How to Create a Successful Digital Strategy

Most of us know that having a digital strategy is important, but it can seem overwhelming. Where do you start? How do you know it’s successful? Beyond the reporting, how can we measure to make sure it’s attributing to ROI?

Let us help clear up some of the questions we get the most when it comes to a digital strategy.

Q. How do I get started with my digital strategy?

A. It’s a good idea to figure out who you want to target. Looking into your customer profile is a good first step. What age, gender, city and behaviors are you looking for when selecting your target audience. One of the great things about digital is you can get granular in your targeting, but it can be one of the challenges as well. You don’t want to narrow in too much because you could be missing out on customers that would be interested in your product but fall out of your behaviors you are targeting. When getting your digital strategy started it’s important to consider a balance of general targeting alongside a few key behaviors you know you are looking for. Ex: a restaurant is going to be looking for foodies where a fitness center is going to be looking for those that are interested in health and wellness.

Q. Is paid social considered part of my digital campaign?

A. Yes, absolutely. We feel the best digital campaigns should have 3 – 4 tactics as a minimum, and social is often one of those. It’s great that you are talking to the people that follow your page, but advertising through social media channels is just as important. This advertising will help you grow your engagement as well as the customer base on your page. It’s also a great way to get people using social media to your website.

Q. What are other tactics within the digital campaign should be considered?

A. Keyword targeting, Re-targeting, CRM Data targeting and Device ID Lookback targeting are often great tactics to add to your campaign’s success. Within each of these tactics there is some homework that needs to be done to fully understand how they work, and what is needed to activate them successfully. For example: Device ID Lookback targeting takes geofencing a step further by targeting those that have visited a specific physical address over the past 12 months. Once you’ve identified the targeted location and activate the campaign, you can track conversions and see how many people attended an event or visited a business after being served that specific ad.

Q. How do we measure the success of the campaign?

A. There are a few ways we measure success for your digital campaigns. We pre-determine 3 KPI’s with our clients. It’s important to have a few things you are looking for in order to get data and track the campaigns success. Some of the most popular ones include, traffic to the website, user engagement on the site, leads or conversions from the ad. If you can add pixels to the various pages of your website, you can refine the digital campaign from learned data. You can also see who interacts with the ad and track conversions. Once you have this information it’s easy to see the success of the campaign and over time you can see an average cost per interaction. This allows you to be even more efficient when determining increases in your spend since it gives you a better idea on what would come back in for revenue.

Eleven Twenty-Three is a full-service advertising agency in Omaha, NE that specializes in media planning and creative development. We help our client’s find smart solutions for their advertising needs. With capabilities in both traditional and digital media planning, we marry the two and create successful campaigns that see results. Need help growing your customer base? Let’s get the conversation started!

Author: Shana Boyd