Having a digital presence strategy is a must in today’s economy. Regardless of the type of business you have, if customers can’t find you online, you don’t exist.
First, what IS a digital presence strategy? If you ask five people in your company this question, you’d get five different definitions based on their role. For example, the IT lead may describe digital presence as needing a cloud-based system or data analysis component. On the other hand, the marketing assistant sees digital presence as a way to increase sales. Basically, a digital presence strategy is a plan that helps a business achieve certain goals using a digital medium.
Digital Presence Strategy Considerations
There’s too much information to take a deep dive on how to create a digital strategy in just one article. Here’s a summary of the three areas to consider when creating a digital strategy:
- How to Gain Customers.
This area, also referred to as a customer acquisition strategy, is how your company identifies which mix of media and engagement resources, such as lead generation and product offers, to use in order to gain new customers. This part of the digital presence strategy helps define how you can target customers to promote your business and see if they have interest in what you have to offer.
- How to Convert Customers.
A conversion strategy is a marketing tactic that encourages customers to take a specific action. When determining your conversion strategy, you define the online experience and value proposition for customers. You also identify how you’ll integrate with traditional marketing channels, such as ads, radio, and printed material, to maximize conversion rates.
- How to Retain Customers.
The last component you need to address in creating a digital presence strategy is how to retain customers once you have them. This part of the strategy includes developing a growth strategy that outlines how to build relationships with your customers online and how to leverage them as advocates for your business. The end goal here is to keep your customers and have a plan on how to engage with them.
Helpful Questions to Use in Developing a Digital Strategy
Again, creating a digital presence strategy is not a quick process. It takes time, consideration, and asking the right questions to the right people within the organization to help shape it. Furthermore, it will evolve over time with your business. Here are a few questions you should consider when developing your digital presence strategy.
- How are your current outreach methods doing based on your goals? If you don’t know how your current marketing methods are working, it’s hard to define how you want your digital approach to work in acquiring new customers.
- How will you convert current customers to do business with you online?
- What is your value proposition and how do you match it to customer expectations?
- Do you really know what your customers need and are you filling that need?
- What type of offers or content will keep customers returning to conduct business online?
- Do you have enough mix of content and offers to attract and keep different kinds of customers?
Final Thoughts
You need to have a digital presence strategy to compete in today’s economy. As we’ve seen with recent events, customers look online for information. The best thing about a digital presence is that it can evolve as your business does. Additionally, it helps you adapt to changes in the industry and allows you to innovate as necessary. Check out Part One of this article for a few recent examples. Finally, it is a great way to engage with your customers and build long-lasting relationships.
Digital Wake is proud of our long-lasting client relationships. We stand ready to help you take your business to the next level, too. Let us know how we can help.
