3 Reasons You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy

If you don’t have a strategy in place or wonder if it’s worth the time, we’re taking you through our top 3 reasons you need to create a digital marketing strategy. And the top 2 reasons you might need a helping hand.

Digital marketing has always been an asset to a business, whether a brick-and-mortar store or an online service. But in the last few years, we have seen how important it has become to businesses of all shapes and sizes. If you don’t have a digital marketing strategy, you are probably still online in some capacity. But, if you don’t have a roadmap, you are left frantically completing actions that aren’t growing your business.

1. You are doing “all the things” with no success

As small business owners, if there’s one thing we don’t have, it’s time. So, why would you not have a digital marketing strategy in place? Without an idea of what you’re trying to achieve, you won’t know how to achieve it. You are stuck in limbo, trying a little bit of everything to see what works, but without a goal, how can you even track that?

Once you cement your strategy, you will have a smaller list of actionable tasks that should move you in the right direction. Concentrate on those; you can pivot as needed. But you absolutely cannot post endlessly, comment on everything, join every group on every network and expect it to do anything other than leave you frustrated and exhausted.

2. You have limited resources

It may sound counter-intuitive, but if your resources are limited, you need a strategy more than ever. It may seem cheaper to just wing it, but without effective cost and time tracking, you can spend much more of your available resources, usually without concentrating on the things that matter. For example, a highly targeted Facebook ad campaign may seem an avoidable expense, but if the alternative is spending an hour a day in networking groups, it is likely much more cost-effective than what you’re doing!

Your time has monetary value, even if you don’t perceive it that way. Freeing up your time allows you to concentrate on other elements of your business to help it grow and thrive while giving yourself more downtime so you can be more effective.

3. You aren’t able to optimize

If you don’t have a planned approach, you can’t know what’s working. Without that piece of the puzzle, you can’t improve the elements that need some TLC or repurpose assets to up their value.

Let’s discuss this for a second because it is something many business owners miss. If you start with what you want to achieve and track what you are putting out there, you will see what resonates with your target audience. Each successful piece of content is not a one-and-done thing! If you write an engaging, popular blog, you can recycle it into a podcast, video, social media campaign, ad campaign and more. But this is only achievable if you can see what’s working. Sometimes, a small tweak can skyrocket something from meh to marvellous, but, again, if you aren’t strategic about your digital marketing activities, you probably won’t notice that!

Related content:

Why hire a digital marketing team?
Digital Adoption
Contact us to start a Canada Digital Adoption Program grant

Why you shouldn’t use a D-I-Y approach

We mentioned at the top that we would also give you two reasons why you shouldn’t do everything yourself, and we really mean it. Almost every small business owner can relate to at least one, if not both, of these!

1. Too many hats – whether you are working solo or have a small team around you, you and your staff are probably wearing too many hats. We bet you are trying to manage your sales, marketing, accounting, HR, customer support, and much more with limited success. If you are taking on too much, you can’t do much of it effectively. Marketing is an area where experience counts. Removing 10 hours of marketing from your week may be as little as 2 hours of work for an experienced team.
2. Not enough time – as we mentioned above, no small business owner can afford to be frivolous with time. Spare time is precious, and each hour spent on your business has to be effective. The same goes for any team support you might have. You are paying them to do their job, and we’re pretty sure they didn’t sign on to be a marketer, or you wouldn’t be reading this article! Digital marketing can be a time thief, but when you have a solid strategy that’s working, it is also the most effective way to grow your business. If you don’t have the time to jump in with both feet, you’ll see better results if you outsource it.

Need a hand?

More than 75% of advertising budgets in developed nations are spent on digital media. And it doesn’t just work for mega-corporations; we have seen it work again and again for small business owners, just like you. If you want to transform your digital marketing results, let’s talk strategy! Click here to get started.

Cyber PR Army Solutions Inc..
Digital Marketing Made Easy.