Frameworks for Basic Digital Strategy to Guide Your Planning

Introduction

As the number of individuals using the web has increased over the previous three decades, so has the profession of digital marketing. It moved from the days of keyword stuffing and spamming backlinks to a more sophisticated approach involving big data, personalisation, and a slew of other strategies involving planning, auditing, communications, branding, and more.

Simply said, the practice has become more sophisticated than ever, and you will fall behind if you do not have a solid digital strategy framework in place. With so many factors to consider when engaging in digital marketing, it’s easy to overlook some that can make or break business success. As a result, one of the most critical things you must accomplish before going into the nitty-gritty of plans and campaigns is to establish a properly defined digital strategy framework.

Definition of a digital strategy framework

First and foremost, what is a digital marketing framework or digital strategy framework? In simple terms, it is a document that explains the flow of the marketing process, defining crucial requirements and significant touchpoints. It ensures that nothing is overlooked during the intricate procedure.

There are numerous sorts of digital strategy frameworks, each addressing a distinct component of the profession, ranging from communications to planning to strategy. Some combine everything, while others focus on a single component. To create your own, you must first understand your company’s demands and priorities in order to create a model that meets your needs. Use the basic digital marketing models listed below to take you through the process of establishing your own.

RACE Planning

RACE is a learning platform Smart Insights acronym that stands for Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage. These four steps refer to online marketing actions that you must perform while you engage with customers through various channels at various stages of their journey.

• Reach entails increasing brand awareness and visibility by generating traffic to your website and social media pages. Website traffic, external links, online interaction, and earned media are some of your major performance indicators here.
• Act entails pushing individuals to take a specific action on the website or social media page. Bounce rate, time on site, and the number of newsletter sign-ups are some of your critical performance metrics here.
• Converting loyal followers into paying customers is what conversion is all about. Among your critical performance metrics are the number of leads, conversion rate, sales, and revenue.
• Engage entails developing close relationships with clients in order to increase retention. Customer turnover and repeat customer rate are two of your major performance measures here.

What is it useful for?

RACE Planning, at its heart, can assist you in developing an efficient digital marketing strategy by identifying critical actions for each stage of the customer journey.

Plan your RACE action steps:

1. Reach- Improve your digital communications, including press releases, SEO, pay-per-click advertising (PPC), as well as influencer outreach. Put your brand on social media channels that your target demographic frequents.
2. Act- Create a content campaign strategy that includes a variety of content. Devote a significant amount of resources to video because people will consume more of it. This is one of the top digital marketing trends to watch. Whatever type of content you provide, make your materials your audience’s go-to source for valuable, inspiring information.
3. Convert- Create conversion optimization software. Text-based calls to action should be included in blog posts and high-converting pop-ups. A/B tests can be used to find the most appealing designs and content features for online users.
4. Engage- Create a map of all client touchpoints and send personalized messages via web, email, and social media.

Marketing Funnel

This is one of the most commonly used digital strategy frameworks, illustrating the journey clients take while engaging with your business, from discovering your products and services to purchasing from you. The marketing funnel is divided into four stages:

1. Awareness– When a potential consumer sees your social media post or banner ad or hears about your brand via an influencer or a friend, this is considered a referral.
2. Interest– A potential customer has become enamoured with your brand and is exploring various online platforms or reading reviews to understand more about you.
3. Consideration– A potential buyer recognizes their problem and recognizes your brand as the answer.
   Action- The potential customer takes action, such as purchasing a product or scheduling an appointment with you.

What is it useful for?

While RACE Planning defines your important action points in the digital marketing process, the Marketing Funnel can summarize the customer journey and thus assist you in identifying conversion barriers. This defines the framework of your digital marketing strategy, allowing you to highlight chances for encouraging individuals to perform the required action. For example, if you only get less than half of the people who placed the item in their cart, you may need to send automated messages to remind them of items in their shopping bags. This is an opportunity that may provide the outcomes you seek.

How can you incorporate it?

Draw your action steps for each level using the funnel:

• Awareness– On a regular basis, discuss the problem you’re attempting to tackle with your products and services. Tell them that by choosing your brand, they would be able to quickly solve their problem. Be present in social media channels that your target audience uses, similar to Reach in RACE. More importantly, spend money on SEO and PPC. When people need to solve a problem, they frequently turn to Google. When customers type a query connected to your brand, you should be among the first results. Use these critical website evaluation frameworks in your evaluation.

• Interest– Make yourself known to your consumers by being the best source of knowledge about their specific difficulties. When you rank well in search results for themes connected to your business and have a substantial number of followers on your social media pages, you know you’ve hooked them.

• Consideration– Give prospective customers a stronger reason to do business with you. The fact is, you’re probably not the first company in your industry. Why would people prefer you to others? They are more inclined to consider doing business with you if you can focus on your unique selling proposition.

• Action– Make purchasing appealing and the process simple. Provide discounts at the checkout. Inform them that supplies are rapidly running out. Check-out should be as straightforward as a click of a button.

Important takeaways

The correct digital strategy frameworks can help you develop stronger strategies and achieve consistent success. When you know your audience well, you can map out an accurate client journey. As a result, it’s a good idea to collect data from surveys and social media analytics to construct buyer personas that accurately represent your target population. With a profile, you’ll be able to determine which social media platforms to use, what types of marketing messages to send, and how to improve customer service and boost the likelihood of a sale.