iSynergy digital media strategy

Creating A Successful Digital Marketing Strategy In 2020

Most businesses have some form of active digital marketing; we hear about blogs that link to social channels and backlink profiles from 2017 ALL THE TIME…but neither of those things are a “strategy.”

In 2017, a survey conducted by Smart Insights found that nearly half of all businesses had no strategic plan for digital marketing (and it’s likely that number hasn’t decreased much in the past two years). So, the question is – how do you build your 2020 digital marketing plan with a defined strategy?

Let’s start with a very important question. What specific marketing goals do you have for the next year?

Based on your answer, there are both simple and advanced digital marketing techniques that you can incorporate into your strategy. It’s important to understand where you’re currently at and where you want to be.

Here are the best ways to craft your digital marketing plan for 2020.


1.) Start Off with a Marketing Audit

This exercise involves getting together to analyze your website’s user experience, social media efforts, content marketing, online advertising campaigns and SEO strategy.

Here are some points to consider as you go through your audit:

  • First, locate all of your digital marketing assets and list them in a spreadsheet to be analyzed. You can list your website, social media profiles, directory profiles, online advertising platforms (Facebook, Google AdWords, display networks, etc), blogs and any other asset that contributed to your digital marketing in the past year.
  • What pages received the most traffic on your website?
  • Did revenue and traffic increase and at what rate? What pages, products, or social media channels contributed to the increase? You may need to have Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Instagram Analytics, or third-party tools (like SocialReport.com) to see this data.
  • What do you want users to do on your website, social media, blog and landing pages?
  • How easy is it for users to get to this content or move through your funnel? How long does it take to checkout? Are there any friction points? Remember, most users are on their phones and don’t want to spend time figuring out how to use your website. They simply go somewhere else.
  • What keywords are you ranking for? Are you in the top search engine results for keywords that matter?
  • What revenue did you generate through online advertising? What platforms were most successful? What were the number of conversions, conversion costs, and return on ad spend (ROAS) for each platform? You may have ads on Facebook, Google, Google Display, Bing, or other networks.
  • How many visits has your websites received? What were the top pages? What were the top posts on social media? What content did users share and engage with the most?

These are some of the basic questions you can use to go through your digital marketing assets. You should also define who is responsible for analyzing and managing these assets because they will need to lead the way in improving these assets for 2020.

2.) Define the Metrics and Goals that Matter

Most businesses just want to know that their digital marketing strategy has a high ROI. If your posts are sending traffic that leads to sales and revenue, then your marketing is working.

But, what if you could make 200% more by focusing on one social media channel? What if you changed your CTA button to a new page that highlights your best-selling products?

When it comes to creating a digital marketing plan, you have to know what you’re planning for. Here are some things to think about:

  • Do you want more traffic? Where do you want this traffic to go? What products are most important? Do you want more sign-ups or sales?
  • How much revenue did your website generate year-over-year? What areas generated the most revenue? Did you have any online campaigns running? Which campaigns led to the most revenue? You may need Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Facebook conversion pixel and other tracking tools to dig deeper.
  • How much organic traffic did you achieve this year? How much content did you add? What keywords are you ranking for? Did you create any content for voice SEO? Did you use schema markup to help search engine crawlers rank your content?
  • How many followers did you get this year? What’s your engagement rate? Is your audience engaging with you on all social platforms? How many purchases are social media users making?
  • Is your site optimized for mobile? How many mobile users purchased or signed up for something on your website?

Based on this information, you may discover that you not only want to increase revenue, but you also want to increase followers, create more content around certain keywords, increase engagement on your Facebook channel, or tap into more influencers who can help you market your products on social media.

3.) Focus on Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content has always been king, but many businesses are not optimizing their content with the best practices for 2020. Your digital marketing strategy should focus heavily on content by building up the following areas:

  • Your Website’s Blog: Focus on problems your customers have and offer unique solutions with links to your services and products to help solve those issues. Check out what we believe are the secrets to writing effective content.
  • Your Video Content Strategy: In the digital world, seeing is believing. If you don’t have videos on your website, blog, or social media, why not? Make this a focus in 2020. Your posted videos should solve problems and offer insider information.
  • Fix Your Internal Linking Strategy: Are people able to find your best content easily? Do your blog articles link to other relevant content when a user is finished reading? How are you linking to products and services within your blog or social media content?
  • Plan Out Your Social Calendar: What social channel gives you the most traffic? Are you putting out relevant, incendiary content that this audience wants to share? How can you improve your engagement with content topics and frequency in 2020?
  • Let the Experts Show Off: Whether it’s a video, podcast, blog or live stream on social media, let your experts show what they can do and answer popular questions from your audience. You can kick off a content series and get more engagement just by giving people more access to the leaders of your brand.
  • Build a Better Email Marketing Plan: Do you use email marketing? 59% of all respondents to a recent survey say that email influences their purchasing decisions. It’s the best way to send content, how-to articles, and special members-only (or today-only) promotions to a dedicated customer base.

Once you build incendiary content, site traffic, followers and leads will follow. You simply need to define a content strategy that matches up with your business goals and helps your brand build more authority on the internet.

4.) Tie It All Together

Once you define your goals and best-performing channels, you can look at more in-depth strategies for each piece. Perhaps, you want to build on successful Facebook campaigns and social media advertising. To do this, you would need to dig deeper into different social media ad types, personas and behaviors.

Or, maybe you need something more complex, like an intensive SEO strategy coupled with digital display (which would likely require the expertise of a digital agency).

But, no matter what, the core of any online strategy always centers upon your website. If you haven’t updated your site’s design, main products, or blog in a while, now is the time to do so. Not only does it lend credibility, but it also delivers a better user experience (which often leads to higher conversion rates).

Need more help or want a more defined, custom digital strategy for 2020? We’ve got ideas to share with you. Contact us today so we can get a consultation set up.