In our mid-year trends article we discussed how last year had been an exciting year for digital marketing with a focus on key trends impacting your online presence in 2021.
The biggest trend and impact on businesses is obviously the pandemic, so that is top of mind. With vaccines rolling out in most major economies, the second half of 2021 is expected to be robust. For example, Milestone Research expects wedding RFPs to skyrocket as people who have been putting off nuptials and receptions flood back into the market.
Businesses need to decide how much to spend on digital marketing, which channels to optimize, and where to make investments in new technology while keeping up with the budget allocated for the financial year.
Milestone developed this digital marketing roadmap and you can download an editable copy.
Most businesses don’t have an adequate budget to fully invest in all aspects of digital marketing. There is an ongoing struggle to optimize the spend between the practical reality of running a business and a wide array of marketing options. The ultimate goal is to deliver the right content to the right user at the right time. Utilizing the steps to achieve that goal will help you allocate your digital marketing budget most effectively.
Everything you do from a budgeting perspective must start with your business goals. At the very outset, you must decide what is most important:
Depending on your goals, the strategy you implement and the technology you deploy may differ.
Once your goals are decided you need to map these to tactics to accomplish those goals.
For example, if you want to drive more revenue, you could focus on:
If the goal is to drive build brand reputation and develop loyalists, then you might focus on:
Once the tactics are set, identify the channels and customer touchpoints you are going to use to reach those goals. For example:
Finally, you should measure what you do across channels to help you optimize your spending and resources. A proliferation of multiple devices accompanied by the evolution of customer behavior has created new challenges in tracking and understanding the customer journey.
Businesses must understand the relative contribution of all marketing channels. Identify problems and opportunities in all stages via channel, medium, and source and finally check what changes may be needed in the marketing spend. It is very important to map goals to channels and tactics to really drive home the impact of your digital marketing plan in the coming year.
Start with your website!
Once your goals and objectives are defined and supported by relevant strategies, KPIs and channels, inventory your existing digital assets starting with your website. Then look at your content strategy and map it to your end-users’ needs. To do that, consider the customer’s intent and personalize their experience. Users desire different types of content depending on where they are at in their journey.
For example, the content needs at the awareness stage are totally different for someone who might be at the conversion stage. At the awareness stage, the consumer might want to know more about what kind of activities are available at a destination, compared to someone at the conversion stage, who wants to know specific terms and conditions to close their transaction.
It’s also critical to know your audience. Who is your website target?
Once you understand your audience demographics, you need to map that to personas. What does your typical consumer look like? What are their preferences? What are they seeking in their experience with your business? Are they adventurous or do they just want to relax?
Finally, align digital assets to your goals and targeted personas. Think about the stages of the customer journey – what kind of content does your targeted persona need to move through the customer journey to the goal?
It’s important to keep in mind that you might have to saturate all your available channels to serve your audience and different personas.
Refresh your website: If you haven’t refreshed your site in three years, we suggest you do so. If you have recently refreshed your website make sure that you have upgraded it with the latest technology and make sure that all content is up to date.
Content is still the king: Map your content to the customer and their journey and make sure that you have a content strategy that covers the spectrum of your customer’s journey.
Focus to deliver the best mobile experience: Make sure that you provide the best mobile experience for your users. Consider Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Progressive Web App (PWA) technology to provide needed speed.
A secure website (HTTPS) is a must-have for 2018. Not only is it becoming a ranking factor from Google, users feel more confident when using secure websites.
Make sure that you have a budget to increase your website conversions and work on elements of your site that you need to optimize.
Use FAQ’s and Schemas to power your voice search: Be prepared for common user questions and make sure that they come to your site for answers rather than go to a competitor’s sites. Go beyond “business type” with rich schemas and schemas across your entire website.
Don’t forget speed: Make sure your website is as fast as possible, not only on mobile but also on desktop. Speed is critical for the entire spectrum of the customer journey.
Lastly, all customers are important: Cater to 100% of your audience. Often businesses look at ADA conformance from the legal perspective, and forget about the opportunity to provide all of their customers a rewarding experience. With 20% of Americans having some form of a disability, ADA helps you cater to their needs as well.
Omnichannel strategy begins with a very strong and powerful SEO and Local presence. People need to find your information quickly and it must be 100% accurate all the time. That means SEO and Local search are critical to ensuring that customers and potential customers find you online and in real life.
Make sure that at the beginning of the year you have a technical digital analysis that covers your platform technology elements. What does your digital presence look like in comparison to your competitive set? Ensure your content is the latest and most accurate. For example, an incorrect address on Google maps means customers can’t find you and that means lost revenue. Make sure your information (URL, Name, Phone, Address) is accurate and consistent in the digital eco-system.
Provide content to your customer based on the way that they look for information. Make sure the information is useful, relevant, and shareable, whether it’s information regarding upcoming events, amenities at your hotel, or the latest photos from the pool party.
From a digital advertising perspective, it’s critical to be everywhere all the time. One of the important aspects for planning your 2018 digital marketing strategy is that you be on all devices all the time. Whether it is meta-search advertising, paid search advertising, or programmatic or social media advertising, make sure that you reach your customers on all platforms with all the relevant content.
By understanding your 2018 business goals, you are ensuring that the budget is not just about assigning some resources towards your digital assets but also understanding how it applies to your media mix. For example, if you care more about guest acquisition, allocate more spend towards the awareness stage. On the other hand, if you wish to drive direct revenue, focus more on the conversion stage. Thus, it’s very important to align your goal to media mix.
It is different for every business. Ultimately, it comes down to understanding your business needs, what is the desired impact and who your target audience is, and different market. It’s also important to monitor your competitors. What are they doing there and how does it impact your business?
Use emails to personalize communication and drive engagement, special offers, or services.
One of the most important tasks is to measure your efforts. If something isn’t working, change it. Then measure it again. And repeat. Successful digital marketing is not “set it and forget it.”
If you are a Milestone customer then you would be able to utilize Milestone Insights to understand how the customer journey is being impacted by the advertising and marketing strategy that you have implemented. For example, you can look at your social media spend and consider new ways to optimize it. Or what about PPC? Should you be spending more or less on PPC? You could answer the question – how do I mix both of these channels to get a better ROI? Being able to analyze your ROI and determine what is working for your business is critical to optimizing your digital marketing budget in 2018. Whether you are doing it through Milestone or utilizing other tools, make sure you are paying attention to the right things.
How much should my marketing budget be?
The answer depends on the goals and targets, but most companies spend between 5% and 15% of revenue on marketing programs in addition to marketing labor. B2B tends to run to the low side and B2C to the high side of that percentage range. The share of the budget that is digital should, post-pandemic, be over 50% given the digital transformation it has driven.
Should the budget spent on the marketing stack be included in the marketing budget?
Yes, marketing stack technology should be in the marketing budget. Technology is often around 10% of the marketing budget.
How do I allocate marketing budget across channels?
Allocate more marketing budget to the channels that have produced better ROAS and ROI in the past. As you put more budget into a channel, the results usually taper, so at that level you should allocate budget to the next most productive channel. An attribution model will also help you optimize the spend across the channels.
What is ROAS and ROI? How high should they be?
ROAS is return on ad spend and it is revenue generated divided by budget spent. ROI is gross profit generated divided by budget spent. ROAS should be five times or more than the budget. ROI should be three times or more the budget spent.
How many people should I have in my marketing labor budget?
Most marketing departments include a person for: digital channels, the website, email, press, marketing, and technology operations. If the activity in the digital channels is significant, there might be one person each on SEO, paid search, display, social, and email.
There is usually a content writer, a designer, an events person and often two or three in B2B companies. If product marketing is part of marketing, there will be one person per major product line. Larger departments often include an analyst or researcher.
Should I in-source my marketing functions or outsource to an agency?
Agencies can provide leverage to a smaller marketing program. This depends on the frequency of campaigns, which can be driven by the granularity of the marketing targeting, for example, more smaller campaigns by industry. Experts are expensive, and if they are not busy, it will reduce the profitability of the department.
Should I use contractors and gig workers for my marketing functions?
If you can keep an employee fully engaged and busy, it is better to hire full-time and build institutional knowledge and ownership. Outsourcing can be efficient and is a good stop-gap, but usually requires a senior person, director or above, to manage strategy, briefs, and quality.
How do I get executive buy-in and approval for my marketing budget?
Keep the focus on business impact, meaning revenue and growth. Support your plan with prior data on channel performance. Use optimistic but also realistic projections on return.
Contact Milestone at sales@milestoneinternet.com to learn more.
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