate contacts with your organization?
This step is crucial to decide what your actions mean and which channels to choose.
Choosing your digital channels
Depending on your goal, you can choose the most suitable digital channels. Be careful, the most effective today are not necessarily the best if your strategy changes! Email marketing, an effective channel for selling products online, is thus not recommended for services requiring tailor-made intervention. In addition, the channel of your choice must also be adapted to your target and their online behavior. You also need to think about the costs of your strategy, because while some channels are free, such as SEO, others require sustained investment, like paid referencing (SEA).
Here is a non-exhaustive list of the different digital channels you can integrate to develop your digital strategy:
- Social networks (but not just any!)
- Organic Referencing (SEO)
- Paid search engine referencing (SEA)
- Paid Social Media Referencing (SMM)
- Corporate blogs
- Newsletters
Once you have chosen your online communication channels, you can develop your content. This involves creating compelling and impactful messages to reach your target audience. This is the most important step, because no matter how much you reach a target, if you do not send them the right message your efforts will fall through.
To be supported by experts in the field and to create effective messages, our team is at your disposal.
Step 3: Evaluate and adjust the digital strategy
It is really only in action that we realize the success of a strategy! Once your digital strategy is in place, the best practice is to study the results with pre-determined measurement tools. For example:
- Google Analytics, to observe your website traffic
- Social media analytics tools such as Facebook Insights or LinkedIn Analytics …
- Measurement tools for email campaigns, such as MailChimp or Mailerlite
Are you on track to meet your objectives? Have you managed to stay within your budget? Maximizing the results of your digital strategy becomes part of the strategy itself, once launched. You will indeed have access to new information, useful to perfect your strategy.
For example, your target may have a different reaction than expected, some messages are much better than others, one channel is more effective than others, etc.
Conclusion
For 30 years, the digital age has shaped the way we live, consume and work. We could say that a digital strategy is a gear shift, which allows you to pass the second gear— But it’s also a helmet, a steering wheel and mirrors to ensure your brand protection! To get access to expert advice and develop a successful digital strategy, do not hesitate to contact us.
