Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan?

Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan? quick guide

Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan? success factors

An effective digital strategy will help you take the right decisions to make a company successful online.  A strategy process model provides a framework that gives a logical sequence to follow to ensure inclusion of all key activities of strategy development and implementation. We recommend the SOSTAC planning approach.

A Digital Marketing Strategy should involve a review to check that all of your capabilities are in place to help your organisation manage all of the digital touchpoints. But which capabilities are important, which do you need to review?

In our  Managing Digital Transformation Guide for Paid subscribers we show these in our capability visual:

You can download this visual and others all the main online marketing channel in this free digital marketing templates download.

A successful Digital Strategy should be built on reviewing 7 core capabilities which are strategic approach, performance improvement process, management buy-in, resourcing and structure, data and infrastructure, integrated customer communications and customer experience.

Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan? definition

A digital marketing strategy is a channel strategy which means that it should...

• Be informed by research into customer channel behaviour and marketplace activity = intermediaries, publishers and competitors
• Based on objectives for future online and offline channel contribution %
• Define and communicate the differentials of the channel to encourage customers to use it,
• BUT, need to manage channel integration

So put another way, digital marketing strategy defines how companies should:

Recommended member resources for Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan?

Toolkits on

• B2B startup digital marketing plan workbook and case study

Ebooks on Digital marketing strategy

• Competitor benchmarking guide and template
• Digital marketing strategy guide
• How to avoid these 10 SMB digital marketing mistakes
• Integrated marketing megatrends
• Marketing forecasting techniques for marketing planning guide
• SOSTAC® Digital Marketing Planning Guide

Online training on Digital marketing strategy

• Digital marketing e-learning course

Marketing templates on Digital marketing strategy

• Digital marketing plan example
• Digital marketing plan workbook
• Digital marketing planning infographics
• Digital marketing strategy audit/healthcheck
• Free digital marketing plan template
• Inbound marketing Quick Wins template
• Lifetime value spreadsheet
• Online customer acquisition budget spreadsheet
• Online customer acquisition guide
• Online startup business model template
• PowerPoint digital marketing strategy planning template
• Q2 2019 online marketing statistics compilation

Related statistics

For the latest on how business create strategies and manage digital marketing, see our Managing Digital Marketing 2015 research or our listing of the top Digital Marketing statistics sources.

1. 100+ must-see digital marketing research statistics for 2019
2. Half of US newspapers unavailable from Europe, implications for marketers
3. Forecast growth in percentage of online retail / Ecommerce sales
4. Statistics every marketer should know about Millennials in 2017
5. Baby boomer marketing statistics

Tools & Software

• 8 Online revenue model options for Internet businesses
• A full compilation of essential digital marketing tools
• A review of software and services for collaborating on feedback for page designs

Best websites on Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan?

There are surprisingly few quality digital marketing strategy sites since most focus on the strategy. We like to think we're different in our focus on strategy too. These  are our top 10 sites to learn more about digital marketing strategy:

• 1. BCG Perspectives - The Boston Consulting Group of "BCG Matrix" fame has recently improved its articles and research on multichannel marketing and customer insight
• 2. Econsultancy reports - The Econsultancy blog mainly covers tactics, but there are sound research reports on managing digital channels and ecommerce teams.
• 3. Figaro Digital. Unusual since it's an offline magazine, but these editorial articles often cover digital strategy and are accessible by industry.
• 4. Forrester Marketing Blog. Forrester analysts write about developments in technology and consumer behaviour .
• 5. [email protected]. The Marketing section often covers online marketing issues and cases.
• 6. Financial Times Connected Business.  Monthly articles based on case studies.
• Harvard Business Review blog. Quality commentary on the intersection of marketing and technology strategy, but unfortunately, not a well tagged blog.
• 7. McKinseyQuarterly. Articles regularly cover digital marketing strategy.
• 8. The Web Strategy blog. A personal blog by Jeremiah Owyang, previously a Forrester analyst, now at Altimeter. Mainly covers social media strategy.

Key techniques for Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan?

These are the related techniques which we recommend as important for managing Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan? effectively. View these hub pages giving details on best practices, statistics and examples for these techniques:

• Customer acquisition strategy
• Customer conversion strategy
• Customer retention strategy
• Customer segmentation and targeting
• Digital strategy development
• Inbound marketing strategy
• Online business and revenue models
• Online marketing mix
• Online value proposition

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