How to plan your digital marketing strategy for 2021

2020 has been a difficult and unpredictable year for us all, with COVID-19 and lockdowns affecting many businesses. With all that’s going on in the world right now, your business might not have started to even think about next year, however, now is the time to start planning for 2021.

In these uncertain times, a strong digital presence is more important than ever before, so if digital hasn’t always been your business focus, 2021 (or now!) is the time to change this.  With more and more of us staying at home, your business needs to be visible online so that your audience can continue to reach you from the comfort of their living rooms.

With this in mind, here’s how to plan your digital marketing strategy for 2021.

Define your goals

Before you can start planning your digital marketing strategy, you need to have a clear definition of your goals, and what you want to achieve. Whether that be to increase your sales, improve your keyword rankings, grow your social media audience or increase your mailing list subscribers, have a clearly defined goal to work towards.

Understand your audience

Before you know how to reach your audience online, you need to understand who they are. Think about who you are trying to attract. 

• What are their demographics? (age, gender, etc)
• Where do they live? 
• What are their pain points? 
• Do they use social media? Which channels are they most active on?
• What messaging resonates with them? What do they respond best to?

Once you have an understanding of the above, you can start to think about how to target them. We like to create a full audience persona, give them a name and make them a real person – it makes it easier to relate to your persona if you imagine them as a real person!

Choose your channels

Now you understand your target audience, you can plan how to reach them. From SEO and PPC to social media and influencer marketing, which channels should you focus on?

If you’ve run digital campaigns in the past, take a look at what worked and what didn’t. Was there anything else you could have done differently to get better results? Did you invest enough time and budget into these channels to ensure they worked effectively? Evaluate any past data you have in order to inform your plan for 2021.

You should also think about what new opportunities you can focus on. Take a look at your competitors – are they doing anything well that you’re yet to try? 

Once you have some idea of this, you can prioritise each channel, allocating goals, a plan and budget to each. This plan may change throughout the year in order to adapt to changing demands in your business – for example, you might want to allocate more budget to PPC during seasonal peaks around Christmas. 

Finalise your messaging

You need to ensure that your messaging is cohesive across each marketing channel, so make sure you nail down your message, tone of voice and key marketing pillars in your plan so that you remain consistent and on brand across all channels.

Get help from an award winning agency

If you need help with any of the above, then get in touch with us. We love to collaborate with ambitious brands and people; we’d love to build something great with you in 2021.