Set and understand the objective and the goal

Remember that the purpose of any marketing campaign is to achieve a specific goal or result. In that sense, it is always essentially a means to an end. As simple as it sounds, many people fail to clarify the question: "What exactly is the end goal of the proposed digital marketing campaign?"

Typically, the ultimate end goal is increased revenue through increased sales. But a digital marketing campaign may be implemented for other 'shorter term' purposes - to increase product branding and market acceptance, for example, or to simply drive more traffic to a target website.

The digital marketing campaign is your ship's rudder, and clearly understanding the objective will then establish the tone and style for the overall campaign.

Who exactly is your market?

With the overall objective or end goal of the proposed marketing campaign now clear in everyone's minds, the next logical question becomes: "Who exactly is the marketing campaign targeting?"

Surprisingly many campaigns fail to reap results because this basic factor is ill-considered, or in some cases completely unknown!

The target audience - their age bracket, socio-economic standing and demographics ultimately sets the tone for your marketing "style" - importantly the type of language and media used in the campaign.

Knowing the target market will also directly determine where exactly you will place your on-line marketing efforts.

How to ascertain just who your target market is

For many new business start-ups, the early digital marketing campaigns serve to test the waters, so to speak, and gain a better understanding of just who the target market is.

A range of on-line tools can be employed to achieve this end:

• the use of advertising (either free or paid) on social media platforms casts the net widely.

• Blogging articles and posts can establish branding and business tone.

• Podcasts and/or multimedia posts are dynamic and potentially hold greater interest.

• Email campaigns can provide wide market coverage.

• Free giveaways can be used in the start-up stage in return for customer information, such as age, location, interests.

Track the metrics and measure performance

The ability to analyze marketing metrics becomes incredibly important. A good suite of web analytics tools can further assist in honing more concentrated future campaigns.

Monitoring progress and having the capability to subsequently adjust or fine tune digital strategy is a further tool to the success of a campaign.

In summary

The importance of an effective digital marketing campaign cannot be underestimated when considering on-line business success.

Regardless of campaign scale or reach, follow these basic fundamentals to build a highly effective digital marketing program.