These should be your first steps for a digital marketing strategy

Digital marketing, which company didn’t face it in recent periods? In the past year alone this field experienced an enormous growth in comparison with the 7 years before.

Companies that didn’t went along with this digital growth certainly experience some problems in their business.

The first steps to a digital marketing strategy

The world of online marketing, and thereby the tools that come along with this exponential growth, are endless. This means that we as marketers are capable of using more and more tools to make our strategy stronger and stronger.

In my eyes, it’s an enormous lack if we leave these opportunities unused.

Let’s start our digital journey with the data part.

Step 1: data

In the world of data, we make the difference between “qualitative data” and “quantitative data”.

Now, not to scare you with some flashbacks to your math class back in high school, it’s rather simple.

Quantitative data is hard numbers. It’s data where you can do calculations with. Hard numbers like website visitors, time on site, bouncerate but also CTR, CPA, CPL, and more of those beautiful numbers.

On the other hand, we have qualitative data. Data that does not equal numbers. Data which you can use to answer “why” questions.

To make it even more simple, quantitative data is used to determine what is happened and qualitative data is used to predict what will happen.

Obviously, these two go hand in hand in the world of data-driven growth hacking, but they are not equally used in the different parts of the funnel.

Tools:
The most used tools in this part of the strategy building are Google analytics and Google tag manager. Alright, analytics is not flawless, but it is still the most used tool, free and easy.

Another great tool in this data chapter is something like Hotjar or Spysession to see the flow of your visitors.

Why this data?
This data is used to build your so-called customer journey, funnel or flow. It also put you in a state where you can make a hypothesis about the next step, but more important measure if those steps resulted in the right outcome.

Step 2: Funnelhacking

I love this word. I think it’s the most fun part of the whole strategy framework.

Funnelhacking is also a world where a lot of marketers show some form of allergic reaction.

“No, we don’t need a funnel. Our product is different and doesn’t fit in the whole funnel building idea”.

Complete nonsense I think. Every product or service fits in some sort of funnel. The one just a bit more and extensive than the other, but every product or service needs one.

The drawing of a funnel is one exercise I oftentimes use to get more clarity in the flow a lead or customer follows.

It’s rather simple. Just imagine all the steps a lead follows. All the steps from not knowing you at all, to the lifetime customer you want and everything in between.

How you call this funnel is totally up to you. I’m a big fan of the so-called pirate funnel, but that’s because I call myself a growth hacker.

Tools used:
This is an area with more tools than you can imagine. I’m a big fan of the tool called Funnelytics. But also the free tool called Whimsical is great for building and visualizing these funnels.

Step 3: buyer persona

Let’s find out what kind of visitors or clients you want. The perfect client also called the buyer persona.

Sometimes, depending on the case study, I make this buyer persona before the funnel. So step 3 becomes step 2.

I’m not a big fan of the traditional funnel. Like building a personal profile where some information about the age, the language, and if the person has 1 or 2 cats living in his apartment.

Al information which doesn't provide the necessary information about the “why”.

You know, why does someone want to be your customer. What is the job to be done or what problem do you solve.

In this case, I rather use something like “empathie mapping” or the “Jobs To Be Done” framework.

The whole purpose of this step is to find out the person who can solve their problem with your service or product.

Tools used:
There are a lot of tools for this phase. If you want to know what kind of person your client is, Crystal Knows gives you scarily precise information about the personality, and also Sparktoro is perfect for finding insights about where your ideal client is.

Step 4: analyzing your data and formulating goals

Alright, time for the last step in this fun process.

The most important step is combining all the data you have gathered and make a strategy.

Normally I do this by finding a bottleneck. A bottleneck in the form of a big drop in the funnel.

For example, If I see a big drop in the activation phase, then I need a strategy to improve that phase.

I go through a process called the GROWS process which will give me a framework (I love frameworks) to come up with ideas to improve that One Metric That Matters.

If you have everything in place, it’s a lot easier to come up with the channels you are going to use in your strategy. Much easier because you now have a clear insight into the product, your ideal customer, your budget, and you can know determine the next steps.

Enjoy the process!

Jan Willem den Hollander
Dutch-based growth hacker
jwdenhollander.nl