Your audiences are using digital channels to seek out information and make decisions. Your leadership team is most likely realizing the increased importance of your company’s digital presence and how it can support company goals. This presents an opportunity for marketers to get the backing they need to develop and implement a digital marketing strategy that delivers results.
The statistics say it all:
Wherever your company is on their digital journey, here are five steps you can take to set the foundation for a digital strategy that aligns with your company’s direction:
Targeting your marketing efforts to specific audiences enables you to prioritize actions and make decisions that give you the greatest return on investment. When selecting your audiences, it’s important to think about your company’s current goals. For example, if your company is trying to gain awareness in new market sectors or for new services, your audience would be potential clients in that sector, as compared to the company goal of attracting new talent, your key audience would be potential hires. You can select more than one audience, but it’s important to prioritize them.
Audience personas are representations of typical members of your key audiences. For personas to be authentic and valuable, they should be based on research such as internal and external surveys that pick up on commonalities in your audiences’ needs, challenges, behaviors, interests and goals. Use these insights to develop your marketing strategy and inform decisions about channels, messaging, and types of content.
As your most valuable marketing asset, your website needs to evolve to support your company’s objectives and allow your company to stand apart from competition. Start by thinking about the top three to five things you want your website to do well. For example, you might want your website to highlight your breadth of services, showcase recent projects or position your company as a great place to work. If you’re not sure which pages to update, start with your most visited pages and key case studies based on your site’s analytics.
While audiences today are reading less and less, the popularity of video continues to rise. Companies can make the most of this to connect with their audiences and deliver messages in a more compelling way. Hearing and seeing someone speak about your company is more impactful than reading a paragraph or a quote. See how some of our clients are using video to connect.
Chances are that you have social media accounts for your business set up. But you may not have identified what you want to achieve through these channels. How is social going to support your marketing or company goals? Look back at your personas and focus on those channels that will get you in front of your target audiences. Insights from your personas will also inform what sort of content is going to resonate. Use social to be brave, try new things and keep your audience wanting more.
We had a lot of fun helping some of our clients connect with their audiences through digital channels in the past year. Laird Norton Wealth Management made the most of video to welcome their new CEO and introduce the company’s new strategic direction. Hansen Belyea helped SMPS Seattle transform its much-loved Reign Awards into the first ever “Virtual Gala” with this playful video rendition. While it is a serious event, humor was definitely incorporated into Compass Construction’s new virtual All-Company Meeting.
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If you’re thinking about the best way to develop a digital presence for your company, we’d love to connect and discuss. Contact Us
Statistic sources:
(WeidertGroup, 2020)
(Wyzowl, 2018)
(Hootsuite, 2021)