Digital marketing plan: because marketing is not about “getting by”
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 8:16 am
You’ve probably noticed how easy it is for businesses to fall into the trap of “let’s do it” without a “how we’re going to do it” when it comes to internet marketing. The idea of winging it may seem tempting, but the truth is that without a good digital marketing plan, you end up playing against yourself.
What would have happened to the hobbits’ journey in “The Lord of the Rings” if they hadn’t come up with a plan to destroy the Ring? Without Gandalf’s strategy and teamwork, the story would have been very different.
In the real world, this lack of planning is more common than it seems. According to a report by Smart Insights , only 17% of people have clearly defined their digital marketing strategies . That’s right, most of them are just walking around blindly on the internet and hoping that things will work out by luck.
Just like hobbits, businesses need a clear roadmap to guide their actions and achieve their goals on the internet. In this guide, we’ll explain how to do this from scratch!
What is a digital marketing plan?
The digital marketing plan is a set of actions that describe how the company will use digital channels to promote its products and services .
It allows you to centralize all your digital strategies and avoid a mess of loose ideas. It makes it easy to know what needs to be done, how to measure whether it is working, and when to do it.
There is the possibility of a plan being made for the entire brand, with actions that will be applied indefinitely on digital channels, and plans for specific campaigns, such as a Black Friday promotion or the launch of a new product.
Whatever the focus, the idea is to have everything well aligned: goals, strategies, people responsible and indicators to know if you are on the right track.
Some key information cannot be missing from a perfect digital marketing plan :
objectives;
key performance indicators;
methodologies;
audiences and personas;
competitors;
channels of action;
tools;
budget;
schedules and deadlines;
responsible.
Every detail counts: the audience you want to impact, the platforms you will use and the messages you want to convey.
“Okay, but do I really need this?”
You already know what a digital marketing plan is, but perhaps you still have that question: “ Is it really worth dedicating a few hours (or even days) to creating one? ”
The short answer is yes, it is worth it! But let's understand why.
Anyone who works in small businesses or agencies knows how ideas can get lost in the air. The routine is full of urgent matters, ideas come from all sides and, suddenly, you are jumping from one action to another without a clear direction.
It's normal to have a thousand ideas for the brand, campaigns that seem promising, but if they are not planned, the risk of wasting time, money and energy is immense .
And what ends up happening? Your team falls into the trap of always running after something that seems urgent, but that won’t necessarily lead to the result you want.
mLabs CEO and founder Rafael Kiso talks about exactly this in the episode “ Planning, what do I want you for? ” of Trendcast.
“ This is why some people don’t think much about planning: they want immediate results . In practice, without planning, everyone ends up chasing their own tail: there is no planning, but they want short-term results, and they keep repeating the same mistake .”
Rafael Kiso, CMO of mLabs
A lack of planning is often what makes people seek results without thinking about the long term. You may achieve one or two quick successes, but if you don't have a vision of where you want to go, those results won't last.
A good digital marketing plan helps your team break out of this cycle. Even if the market changes – and we know it changes all the time – you have a basis for making decisions with more confidence.
What are the main digital strategies?
A digital marketing plan is not a to-do list . It’s a well-thought-out strategy to grow a brand’s online presence and ensure that its audience sees, engages with, and, of course, buys what it offers.
For this to really work, there are strategies that cannot be missed.
Strategies for social networks
Practically the heart of any digital presence, social networks can contribute to inbound marketing strategies, in which the focus is to attract potential customers through content production, rather than traditional and intrusive methods.
But it's not just about posting memes or pretty pictures. Behind the scenes, things are more technical. Check out some strategies that can be used on social media:
Data-driven content planning
The first step is to develop a content calendar, which should be based on data analysis and past behaviors of the target audience .
Using analytics tools like Instagram Analytics or the mLabs platform helps the marketing team identify engagement patterns, peak times, and types of content that resonate best with audiences.
Social listening
The name “social listening” is given to the monitoring of social networks to identify mentions of the brand, trends and relevant discussions within the market.
Using tools like Hootsuite Insights or Brandwatch list of sweden consumer email allows you to collect this information to make decisions and respond quickly to crises or negative feedback.
A/B Testing
A/B testing, or A/B testing, is a step to improve the conversion of paid campaigns on social networks , such as Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads.
It’s a way to test different versions of the same ad to see what converts best. Change a color here, a phrase there, and discover which configuration brings in the most clicks at the lowest cost per click (CPC).
Influencer Marketing
If you still think that influencer marketing is just about sending a product to the latest influencer, think again. Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy, but it needs to be planned carefully to really work.
Influencer Management Platforms
Using a specialized platform can make the task of finding influencers to arrange contracts and payments much easier .
One example is BrandLovrs, which makes it easy for brands to connect with micro and nano influencers. Smaller creators often have a closer relationship with their audience, which can generate more authentic and genuine engagement.
Long-term partnerships
If you want more authenticity, consider working with influencers for months or even years. Rather than a one-off engagement, influencers who become brand ambassadors have a better chance of creating a genuine relationship and engaging their followers .
Influence KPIs
Measuring results is vital. KPIs such as cost per acquisition (CPA), engagement, and traffic generated are interesting metrics to understand whether the partnership is worth it. They show whether the investment in the influencer is really bringing returns or if it is time to adjust the course.
SEO
You know when you search for something and only click on the first results? That's exactly what SEO strategies do: they put a brand's pages up there so that the public finds you first.
Search Engine Optimization is a set of techniques that can be applied to websites and blogs to improve the page's reputation in the eyes of Google.
But it’s not as simple as it seems, SEO has several layers. Typically, it’s divided into three major areas: on-page, off-page, and technical .
On-page SEO
Here, we're talking about everything on your website : keywords, titles, meta descriptions, and even the content structure.
One of the first steps is keyword research, using tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or SEMrush. From there, these words are incorporated into titles, meta descriptions, headings (H1, H2, H3) and the body of the content, always in a natural and fluid way.
Improving alt tags for images and using internal links also helps improve navigation and user dwell time.
Technical SEO
This is the nerdier side of SEO. Aspects like your site’s speed, clean code, and security (yes, HTTPS is super important) are key to ensuring that Google takes you seriously.
Responsiveness (mobile-friendly design) is another factor that directly impacts a website's ranking, especially with Google's mobile-first approach.
Off-page SEO and link building
What would have happened to the hobbits’ journey in “The Lord of the Rings” if they hadn’t come up with a plan to destroy the Ring? Without Gandalf’s strategy and teamwork, the story would have been very different.
In the real world, this lack of planning is more common than it seems. According to a report by Smart Insights , only 17% of people have clearly defined their digital marketing strategies . That’s right, most of them are just walking around blindly on the internet and hoping that things will work out by luck.
Just like hobbits, businesses need a clear roadmap to guide their actions and achieve their goals on the internet. In this guide, we’ll explain how to do this from scratch!
What is a digital marketing plan?
The digital marketing plan is a set of actions that describe how the company will use digital channels to promote its products and services .
It allows you to centralize all your digital strategies and avoid a mess of loose ideas. It makes it easy to know what needs to be done, how to measure whether it is working, and when to do it.
There is the possibility of a plan being made for the entire brand, with actions that will be applied indefinitely on digital channels, and plans for specific campaigns, such as a Black Friday promotion or the launch of a new product.
Whatever the focus, the idea is to have everything well aligned: goals, strategies, people responsible and indicators to know if you are on the right track.
Some key information cannot be missing from a perfect digital marketing plan :
objectives;
key performance indicators;
methodologies;
audiences and personas;
competitors;
channels of action;
tools;
budget;
schedules and deadlines;
responsible.
Every detail counts: the audience you want to impact, the platforms you will use and the messages you want to convey.
“Okay, but do I really need this?”
You already know what a digital marketing plan is, but perhaps you still have that question: “ Is it really worth dedicating a few hours (or even days) to creating one? ”
The short answer is yes, it is worth it! But let's understand why.
Anyone who works in small businesses or agencies knows how ideas can get lost in the air. The routine is full of urgent matters, ideas come from all sides and, suddenly, you are jumping from one action to another without a clear direction.
It's normal to have a thousand ideas for the brand, campaigns that seem promising, but if they are not planned, the risk of wasting time, money and energy is immense .
And what ends up happening? Your team falls into the trap of always running after something that seems urgent, but that won’t necessarily lead to the result you want.
mLabs CEO and founder Rafael Kiso talks about exactly this in the episode “ Planning, what do I want you for? ” of Trendcast.
“ This is why some people don’t think much about planning: they want immediate results . In practice, without planning, everyone ends up chasing their own tail: there is no planning, but they want short-term results, and they keep repeating the same mistake .”
Rafael Kiso, CMO of mLabs
A lack of planning is often what makes people seek results without thinking about the long term. You may achieve one or two quick successes, but if you don't have a vision of where you want to go, those results won't last.
A good digital marketing plan helps your team break out of this cycle. Even if the market changes – and we know it changes all the time – you have a basis for making decisions with more confidence.
What are the main digital strategies?
A digital marketing plan is not a to-do list . It’s a well-thought-out strategy to grow a brand’s online presence and ensure that its audience sees, engages with, and, of course, buys what it offers.
For this to really work, there are strategies that cannot be missed.
Strategies for social networks
Practically the heart of any digital presence, social networks can contribute to inbound marketing strategies, in which the focus is to attract potential customers through content production, rather than traditional and intrusive methods.
But it's not just about posting memes or pretty pictures. Behind the scenes, things are more technical. Check out some strategies that can be used on social media:
Data-driven content planning
The first step is to develop a content calendar, which should be based on data analysis and past behaviors of the target audience .
Using analytics tools like Instagram Analytics or the mLabs platform helps the marketing team identify engagement patterns, peak times, and types of content that resonate best with audiences.
Social listening
The name “social listening” is given to the monitoring of social networks to identify mentions of the brand, trends and relevant discussions within the market.
Using tools like Hootsuite Insights or Brandwatch list of sweden consumer email allows you to collect this information to make decisions and respond quickly to crises or negative feedback.
A/B Testing
A/B testing, or A/B testing, is a step to improve the conversion of paid campaigns on social networks , such as Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads.
It’s a way to test different versions of the same ad to see what converts best. Change a color here, a phrase there, and discover which configuration brings in the most clicks at the lowest cost per click (CPC).
Influencer Marketing
If you still think that influencer marketing is just about sending a product to the latest influencer, think again. Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy, but it needs to be planned carefully to really work.
Influencer Management Platforms
Using a specialized platform can make the task of finding influencers to arrange contracts and payments much easier .
One example is BrandLovrs, which makes it easy for brands to connect with micro and nano influencers. Smaller creators often have a closer relationship with their audience, which can generate more authentic and genuine engagement.
Long-term partnerships
If you want more authenticity, consider working with influencers for months or even years. Rather than a one-off engagement, influencers who become brand ambassadors have a better chance of creating a genuine relationship and engaging their followers .
Influence KPIs
Measuring results is vital. KPIs such as cost per acquisition (CPA), engagement, and traffic generated are interesting metrics to understand whether the partnership is worth it. They show whether the investment in the influencer is really bringing returns or if it is time to adjust the course.
SEO
You know when you search for something and only click on the first results? That's exactly what SEO strategies do: they put a brand's pages up there so that the public finds you first.
Search Engine Optimization is a set of techniques that can be applied to websites and blogs to improve the page's reputation in the eyes of Google.
But it’s not as simple as it seems, SEO has several layers. Typically, it’s divided into three major areas: on-page, off-page, and technical .
On-page SEO
Here, we're talking about everything on your website : keywords, titles, meta descriptions, and even the content structure.
One of the first steps is keyword research, using tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or SEMrush. From there, these words are incorporated into titles, meta descriptions, headings (H1, H2, H3) and the body of the content, always in a natural and fluid way.
Improving alt tags for images and using internal links also helps improve navigation and user dwell time.
Technical SEO
This is the nerdier side of SEO. Aspects like your site’s speed, clean code, and security (yes, HTTPS is super important) are key to ensuring that Google takes you seriously.
Responsiveness (mobile-friendly design) is another factor that directly impacts a website's ranking, especially with Google's mobile-first approach.
Off-page SEO and link building