When it comes to digital marketing, every business should take time to set a strategy to help them achieve their goals.

I am still very surprised there are so many businesses that don’t have a strategy, spending on marketing products without any real reason or purpose.

This can be very dangerous as those businesses wont’ get the true value from products that they have invested in. Having a strategy in place whether is based on three months to 12 months will help you understand your needs and get the most out of your marketing.

Building a strategy might seem intimidating, however it doesn’t need to be difficult. In the coming months I will cover each element to help businesses put a plan together.

This week we will cover the first step of setting a digital strategy, understanding your customers. For any marketing strategy, online or offline, you need to know who you are marketing to. The best strategies come from businesses who know every detail about their potential customers. Through research using quantitative and qualitative information this will help you decide on the right marketing products to reach and engage with them.

Quantitative – a method of generating numerical data which can be transformed into useable statistics. Finding useful information such as location can help you understand where most of your website traffic comes from, identifying areas of potential customers. Utilising tools such as Google Analytics can help this process, there are a number of software tools that can also give you relevant data, this data is valuable as it will help you identify key marketing products that will help target your ideal customer.

Qualitative – a method of collecting data using unstructured methods, such as interviews, focus groups, observations, etc. This process will help you identify common problems that your customers face, their interests and behaviours which can help you put effective sales messages together, help produce relevant content plans as well as behavioural targeting options online.

Newsquest Wales is able to assist with your business to set a digital strategy together, and due to the quality of the targeting products available we can help you reach your target market without any wastage. For more information please don’t hesitate to contact myself on Iestyn.page@newsquest.co.uk

Next month we will look at goals and objectives.