eMarketing strategy is the plan that you devise and implement to market your products or services in the online environment. Usually, it makes use of eMarketing tactics like Email Marketing or Search Engine Optimisation. Of course, there are good strategies and there are bad strategies. And, in an age where there are 1.3 billion people using the Internet, you need to be pretty sure that yours is a good one. So here are some tips to help you plan a winning strategy.

No matter how simple your objectives, a strategy is a good idea. (Image by WorldIslandinfo, under CC)

1. Determine Your Target Market

There’s no point in trying to sell ice to an Inuit (someone should possibly look into it when the polar ice caps have melted, though) and there’s no good reason to try and sell steak to a vegetarian. The point: knowing your target market is the first rule of any successful marketing strategy, on or offline. Admittedly this may be stating the obvious, but it is nonetheless an integral and oft neglected aspect of strategy planning and implementation.

2. Set Clear Objectives

If one of the greatest benefits of using online marketing tactics is their measurability, then it is important to have something against which to measure your strategy’s success. Predefining clear goals and desired outcomes will not only give your strategy much needed direction and focus but, as time goes on, it will also ensure that you can monitor whether your strategy is doing what it is supposed to. 

3. Think Laterally

Once you have got these initial steps out of the way, you can cast your mind to finding creative ways to formulate and implement your strategy. This is the fun part. There are a wide range of eMarketing tactics available to you and innumerable ways to implement them. Thinking laterally about your strategy from a variety of angles is important though. It’s all too easy to redo what has been done before and while there is nothing wrong with the tried and tested approach, one creative idea could be enough to take your strategy to new heights.

4. Think Holistically

There are a huge range of eMarketing tactics available to you and implementing a fantastic SEO strategy is useless if your Conversion Optimisation isn’t up to scratch or if your site is built wholly with flash. When it comes to all things online, it is seldom one tactic that makes for a fantastic strategy – it is rather the way in which they all work together and interact that would make the difference.

5. Plan Plan Plan

You might think by this point that the planning part is over. The bad news is that you have a long way to go. The good news is that more planning in the early stages of strategising makes it easier for your strategy to be implemented and more successful in the long run. This is the point at which you need to think through every aspect of your campaign, including how you plan to measure and track it once it is launched. It is also important to evaluate the ideas that you have generated in terms of your company’s needs and resources, bearing in mind your competitors’ strategies, and the ways in which you can make yourself stand out from the crowd.

6. Budget Budget Budget

Big ideas do not necessarily require big budgets. In fact, the most successful ideas are often those that are also exceptionally simple. When it comes to thinking about the pennies and pounds, the first thing is to ensure that you take each and every aspect of your strategy into account, get accurate quotes and calculate a realistic total expenditure. Once you have done this, it is necessary to evaluate whether the outcomes and benefits make the cost a feasible one. In the same way as you wouldn’t pay one Gazillion dollars for a beaten up jalopy of a car, some strategies are just not worth the budget that they require to implement.

There is no foolproof method for planning an eMarketing strategy that will meet your objectives and launch your company into instant online success. With the foundations properly laid however, there’s a good chance that your strategy will be a good one and, if necessary, will be tweakable over time to ensure the best results.