How to Build a Digital Marketing Strategy That Survives Contact With Reality

A digital marketing strategy is a decision about where you will not compete. It names who you are for, which channels you will use, what you will say, and how you will know whether it worked. Everything that is not a decision — a list of channels, a calendar, a set of tactics — is a plan, and a plan without those four decisions behind it is activity rather than strategy.Most businesses skip straight to the plan. That is why so much marketing is busy and so little of it compounds.

The four decisions

1. Who you are for — and who you are not

The useful part of this decision is the exclusion. "Businesses that want to grow" excludes nobody and therefore guides nothing. "UK professional services firms with 10–50 staff who have never had a marketing function" tells you which channels to use, what to write, what to charge and what to turn down.If your audience definition does not rule anything out, it is not finished.

2. What you say that competitors cannot

Take your main claim and ask whether your three closest competitors could put it on their site unchanged. If they could — "quality service, expert team, results-driven" — it is not positioning, it is wallpaper.The claim does not need to be dramatic. "We publish our prices" is a position, because most agencies do not.

3. Which channels, and why those

Pick channels from where your audience already is and what you can sustain, not from what is growing fastest. Two channels done consistently beat five done occasionally, because most channels only pay back after a period of consistency that intermittent effort never reaches.Be honest about capacity. A channel plan that assumes more output than you have ever produced is a plan to fail slowly.

4. What success looks like, in numbers

Decide the measure before you start, and make it something that affects the business. Impressions and followers rarely do. Enquiries, qualified leads, cost per acquisition and revenue do.Write the number down with a date. "We want more traffic" cannot be judged; "150 organic enquiries a month by June" can.

Turning decisions into a plan

Once the four decisions exist, the plan follows from them — and only then is it worth building:

1. Audit what you already have. Most businesses have more assets than they think: existing content, a customer list, case studies nobody wrote up, a site that works.
2. Map the path a customer takes from not knowing you exist to buying. Each stage needs something; most businesses over-invest at the last stage and wonder why volume is low.
3. Decide what you will stop doing. A strategy that only adds work is not a strategy — it is a wish list with deadlines.
4. Set a review date. Quarterly is usually right. Reviewing more often produces churn; reviewing less means a bad decision runs for a year.

Why strategies fail

Nobody owns it. A strategy that is everyone's responsibility is nobody's. One person must be accountable for the number.It is judged too early. Content and SEO take months. Judging them at six weeks guarantees the conclusion that they do not work, and guarantees a new strategy six weeks later.It changes with every new idea. Consistency is most of the value. A mediocre strategy executed for a year beats an excellent one abandoned each quarter.It measures the wrong things. Metrics that always rise — total followers, cumulative page views — feel reassuring and tell you nothing. Measure what can go down.

A strategy on one page

If it does not fit on a page, it is a plan, not a strategy. The page should answer:

• Who are we for, and who are we not for?
• What do we say that competitors cannot?
• Which two or three channels, and why those?
• What number are we moving, by when?
• What are we stopping?
• Who owns this, and when do we review it?

Six answers. Most businesses cannot answer three of them, which is usually the real finding.

Common questions

How long should a strategy last?

Twelve months for the decisions, quarterly for the plan. If the decisions change every quarter they were not decisions.

Do I need a strategy if I am small?

More than a large business does. Limited budget makes the choice of where not to compete the most valuable thing you own.

How much should I spend?

There is no correct percentage. Work from what a customer is worth, what you can afford to pay to win one, and how many you want — then check the answer is affordable.

Should I hire or outsource?

Outsource what needs specialist skill intermittently, such as technical SEO or paid media management. Keep in-house what needs to happen constantly and benefits from knowing the business, such as customer insight.

Where to start

Write the six answers on one page this week, badly. The gaps are the strategy work. Everything else is scheduling.For the channels themselves, see our guides to SEO services and social media strategy. To work through this with us, request a proposal.