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Digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes by giving access to the mass market at an affordable price. Unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing. Digital marketing also comes with a number of challenges you should be aware of.

Advantages of digital marketing

The main advantage of digital marketing is that a targeted audience can be reached cost-effectively and measurably. Other digital marketing advantages include increasing brand loyalty and driving online sales.

The benefits of digital marketing include:

Global reach

A website allows you to find new markets and trade globally for only a small investment.

Lower cost

A properly planned and well-targeted digital marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.

Trackable, measurable results

Measuring your online marketing with web analytics and other online metric tools makes it easier to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can obtain detailed information about how customers use your website or respond to your advertising.

Personalisation

If your customer database connects to your website, you can greet visitors with targeted offers. The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and market effectively to them.

Openness

By getting involved with social media and managing it carefully, you can build customer loyalty and create a reputation for being easy to engage with.

Social currency

Digital marketing lets you create engaging campaigns using content marketing tactics. This content (images, videos, articles) can gain social currency - being passed from user to user and becoming viral.

Improved conversion rates

If you have a website, then your customers are only ever a few clicks away from making purchase. Unlike other media which require people to get up and make a phone call, or go to a shop, digital marketing can be seamless and immediate.

Together, all these aspects of digital marketing have the potential to add up to more sales.

Disadvantages of digital marketing

Some of the downsides and challenges of digital marketing you should be aware of include:

Skills and training

You will need to ensure that your staff have the right knowledge and expertise to carry out digital marketing with success. Tools, platforms and trends change rapidly and you must keep up-to-date.

Time consuming

Tasks such as optimising online advertising campaigns and creating marketing content can take up a lot of time. It's important to measure your results to ensure a return-on-investment.

High competition

While you can reach a global audience with digital marketing, you are also up against global competition. It can be a challenge to stand out against competitors and to grab attention among the many messages aimed at consumers online.

Complaints and feedback

Any negative feedback or criticism of your brand is can be visible to your audience through social media and review websites. Carrying out effective customer service online can be challenging. Negative comments or failure to respond effectively can damage your brand reputation.

Security and privacy issues

There are a number of legal considerations around collecting and using customer data for digital marketing purposes. Take care to comply with the rules regarding privacy and data protection.

A customer persona is a profile based on an analysis and research of actual customers. It can help you to define the key trait and personal motivations of your target audience to help focus your marketing communications.

Creating a persona for an online customer can help you decide what digital marketing channels and techniques to use based on their preferences. Defining your target market should be a key part of your overall marketing strategy.

What are the benefits of online personas?

Creating customer personas for an online marketing campaign can help you to: 

• understand customer needs, wants and interests
• learn which products or services to promote to your target audience
• decide which digital channels to adopt (eg social media, e-newsletters etc
• create highly targeted, personalised content and messaging
• map out your customer buying journey and add value at every step
• design your emails and newsletters
• determine your tone of voice and strategy on your social media channels 

With the rise of social media, customers are now also influencers. User-generated content such as online reviews and social media posts can persuade (or dissuade) new customers to try your product or service. This makes knowing your customers and putting them first even more important. 

Avoid targeting those you do not want as a customer by creating 'negative personas' to exclude. For example, customer groups that are not profitable. See target your most profitable customers.

Use market research to create personas

Market research can help you to get a clear picture of your buyer persona, who they are and what problem you can solve for them.

This could include:

• Using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to conduct polls and surveys.
• Send email surveys to your marketing database.
• Meet your customers for face-to-face interviews to find out their specific needs and wants. This is known as qualitative research. See the difference between quantitative and qualitative research.
• Research your competition to see what they do, how they interact with their customers and vice versa. See understand your competitors.

For more information on conducting market research, see market research and market reports and understand your customers' needs.

Use online analytics to understand personas

Analytics and insights can help you understand how your customers behave and interact with your online channels. This includes:

• the page on which they land on your website
• how they got to your website
• how long they spend on your site
• what they look at on your website
• what they are searching for
• what language they use on social media channels - eg hashtags, emojis
• what social media topics are they interested in - eg design, environment

This information can give insights into their needs, interests and behaviours. You can use this to inform and drive how you interact with them.

See measuring your online marketing.

Create an online buyer persona

With the data you gather through market research and online analytics, you can define your target market. This involves considering factors such as demographics, lifestyle and attitudes. You can then decide how best to reach specific customer personas.

Our customer persona template outlines how to lay out key elements of a customer persona, including information such where they get information from, traits, frustrations and motivations.  Download our sample customer persona template (DOC, 24KB).

It is important to recognise that planning for digital marketing doesn't mean starting from scratch. Any online communication should be in line with the overall marketing goals and current marketing efforts of your business.

The stages of digital marketing planning

The main components of a digital marketing plan will typically include the following stages:

Identify your target audience

If you identify multiple targets, rank them in order of importance so that you can allocate resources accordingly. Profile each target group and understand their needs and expectations. This type of customer segmentation will help you choose the right tactics for your plan.

Understand your competitors

Profile your competitors and the market in which you operate. What types of online marketing do your competitors use and how well do they perform? This type of benchmarking will help you understand the environment in which you are operating.

Set your objectives

Possible objectives could include raising awareness of your brand, improving sales or online registrations and improving customer retention. The objectives and strategy that you choose depend on your business needs.

Plan your tactics

Once you have a top-level strategy including your overall objectives, you need to identify the tactics that you want to use. The plan can also cover any other non-internet marketing activities that are being undertaken. Think about how you will measure your success - build in feedback mechanisms and regular reviews to enable you to assess the performance of your digital marketing activities and identify areas for improvement.

Agree a budget

Careful budget planning allows you to prevent costs from spiralling out of control. Identify the returns you expect to make from your investment in digital marketing activities and compare these with the costs to develop a cost/benefit analysis. 

What to include in a written plan

When you write up a document detailing your digital marketing plan - include these important elements:

• executive summary
• situation analysis
• objectives and strategy
• tactics
• budget

Details of how to develop each element are included in this guide. 

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

A website provides an ongoing point of contact with customers and can be a useful way of collecting information for digital marketing purposes and for building successful relationships with them.

Provide engaging content

Make the information that you provide about you and your business as engaging as possible. Think about what you can add to your website that will benefit your customers and add value, eg online discount codes.

Blogs and social media can be another way of providing more engaging content for your customers encouraging them to come back. Consider creating content that your users will find entertaining, interesting or useful. For example, a food provider could publish recipes that use their products.

See content marketing.

Answering frequently asked questions

Answering the frequently asked questions customers ask on your website and social media demonstrates you're ready to help and may reduce the number of phone queries.

Provide an email facility for queries and customer feedback - but ensure someone checks them regularly. Respond to queries promptly and let people know their comments are appreciated.

Asking visitors to register

Many businesses ask visitors to their site to register. This can be useful for gathering statistics and email addresses for direct mailings.

But asking people to register straight away may put them off. Most people won’t sign up without an incentive. This could be a special offer or access to exclusive information that non-subscribers can’t get. Ask for the minimum details possible. There are some legal considerations if you intend to collect personal data.

Customer relationship management

Many businesses invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) system to improve their customer services. The CRM system brings information like customer data, sales patterns, marketing data and future trends together to identify new sales opportunities, deliver improved customer service, or offer personalised services and deals. If your website uses a content management system it may be possible to integrate it with your CRM - to provide more targeted marketing to your customers online. 

A CRM system is also a very effective way of handling customer complaints. A well-managed CRM system can have a tremendous effect on your reputation if managed well.

When planning your digital marketing, having a written plan in place can help keep you on track. Use our downloadable template to create your digital marketing plan.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

Remember that your digital marketing plan should be in line with your current marketing plan and business plan. Your digital efforts should contribute to the overall aims of your organisation.

For guidance on completing each section of the plan, see:

• digital marketing plan - executive summary
• digital marketing plan - situation analysis
• digital marketing plan - objectives and strategy
• digital marketing plan - tactics
• digital marketing plan - budget

The executive summary of your digital marketing plan should provide a short synopsis of your entire digital marketing strategy. It should include highlights from each section of the rest of the document.

The role of the executive summary is to provide enough detail to interest busy senior executives and encourage them to buy into the digital marketing plan and how it can benefit the business.

It should be concise - ideally a page in length - easy to understand, and interesting without using hype. It's advisable to write this section of your plan after you have completed the rest.

The summary should outline the following:

• your business environment
• the key issues that have emerged from your situation analysis
• the key objectives of your digital marketing plan
• the strategies and tactics to be used
• the projected outcomes and expected return on investment

Download sample digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

The situation analysis section of your digital marketing plan needs to describe the context in which your digital marketing will take place. It should include an analysis of your business' internal (micro) and external (macro) environments.

Internal factors include your:

• customers
• market, and any trends in this
• current online presence
• competitors

External factors could be:

• social - how changing consumer attitudes could affect your approach
• legal - ie complying with digital marketing laws, such as data protection
• environmental - eg making sure your approach is ethical and sustainable
• political - how local or national government could impact on your plan
• technological - how advances in technology could affect your marketplace

There are models to help you consider these factors, such as a SWOT and PEST analysis. See a SWOT analysis example.

Once you have considered each of these, you should carry out a digital-specific analysis showing your business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 

Where possible you should use qualitative and quantitative data to 91Ï㽶»ÆÉ«ÊÓƵ your analysis, as well as images, charts and graphs to illustrate your findings.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

When defining your digital marketing objectives, you should think about how they will align with your overall business goals and your key performance indicators. See measure performance and set targets.

You should also consider what the return on your investment will be. This is likely to be financial, but could also include, for example:

• an improved conversion rate
• greater brand awareness
• an increase in visits to your website
• a greater market share

Examples of digital marketing objectives

The objectives you decide on for your digital marketing need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely).  
Some examples of SMART digital marketing objectives are:

• achieve 200 'contact us' conversions via organic search traffic by the end of the financial year
• reduce bounce rate from pay-per-click traffic to below 50% across all ads by December
• increase the average order value of website sales to £35 per customer by the end of the quarter

See your marketing objectives.

The customer journey

Your plan needs to look at the whole customer journey:

• awareness - how a customer will become aware of your brand
• acquisition - why they will then want to visit your website
• conversion - how easily will they be able to make a purchase or register once on your site

Set SMART objective to improve performance at every stage of the customer journey. 

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

Measuring digital marketing objectives

At this stage, you should consider how you will track and measure how well you have met the targets set in your objectives. You can define the further in the tactics section of your plan.

See measuring your online marketing.

The tactics section of your digital marketing plan will describe how you will implement your strategy and define the channels and tools that you will use. It should define what you hope to achieve by using each tactic and how this relates to your main objectives. It should include how you will measure your performance.

Planning your digital marketing tactics

Your tactics should include:

• Digital marketing channels -a summary of your digital marketing mix - what channels will you use?
• Justification - the reasons why you have chosen each channel and details of implementation.
• Customer segmentation - the customer segmentation that you will use and how each channel will be targeted.
• Performance measurement - a summary of the metrics that you will use to measure performance for each channel, including key performance indicators.

Types of digital marketing tactic

There are a number of digital marketing channels and tactics you can consider:

• email marketing- an effective and low cost option to reach your audience
• search engine optimisation (SEO)- increase your organic search traffic
• content marketing - think strategically about your approach to online content
• pay-per-click and paid search advertisinga measurable form of online advertising
• social media- offers highly targeted advertising options
• set up a small business website- a good website is key to securing online conversions
• create an online shopconsider your options for selling online
• selling through online marketplaces- some businesses sell through other websites as well as their own to reach new audiences

Digital marketing tactics to achieve objectives

Presenting your tactics in a table will help make your summary easier to read. It may also be useful to group tactics by goal:

• awareness activities aim to increase awareness of your brand or message
• acquisition tactics focus on gaining more customers
• conversion tactics seek to increase online sales or registrations

If you are employing an agency to carry out specific parts of your digital marketing, they should feed into this section.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

The final section of your digital marketing plan will outline your budget for achieving your objectives. This is best presented as a single spreadsheet, providing specific details on:

• what you plan to spend overall
• how this will be broken down across tactics over a fixed period
• any financial key performance indicators or milestones that need to be met
• potential return on investment across channels
• a summary of projected benefits - which can be used in the executive summary

The summary of projected benefits should include estimates of how much traffic will come from each tactic and the number of prospects that will likely go on to convert. Try to back up your estimates with figures wherever possible. This will help justify the mix of tactics you have chosen.

You should also include an analysis of projected sales, across tactics, and the profit that each will generate. This will help you quantify the net profit from your overall digital marketing plan.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

There are a number of laws that relate specifically to digital marketing. You need to keep abreast of changes in this area to ensure that you are complying with the various rules.

Email and SMS marketing rules

There are rules covering marketing emails and SMS messages to individuals.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations introduced an opt-in consent procedure for commercial emails - which means you can only target people who have agreed to be contacted.

The rules only apply to new customers. You can continue marketing to existing customers provided they can opt-out of future messages and the marketing messages cover similar products and services.

You must also clearly mark your emails with your contact details and include a valid return email address.

Your website and social media

All websites should carry your company's registered address and company (or charity) registration number. Consider including usage terms and conditions and a disclaimer for your website:

• sample website usage terms and conditions
• sample website disclaimer

You should be aware of legal implications and best practice when using social media.

Using cookies

Cookies are text files that are stored on a user's computer when they visit a website that uses them. Thereafter, the cookie sends information back to the website and can be used to monitor browsing preferences of users, eg types of goods searched for, pages visited and length of dwell time on each page.

Businesses must tell visitors to their website that they use cookies and obtain their consent. You must also tell your site users how you use cookies. See using cookies and the law.

Digital marketing can have huge potential for businesses of all sizes. To make the most of it, it's important to think strategically and plan carefully. Follow these tips for planning your digital marketing:

Build relationships

By building digital relationships with your customers you can encourage brand loyalty and increase your profits. Consider content marketing tactics as part of your digital marketing campaign. Use a customer relationship management system to improve targeting and customer service.

Use customer personas

By understanding your customers you can choose the right channels to reach them with highly targeted, personalised marketing communications. See how to create customer personas.

Set SMART objectives

Make sure that the objectives of your digital marketing campaign are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. For example, you could aim to secure 25 event registrations through your website per month.

Choose the right tactics

There are a wide range of digital marketing tactics you can use, such as email marketing and social media. Consider your audience and your objectives to decide which tactics will be the most effective.

Measure and optimise

Use web analytics to determine how successful your tactics are. Adjust your campaigns and track the results to make improvements. See measuring your online marketing.

A written plan is the best way to keep your digital marketing efforts on track. Use our downloadable template to create your digital marketing plan.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

Digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes by giving access to the mass market at an affordable price. Unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing. Digital marketing also comes with a number of challenges you should be aware of.

Advantages of digital marketing

The main advantage of digital marketing is that a targeted audience can be reached cost-effectively and measurably. Other digital marketing advantages include increasing brand loyalty and driving online sales.

The benefits of digital marketing include:

Global reach

A website allows you to find new markets and trade globally for only a small investment.

Lower cost

A properly planned and well-targeted digital marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.

Trackable, measurable results

Measuring your online marketing with web analytics and other online metric tools makes it easier to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can obtain detailed information about how customers use your website or respond to your advertising.

Personalisation

If your customer database connects to your website, you can greet visitors with targeted offers. The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and market effectively to them.

Openness

By getting involved with social media and managing it carefully, you can build customer loyalty and create a reputation for being easy to engage with.

Social currency

Digital marketing lets you create engaging campaigns using content marketing tactics. This content (images, videos, articles) can gain social currency - being passed from user to user and becoming viral.

Improved conversion rates

If you have a website, then your customers are only ever a few clicks away from making purchase. Unlike other media which require people to get up and make a phone call, or go to a shop, digital marketing can be seamless and immediate.

Together, all these aspects of digital marketing have the potential to add up to more sales.

Disadvantages of digital marketing

Some of the downsides and challenges of digital marketing you should be aware of include:

Skills and training

You will need to ensure that your staff have the right knowledge and expertise to carry out digital marketing with success. Tools, platforms and trends change rapidly and you must keep up-to-date.

Time consuming

Tasks such as optimising online advertising campaigns and creating marketing content can take up a lot of time. It's important to measure your results to ensure a return-on-investment.

High competition

While you can reach a global audience with digital marketing, you are also up against global competition. It can be a challenge to stand out against competitors and to grab attention among the many messages aimed at consumers online.

Complaints and feedback

Any negative feedback or criticism of your brand is can be visible to your audience through social media and review websites. Carrying out effective customer service online can be challenging. Negative comments or failure to respond effectively can damage your brand reputation.

Security and privacy issues

There are a number of legal considerations around collecting and using customer data for digital marketing purposes. Take care to comply with the rules regarding privacy and data protection.

A customer persona is a profile based on an analysis and research of actual customers. It can help you to define the key trait and personal motivations of your target audience to help focus your marketing communications.

Creating a persona for an online customer can help you decide what digital marketing channels and techniques to use based on their preferences. Defining your target market should be a key part of your overall marketing strategy.

What are the benefits of online personas?

Creating customer personas for an online marketing campaign can help you to: 

• understand customer needs, wants and interests
• learn which products or services to promote to your target audience
• decide which digital channels to adopt (eg social media, e-newsletters etc
• create highly targeted, personalised content and messaging
• map out your customer buying journey and add value at every step
• design your emails and newsletters
• determine your tone of voice and strategy on your social media channels 

With the rise of social media, customers are now also influencers. User-generated content such as online reviews and social media posts can persuade (or dissuade) new customers to try your product or service. This makes knowing your customers and putting them first even more important. 

Avoid targeting those you do not want as a customer by creating 'negative personas' to exclude. For example, customer groups that are not profitable. See target your most profitable customers.

Use market research to create personas

Market research can help you to get a clear picture of your buyer persona, who they are and what problem you can solve for them.

This could include:

• Using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to conduct polls and surveys.
• Send email surveys to your marketing database.
• Meet your customers for face-to-face interviews to find out their specific needs and wants. This is known as qualitative research. See the difference between quantitative and qualitative research.
• Research your competition to see what they do, how they interact with their customers and vice versa. See understand your competitors.

For more information on conducting market research, see market research and market reports and understand your customers' needs.

Use online analytics to understand personas

Analytics and insights can help you understand how your customers behave and interact with your online channels. This includes:

• the page on which they land on your website
• how they got to your website
• how long they spend on your site
• what they look at on your website
• what they are searching for
• what language they use on social media channels - eg hashtags, emojis
• what social media topics are they interested in - eg design, environment

This information can give insights into their needs, interests and behaviours. You can use this to inform and drive how you interact with them.

See measuring your online marketing.

Create an online buyer persona

With the data you gather through market research and online analytics, you can define your target market. This involves considering factors such as demographics, lifestyle and attitudes. You can then decide how best to reach specific customer personas.

Our customer persona template outlines how to lay out key elements of a customer persona, including information such where they get information from, traits, frustrations and motivations.  Download our sample customer persona template (DOC, 24KB).

It is important to recognise that planning for digital marketing doesn't mean starting from scratch. Any online communication should be in line with the overall marketing goals and current marketing efforts of your business.

The stages of digital marketing planning

The main components of a digital marketing plan will typically include the following stages:

Identify your target audience

If you identify multiple targets, rank them in order of importance so that you can allocate resources accordingly. Profile each target group and understand their needs and expectations. This type of customer segmentation will help you choose the right tactics for your plan.

Understand your competitors

Profile your competitors and the market in which you operate. What types of online marketing do your competitors use and how well do they perform? This type of benchmarking will help you understand the environment in which you are operating.

Set your objectives

Possible objectives could include raising awareness of your brand, improving sales or online registrations and improving customer retention. The objectives and strategy that you choose depend on your business needs.

Plan your tactics

Once you have a top-level strategy including your overall objectives, you need to identify the tactics that you want to use. The plan can also cover any other non-internet marketing activities that are being undertaken. Think about how you will measure your success - build in feedback mechanisms and regular reviews to enable you to assess the performance of your digital marketing activities and identify areas for improvement.

Agree a budget

Careful budget planning allows you to prevent costs from spiralling out of control. Identify the returns you expect to make from your investment in digital marketing activities and compare these with the costs to develop a cost/benefit analysis. 

What to include in a written plan

When you write up a document detailing your digital marketing plan - include these important elements:

• executive summary
• situation analysis
• objectives and strategy
• tactics
• budget

Details of how to develop each element are included in this guide. 

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

A website provides an ongoing point of contact with customers and can be a useful way of collecting information for digital marketing purposes and for building successful relationships with them.

Provide engaging content

Make the information that you provide about you and your business as engaging as possible. Think about what you can add to your website that will benefit your customers and add value, eg online discount codes.

Blogs and social media can be another way of providing more engaging content for your customers encouraging them to come back. Consider creating content that your users will find entertaining, interesting or useful. For example, a food provider could publish recipes that use their products.

See content marketing.

Answering frequently asked questions

Answering the frequently asked questions customers ask on your website and social media demonstrates you're ready to help and may reduce the number of phone queries.

Provide an email facility for queries and customer feedback - but ensure someone checks them regularly. Respond to queries promptly and let people know their comments are appreciated.

Asking visitors to register

Many businesses ask visitors to their site to register. This can be useful for gathering statistics and email addresses for direct mailings.

But asking people to register straight away may put them off. Most people won’t sign up without an incentive. This could be a special offer or access to exclusive information that non-subscribers can’t get. Ask for the minimum details possible. There are some legal considerations if you intend to collect personal data.

Customer relationship management

Many businesses invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) system to improve their customer services. The CRM system brings information like customer data, sales patterns, marketing data and future trends together to identify new sales opportunities, deliver improved customer service, or offer personalised services and deals. If your website uses a content management system it may be possible to integrate it with your CRM - to provide more targeted marketing to your customers online. 

A CRM system is also a very effective way of handling customer complaints. A well-managed CRM system can have a tremendous effect on your reputation if managed well.

When planning your digital marketing, having a written plan in place can help keep you on track. Use our downloadable template to create your digital marketing plan.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

Remember that your digital marketing plan should be in line with your current marketing plan and business plan. Your digital efforts should contribute to the overall aims of your organisation.

For guidance on completing each section of the plan, see:

• digital marketing plan - executive summary
• digital marketing plan - situation analysis
• digital marketing plan - objectives and strategy
• digital marketing plan - tactics
• digital marketing plan - budget

The executive summary of your digital marketing plan should provide a short synopsis of your entire digital marketing strategy. It should include highlights from each section of the rest of the document.

The role of the executive summary is to provide enough detail to interest busy senior executives and encourage them to buy into the digital marketing plan and how it can benefit the business.

It should be concise - ideally a page in length - easy to understand, and interesting without using hype. It's advisable to write this section of your plan after you have completed the rest.

The summary should outline the following:

• your business environment
• the key issues that have emerged from your situation analysis
• the key objectives of your digital marketing plan
• the strategies and tactics to be used
• the projected outcomes and expected return on investment

Download sample digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

The situation analysis section of your digital marketing plan needs to describe the context in which your digital marketing will take place. It should include an analysis of your business' internal (micro) and external (macro) environments.

Internal factors include your:

• customers
• market, and any trends in this
• current online presence
• competitors

External factors could be:

• social - how changing consumer attitudes could affect your approach
• legal - ie complying with digital marketing laws, such as data protection
• environmental - eg making sure your approach is ethical and sustainable
• political - how local or national government could impact on your plan
• technological - how advances in technology could affect your marketplace

There are models to help you consider these factors, such as a SWOT and PEST analysis. See a SWOT analysis example.

Once you have considered each of these, you should carry out a digital-specific analysis showing your business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 

Where possible you should use qualitative and quantitative data to 91Ï㽶»ÆÉ«ÊÓƵ your analysis, as well as images, charts and graphs to illustrate your findings.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

When defining your digital marketing objectives, you should think about how they will align with your overall business goals and your key performance indicators. See measure performance and set targets.

You should also consider what the return on your investment will be. This is likely to be financial, but could also include, for example:

• an improved conversion rate
• greater brand awareness
• an increase in visits to your website
• a greater market share

Examples of digital marketing objectives

The objectives you decide on for your digital marketing need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely).  
Some examples of SMART digital marketing objectives are:

• achieve 200 'contact us' conversions via organic search traffic by the end of the financial year
• reduce bounce rate from pay-per-click traffic to below 50% across all ads by December
• increase the average order value of website sales to £35 per customer by the end of the quarter

See your marketing objectives.

The customer journey

Your plan needs to look at the whole customer journey:

• awareness - how a customer will become aware of your brand
• acquisition - why they will then want to visit your website
• conversion - how easily will they be able to make a purchase or register once on your site

Set SMART objective to improve performance at every stage of the customer journey. 

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

Measuring digital marketing objectives

At this stage, you should consider how you will track and measure how well you have met the targets set in your objectives. You can define the further in the tactics section of your plan.

See measuring your online marketing.

The tactics section of your digital marketing plan will describe how you will implement your strategy and define the channels and tools that you will use. It should define what you hope to achieve by using each tactic and how this relates to your main objectives. It should include how you will measure your performance.

Planning your digital marketing tactics

Your tactics should include:

• Digital marketing channels -a summary of your digital marketing mix - what channels will you use?
• Justification - the reasons why you have chosen each channel and details of implementation.
• Customer segmentation - the customer segmentation that you will use and how each channel will be targeted.
• Performance measurement - a summary of the metrics that you will use to measure performance for each channel, including key performance indicators.

Types of digital marketing tactic

There are a number of digital marketing channels and tactics you can consider:

• email marketing- an effective and low cost option to reach your audience
• search engine optimisation (SEO)- increase your organic search traffic
• content marketing - think strategically about your approach to online content
• pay-per-click and paid search advertisinga measurable form of online advertising
• social media- offers highly targeted advertising options
• set up a small business website- a good website is key to securing online conversions
• create an online shopconsider your options for selling online
• selling through online marketplaces- some businesses sell through other websites as well as their own to reach new audiences

Digital marketing tactics to achieve objectives

Presenting your tactics in a table will help make your summary easier to read. It may also be useful to group tactics by goal:

• awareness activities aim to increase awareness of your brand or message
• acquisition tactics focus on gaining more customers
• conversion tactics seek to increase online sales or registrations

If you are employing an agency to carry out specific parts of your digital marketing, they should feed into this section.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

The final section of your digital marketing plan will outline your budget for achieving your objectives. This is best presented as a single spreadsheet, providing specific details on:

• what you plan to spend overall
• how this will be broken down across tactics over a fixed period
• any financial key performance indicators or milestones that need to be met
• potential return on investment across channels
• a summary of projected benefits - which can be used in the executive summary

The summary of projected benefits should include estimates of how much traffic will come from each tactic and the number of prospects that will likely go on to convert. Try to back up your estimates with figures wherever possible. This will help justify the mix of tactics you have chosen.

You should also include an analysis of projected sales, across tactics, and the profit that each will generate. This will help you quantify the net profit from your overall digital marketing plan.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).

There are a number of laws that relate specifically to digital marketing. You need to keep abreast of changes in this area to ensure that you are complying with the various rules.

Email and SMS marketing rules

There are rules covering marketing emails and SMS messages to individuals.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations introduced an opt-in consent procedure for commercial emails - which means you can only target people who have agreed to be contacted.

The rules only apply to new customers. You can continue marketing to existing customers provided they can opt-out of future messages and the marketing messages cover similar products and services.

You must also clearly mark your emails with your contact details and include a valid return email address.

Your website and social media

All websites should carry your company's registered address and company (or charity) registration number. Consider including usage terms and conditions and a disclaimer for your website:

• sample website usage terms and conditions
• sample website disclaimer

You should be aware of legal implications and best practice when using social media.

Using cookies

Cookies are text files that are stored on a user's computer when they visit a website that uses them. Thereafter, the cookie sends information back to the website and can be used to monitor browsing preferences of users, eg types of goods searched for, pages visited and length of dwell time on each page.

Businesses must tell visitors to their website that they use cookies and obtain their consent. You must also tell your site users how you use cookies. See using cookies and the law.

Digital marketing can have huge potential for businesses of all sizes. To make the most of it, it's important to think strategically and plan carefully. Follow these tips for planning your digital marketing:

Build relationships

By building digital relationships with your customers you can encourage brand loyalty and increase your profits. Consider content marketing tactics as part of your digital marketing campaign. Use a customer relationship management system to improve targeting and customer service.

Use customer personas

By understanding your customers you can choose the right channels to reach them with highly targeted, personalised marketing communications. See how to create customer personas.

Set SMART objectives

Make sure that the objectives of your digital marketing campaign are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. For example, you could aim to secure 25 event registrations through your website per month.

Choose the right tactics

There are a wide range of digital marketing tactics you can use, such as email marketing and social media. Consider your audience and your objectives to decide which tactics will be the most effective.

Measure and optimise

Use web analytics to determine how successful your tactics are. Adjust your campaigns and track the results to make improvements. See measuring your online marketing.

A written plan is the best way to keep your digital marketing efforts on track. Use our downloadable template to create your digital marketing plan.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).