DOCUMENTS YOU NEED TO PREPARE TO BUILD A DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN FOR YOUR BUSINESS

BUILDING A DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN FOR YOUR BUSINESS, PART 1 — DOCUMENTS YOU NEED TO PREPARE

Browsing Threads recently — a social platform aimed at Gen Z, ambitiously competing with X (formerly Twitter, before Elon Musk) — The Fool stumbled onto a few Threads posts about building a digital marketing plan for a business.

Many people are curious about building a digital marketing plan for their business.

To answer these questions, The Fool and the Easy Knowledge Channel team at Big E Co. have put together a series of articles as well as YouTube videos on this topic, drawing on projects Big E Co. has carried out, along with a few other successful projects.

In today’s article, The Fool will briefly walk you through what you need to prepare to start a digital marketing plan for your business.

What is building a digital marketing plan for a business?

The F1 racetrack map

Before we start learning about building a digital marketing plan for a business, imagine you’re an F1 driver on the track, starting to think about the upcoming race. What do you think they need to look into first?

The answer would be the track map — so they can carefully calculate the most sensible strategy for handling the car through the track’s flat stretches or its many turns, and secure the best possible result for themselves and their team.

F1 drivers need to study the track map very carefully.

What is a digital marketing plan for a business?

Similar to the race map a driver must master before setting off on the track, the map called the “Customer Journey” is also indispensable for every marketer.

From this map, marketers can chart out specific directions to complete their overall marketing strategy and achieve the business’s original goals.

Along that journey, at each different stage, marketers need to set up appropriate campaigns and objectives to get through it.

For example, digital marketing campaigns for the “Awareness” stage moving to “Consideration” will differ from campaigns moving from “Consideration” to “Purchase.”

Just like a race map, a digital marketing plan based on the Customer Journey is something every digital marketer needs to master.

What is building a digital marketing plan for a business?

The concept of building a digital marketing plan for a business

It’s the process of charting directions on the “Customer Journey” map through specific digital marketing strategies and campaigns, as mentioned above.

The difference between “Strategy” and “Campaign” in a business’s digital marketing plan

What is a digital marketing strategy?

It’s the plan laid out to complete the “Customer Journey” map. There are 3 main types of digital marketing strategy:

• Performance Marketing:

An advertising approach focused on specific results. This result is usually based on an immediate conversion action, such as return on ad spend (ROAS), pay-per-click (PPC), or cost per acquisition (CPA).

Performance Marketing is considered a branch of Digital Marketing. It’s usually tied to search engines, social media, email, and TV.

Businesses using Performance Marketing only pay the publisher once a specific result is achieved.

• Brand Marketing:

An advanced approach aimed at highlighting a brand’s strength, value, and emotional appeal.

Brand Marketing usually focuses on building brand recognition and the values it brings, creating a sense of trust with consumers.

Brand Marketing often uses tactics like content marketing, social media, or storytelling.

These can take the form of billboards, sponsoring a show, product placement in a film, or partnering with an influential celebrity or athlete…

From there, it creates a positive, long-lasting impression of the brand in the customer’s mind.

• Combining both Branding and Performance Marketing:

A marketing strategy that balances short-term marketing metrics to generate revenue for the business while also increasing long-term brand recognition.

A digital marketing strategy is usually tied to the overall goal set by the business’s leadership.

What is a digital marketing campaign?

For each overall marketing strategy meant to complete the “Customer Journey” map, marketers must set up smaller digital marketing campaigns to get through each of its stages. Here are the common types of digital marketing campaigns:

• Website marketing campaigns:

Activities aimed at achieving specific goals on a website, such as ranking keywords on Google (SEO), or ads to collect leads on a landing page, etc.

• Social channel marketing campaigns:

Activities aimed at achieving specific goals on social channels, such as building a social network, social ads, etc.

• Public relations campaigns:

Activities aimed at achieving specific goals related to audiences closely tied to the business, such as investors, customers, and staff.

Documents you need to prepare when building a digital marketing plan

The 4U in marketing

In previous articles, The Fool compiled the 4U in marketing for you all, which includes:

• Understanding Your Customers
• Understanding Yourself
• Understanding Your Competitors
• Understanding Your Goals and Objectives

When building a digital marketing plan for a business, the person doing this work must have a firm grasp of the 4U and prepare documents related to analyzing the issues that arise within each U — this allows for better planning, and helps support the people executing the campaign and strategy.

Documents you need to prepare for the issues within each U

U1 — Understanding Your Customers

Going back to the F1 race mentioned earlier: when drivers take part in an F1 race, they have to complete at least 20 laps of the “race journey” shown on that track map.

As a marketer, it’s the same — you need to get through the “Customer Journey,” as The Fool mentioned above, throughout the process of your business forming and growing.

However, the one difference between drivers and marketers is that drivers always start at the “starting line” and finish at the “finish line,” while in a fiercely competitive business environment, marketers sometimes have to plan and carry out digital marketing strategies continuously…

At this point, what a business’s marketers, starting from that “finish line,” need to do is begin a new “Marketing Cycle” to attract more potential customers for their business, building on the strength of the customer base they already have.

A marketer’s journey to complete the Marketing Cycle.

This is also what drivers and marketers have in common: no matter how strong a driver you are, your racing journey still has to run through a cycle until the race ends (at least 20 laps).

And to complete those 20 laps as smoothly and effectively as possible, every part of the car (especially the “gears”) must run smoothly to push the car forward.

Because if just one gear goes off, it can seriously affect an F1 car’s engine on the track.

Similarly, marketers have to keep “oiling the gears” so customers can shift their “behavior” from “Hey there, stranger” to “loyal customer” through the right marketing campaigns.

To carry out the right “digital marketing campaigns” and complete the “Customer Journey,” marketers need to prepare the following documents:

• The Business Model CANVAS analysis

The Business Model CANVAS analysis is a chart that visually represents a business’s business model, while also giving marketers a clearer view of:

• The customer segments the business is targeting
• How to build a relationship with each “customer segment”
• The communication channels needed to reach and attract each “customer segment”

The Business Model Canvas can help a business find insights and steps to approach customers.

• The Brief analysis from the “Client” or business leadership

The Brief analysis from the “Client” or business leadership can help marketers get direction on some issues directly related to the customer, so they can chart the most sensible digital marketing strategy and campaign, specifically:

• The profile of the customer the business is targeting.
• The message you want to convey to attract the business’s potential customers.
• The digital marketing strategy and tactics direction that fits the goal set by the business’s “leadership” or “Client.”

The Brief analysis from the “Client” or leadership can give marketers a more detailed view of the potential customer the business is targeting.

U2 — Understanding Yourself

After thoroughly researching customer insights, marketers need to turn back and closely analyze their own business’s marketing situation, to make the most of its advantages and “Unique Selling Points” (USPs).

At the same time, identifying the business’s remaining limitations, so they can be improved to better achieve the goal and purpose set for the business’s marketing campaigns and strategy.

Here are the documents marketers need to prepare to carry out the above work:

• The Business Model CANVAS analysis

The Business Model CANVAS analysis doesn’t just help marketers find potential customer insights and reasonable customer segments — it also helps marketers better grasp the business’s unique selling points (USP) through:

• The value the business can bring customers
• The business’s available resources
• The business’s strategic partners
• The business’s value-proposition activities

The Business Model CANVAS analysis doesn’t just help “Understand Customers” — it also helps marketers “Understand Themselves.”

• The business’s SWOT analysis

A business’s SWOT analysis can help marketers clearly grasp:

• The business’s strengths
• The business’s weaknesses
• The business’s opportunities in the market
• The challenges the business will face in the market

A sample business SWOT analysis chart.

U3 — Understanding Your Competitors

So we’ve gone through the first 2 Us in the 4U of marketing, through “Understanding Customers” and “Understanding Yourself.” However, as The Fool mentioned above, the market is a fierce competition where marketers must clearly understand their competitors to be able to plan the right approach…

To do that, marketers need to carefully prepare all the customer information in the Brief sent over by the “Client” or business leadership.

During this research, marketers should list 3 direct competing businesses, as well as indirect competitors to their product and service.

• Direct competitors

Competitors offering the same or a very similar product/service to what your business offers the market.

• Indirect competitors

People hired or partnered with by a direct competitor to sell, or to take action that boosts brand recognition for the product/service that direct competitor is distributing to the market.

Indirect competitors include:

• KOLs/KOCs
• Well-known vloggers/reviewers
• Well-known bloggers/freelance writers
• Affiliates or drop-shippers
• …

Marketers need to gather information on at least 3 direct competing businesses, as well as information on the indirect competitors that direct competitor has hired or partnered with.

Sample competitor analysis.

U4 — Understanding Your Goals and Objectives

• What is a purpose?

The intentions a business needs to pursue within an overall, usually long-term marketing strategy, for example:

• Double revenue — Performance Marketing
• Double brand coverage and recognition — Branding

• What is a goal?

The steps carried out on digital platforms to achieve the purpose set above.

• To achieve the purpose of doubling revenue, you need:
• Specific advertising goals on digital platforms like Facebook/TikTok/Google Ads/etc. to increase the number of Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) delivered to the sales department.
• To double brand coverage and recognition:
• Specific goals to increase engagement on digital platforms like Facebook/TikTok/SEO/etc.

• What principles should goals and purposes follow?

Goals and purposes need to follow the SMART principle:

• Specific: clear and specific
• Measurable: can be measured
• Attainable: acceptable and achievable
• Relevant: relevant to past achievements
• Timely: has a specific deadline

The Business Model CANVAS analysis can help marketers identify and set direction for their Goals and Purposes, based on:

• Cost Structure
• Revenue Streams

Summary of the documents needed to build a digital marketing plan for a business

• The Business Model CANVAS analysis
• The SWOT analysis
• The Brief from the “Client” or business leadership

The Fool hopes the knowledge above can help you all prepare well for building a digital marketing plan for your business.

THE FOOL — EASY KNOWLEDGE CHANNEL