What is a digital strategy?
Whether you work in B2B or B2Cyou are always advised to develop a digital strategy for your marketing. 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.
No matter what type of business you run, you'll need to go through the same general steps to succeed with your digital marketing. Namely:
- Analysis work - understanding your customers
- Create a vision and strategy
- Plan based on the vision and strategy
- Carry out your planning
The above points are, as written, some that everyone should lean on. However, it should be mentioned that the buying process in the B2B world is typically a bit longer and therefore the strategy that is added to it will (most of the time) also be both longer and more complex.
We've made a few rules of thumb below that many B2B companies forget in their digital planning and strategy making in general.
3 rules of thumb for your B2B digital strategy
Below, we've written some 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 head of marketing sits down and sets the strategy, but that's not enough without the involvement of all the other departments. For a digital strategy to be successful in a B2B company, it is important that sales, customer service, production, purchasing, etc. are all involved, as they typically work together. Remember, 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 centre
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 customers happy can you achieve your vision. Unfortunately, it's not enough to visualize putting on your customers' glasses to look at your business through their lenses. You can easily ask up to the sales and customer service department what the needs of the customers are. But don't forget all the data you have lying around that can show a very realistic picture of the customers you face and how to offer them the most perfect customer journey. - Rule of thumb 3: Jump into something new
Even if you've worked one way for 100 years and one summer, that 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. That doesn't mean what you're doing well now has to change. But it is important that the strategy allows you to - continually - test out new marketing approaches, so that you can change direction if something else proves more successful. In this way, the strategy must not be too fixed - far into the future. It can be costly.
