What is a digital strategy?
Whether you work in B2B or B2CIf you have a digital marketing strategy, it's always recommended that you create one. There's no getting around the fact that the internet is here to stay and it's only going in one direction - digital marketing is becoming more and more important to us all.
Regardless of what type of business you run, you need to go through the same general steps to succeed with your digital marketing. Namely:
- Analytics - understand your customers
- Create a vision and strategy
- Plan from the vision and strategy
- Execute your planning
As written, the above points are ones that everyone should lean on. However, it should be noted that the buying process in the B2B world is typically a little longer and therefore the strategy that is applied will (usually) also be both longer and more complex.
We've put together a few rules of thumb below that many B2B companies forget in their digital planning and strategizing in general.
3 rules of thumb for your B2B digital strategy
Below we've outlined some important points to keep in mind when developing your B2B digital strategy:
- Rule of thumb #1: It's not a one-man job
In many companies, the marketing manager sits down and creates the strategy, but that's not enough without the involvement of all other departments. For a digital strategy to come together in a B2B company, it's important that the sales department, customer service department, production department, purchasing department, etc. are all involved, as they typically work together. Remember that it's all about creating a good buying experience for the customer and each department has valuable knowledge that should not be neglected when developing a digital strategy in a B2B company. - Rule of thumb #2: Remember. Your customer is the center
As written above, the strategy should be about how you as a company can offer your customers the very best customer journey. Only by keeping your customers happy can you achieve your vision. Unfortunately, it's not enough to visualize a picture of you putting on your customers' glasses to look at your business through their lenses. It's fine to ask your sales and customer service department what your customers need. But don't forget about all the data you have lying around that can show a very realistic picture of which customers you are facing and how to offer them the most perfect customer journey. - Rule of thumb #3: Jump into something new
Just because you've been doing things a certain way for 100 years and one summer, doesn't mean that's what you should continue to do. The world is constantly changing and so should the digital strategy of any business. It doesn't mean that what you do well now has to change. But it's important that the strategy allows you to - continuously - test new marketing initiatives to be able to change direction if something else proves to be more successful. The strategy must not be too fixed - far into the future. This can be costly.
