When out talking to potential clients, we frequently get asked, how many fans/followers can you get for us? Or, how many hits can you get for our website? Our answer is always “it depends on your objective”. Using digital marketing for business without an objective is a wasted opportunity. Firstly, without an objective there can be no strategy. Secondly, without an objective there are no clear metrics of success. Thus defining an objective is essential to developing a strategy with measurable results.
Any business using digital as a means of marketing will have the objective of increasing revenue, that’s a given. So having a clearer objective for using digital marketing requires a deeper understanding of what each channel/platform delivers. For example, an objective might be to increase brand awareness within a certain demographic such as women under the age of 30 in Thailand. Such an objective would require a different digital marketing strategy than increasing website traffic from age 35+ males in Southeast Asia who like playing golf. The former may benefit most from using social media with a Facebook and Instagram based strategy, while the latter may benefit most from a combination of social media, Facebook and Twitter, search engine marketing and banner ads.
With a clear objective it is easier to measure the performance of a given strategy. If the goal is brand awareness then the number of fans, reach and impressions should be tracked. If the goal is website traffic then the number of unique visitors and returning visitors should be measured, in addition to source, landing page and bounce rate.
Knowing the objective and measuring the results will then enable you to make changes to your strategy as necessary so you are always being efficient and getting the most out of your digital marketing budget.
