3 Essential Elements of a Digital Marketing Plan

Learn about 3 essential elements that form an integral part of any successful digital marketing plan: online advertising; content marketing; email; mobile; programmatic; social media; video; search engine optimization (SEO); web design; content creation & social me

3 Essential Elements of a Digital Marketing Plan

Online advertising involves bidding and buying relevant ad units on third-party sites, such as display ads on blogs, forums, and other relevant websites. Ad types include images, text, pop-ups, banners and videos. Retargeting is an important aspect of online advertising. Retargeting requires a code that adds an anonymous browser cookie to track new visitors to your site.

Then, as the visitor goes to other sites, you can show them ads for your product or service. This focuses your advertising efforts on people who have already shown interest in your company. Content marketing is an essential strategy for attracting potential customers. Posting a regular cadence of relevant, high-quality content online will help establish thought leadership.

You can educate target customers about the problems your product can help them solve, as well as boost SEO rankings. Content may include blog posts, case studies, white papers, and other materials that add value to your target audience. These digital content assets can be used to acquire customers through organic and paid efforts. Email is a direct marketing method that involves sending promotional messages to a segmented group of prospects or customers.

Email marketing continues to be an effective approach to sending personalized messages that target customer needs and interests. It is most popular for e-commerce businesses as a way to stay in the minds of consumers. Mobile marketing is the promotion of products or services specifically through phones and mobile devices. This includes mobile advertising through text messages or advertising in downloaded applications.

However, a comprehensive approach to mobile marketing also includes optimizing websites, landing pages, emails, and content for an optimal mobile experience. Programmatic advertising is an automated way of bidding on digital advertising. Every time someone visits a web page, profile data is used to auction off the ad impression to competing advertisers. Programmatic advertising provides greater control over which sites your ads are shown and who sees them, so you can better target your campaigns.

Social media marketing is a key component of digital marketing. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn and even YouTube offer digital marketing managers paid opportunities to reach and interact with potential customers.

Digital marketing

campaigns often combine organic efforts with sponsored content and paid advertising promotions on major social media channels to reach a wider audience and increase brand momentum. Video marketing allows businesses to connect with customers in a more interactive and visually engaging way.

You can display product launches, events and special announcements, as well as provide educational content and testimonials. YouTube and Vimeo are the most used platforms for sharing and advertising videos. Pre-roll ads (shown for the first 5 to 10 seconds before a video) are another way digital marketing managers can reach audiences on video platforms. What happens at the top of the funnel is discovery and initial knowledge.

Additional touchpoints are then created with more content based on attraction and engagement, along with helpful resources in the middle of the funnel that set the stage for the sales offer. Now that trust has been built and education and understanding achieved, the prospect is now ready to consider the purchase offer. The foundation of digital marketing success, search engine optimization (SEO) refers to a series of strategies designed to improve your ranking in online search results. Why do you want to reach the top positions? A surprising 75 percent of people don't look beyond the first page of search results.

Ultimately, the digital marketing components you use drive potential customers back to your website, and you want your site to leave a positive impression on potential customers. Nearly 95 percent of a person's first impression is related to web design, making it a crucial factor in your online marketing plan. If your site looks like it's fresh out of the 90s or takes forever to load, it's likely to send visitors looking for the Back button. Our web design and development teams specialize in creating websites that drive results for our clients.

All of our designs are also mobile friendly, so your site will look great and work well no matter what device someone uses to access it. To improve your search rankings and help potential customers learn more about your business, you need to incorporate content into your digital marketing strategy. If you're looking to get more leads and revenue, content marketing is a great strategy, generating 3 times more leads than traditional marketing. Quality content is a key component of content marketing.

A whopping 2.3 million people use social media, making them a valuable component of digital marketing. Social media allows you to connect with current and potential customers and develop relationships with them. If they have questions about your products and services, they can connect and ask you directly on social media.Ideally, the strategy will achieve all three objectives: generate leads; convert customers; create brand awareness by informing, entertaining and influencing people.Digital media offers many opportunities to achieve these objectives by using digital marketing as part of its overall marketing plan.According to a survey conducted by the Digital Marketing Institute of more than 200 global marketing leaders, digital marketing strategy and planning was considered one of the four most important skills companies should possess.In today's rapidly evolving digital environment, any company that doesn't manage and evolve effectively by using digital marketing as part of its overall marketing plan risks being outperformed by competitors and considered obsolete in the eyes of customers.By implementing an SEO strategy that follows best practices, your organization is more likely to rank among the top results based on specific keywords.Ultimately, this will improve the visibility of your website and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will interact with your brand.In addition, SEO can help boost overall brand awareness for your business; position your brand as a leading authority in your industry; generate more quality leads.What are these three vital elements? They are online advertising; content marketing; email; mobile; programmatic; social media; video; search engine optimization (SEO); web design; content creation; social media usage.These three elements form an integral part of any successful digital marketing plan.By leveraging these components effectively you can reach potential customers; build relationships with them; create brand awareness; generate leads; convert customers; improve SEO rankings; optimize websites for mobile devices; use programmatic advertising for better targeting campaigns; use social media platforms for paid promotions; create engaging videos; create quality content for content marketing, etc.By implementing these elements into your digital marketing plan you can ensure success in today's competitive online environment.