Steps to Kick-Start Your New Digital Marketing Strategy
From digital courses to a new outlook on data analytics, here are the steps to take to becoming more digitally-minded.
Over the past few months, we have seen an increased amount of organisations moving away from their traditional-based marketing plans and adopting more digital marketing strategies and tactics.
Opportunities for face-to-face interactions with potential customers are now limited so life science organisations are all turning to digital. The problem, of course, is that many marketers and sales representatives have operated from traditional marketing plans all their careers. Digital marketing is relatively new and unknown.
So what do you do? The answer, in all honestly, is more than just read this post. But this post will, however, point you in the right direction to help get your digital marketing strategy off the ground with some specific steps.
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So, here are 10 steps as a primer for further exploration into digital.
Work through the steps, and you will be in a better position to get your new digital marketing strategy off the ground and engage with those customers confidently and effectively on the appropriate digital channels.
1. FAST TRACK WITH A DEDICATED DIGITAL COURSE
Before doing anything, if you feel your knowledge and experience with digital strategies and channels are limited, taking a short course to familiarise yourself will be a good start. Google, via their Analytics Academy, as well as the HubSpot Academy, offers a range of free digital marketing courses worthy of consideration. Should you have an idea of exactly what you need to learn, investigating via YouTube videos and finding relevant articles for more detail also might be enough for you to take your digital plan forward.
Should you have budget to invest in such training, Udemy or Coursera (amongst other training websites) offer a range of courses at low cost. And going a step further again, should you want something more structured with worldwide industry-recognition and qualifications, the CIM or IDM have more long-term digital marketing courses. If you’re not sure what you should be doing, get in touch and we can provide a range of options. Perhaps you’d be interested in our digital consultancy services.
2. UNDERSTAND THE LANDSCAPE/MARKETPLACE
Now that the market has shifted to predominantly online, you will have some researching to do - if you have not done so already, to fully understand what’s going on within it. Your B2B target market will likely be operating within a new capacity, with a new strategic focus and working to new objectives within new-look internal teams. As their focus changes, so will yours.
At a glance, I’d suggest looking at your customer segments (we have an article pharma market segmentation for more information) and target market, as well as the market needs, competition, regulations as well as any other barriers to entry within this potentially new digital environment. Investigate where the market operates; the channels and the platforms. A classic SWOT analysis might be enough to understand what is going on - but you will need to assess this situation up-front.
3. UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PROSPECTS
Once you’re aware of the market, focus deeper on the customers and your target audience within that market. Certain factors, such as demographics, will not have changed much in the wake of COVID-19. Behaviours, however, will have changed dramatically. Is there a shift in buying patterns?
So, from understanding new behaviours on new channels - for example, your audience might engage more on Forums (which you can access to review) or might use Search Engines to find content (data from which can be found on Keyword Planner and Search Console) - you can understand needs and wants a little better. If those customers and prospects are gravitating towards a platform or a preferred method of content or an entirely new solution to their problems, follow them.
4. AUDIT YOUR DIGITAL CHANNELS
Audit of all the channels you have and use. There will be forums, channels and digital portals for all your business units. We’re looking for the channels that are working (and not working) and producing the results for you and your organisation.
Also, audit every piece of content you have. Everything that you have written and put each one in a column. Whitepapers, case studies, webinar recordings, Info sheets, articles, podcasts, e-books… get them all in one place. Now we have every channel you own, as well as every piece of content. All that is needed thereafter is to determine if those historical (digital) channels and content are working and are ready for this new-look landscape for a new focus.
5. THEN FOCUS ON A MIX OF COMPLEMENTARY CHANNELS
Generally speaking, there is no right or wrong marketing channel, just ones that work well for your organisation. I’ve previously mentioned on this blog that the way to maximise this channel focus is to mix inbound and outbound, direct and non-direct methods. If you find that social media is the channel which you will reach your audiences, focus on creating social posts to engage with your followers, as well as running paid ads on those social channels.
When adopting a marketing channel, adopt it fully and only use other tactics/channels that complement. Should SEO and Google Search be your channel preference, look to build on your rankings for organic content as well as use Google Ads for some of your more effective content. We also work with publications and vendors to promote our clients’ content as these vendors are popular with the scientific audience, and we will also draw up a short-list of vendors that have relevant audiences to those clients and will focus on advertising with them via the range of products they offer.
6. BRUSH UP ON YOUR COPYWRITING/CONTENT WRITING
If you are going to be doing more digital marketing, it is almost a certainty that you will be writing more content than before. Web pages, e-books, social media updates, email marketing and ads all require copywriting to persuade a target audience to take action. If you can’t write the content, you have nothing to publish for your audience to see.
The technical products that we promote often require external help or editing from other departments. But if we have developed our ability to write content this process can be sped up dramatically. And when you are promoting your organisation and brand, you likely won’t need approval from a product manager. If copywriting and content writing is a skill you’ve previously brushed aside, take the time now to fine-tune your writing ability. The Elements of Style is a great book that will quickly improve your writing by making minor tweaks before you move on to explore technical copywriting in pharma. Also, see our post on how to set up a content creation programme as it may provide you with the direction needed to get more content out on your chosen channels.
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7. REVIEW YOUR TECHNOLOGY STACK
As you review your digital marketing plan, it’s only natural to review your marketing-technology stack - the systems and platforms you use to talk to your audience and complete your marketing tasks in this new landscape. Do you have the appropriate technologies and systems to peruse your new digital marketing strategy?
Behind your personalised emails, downloadable content and your new channel focus are usually a suite of interchanging, complex technologies. But there might also be some essential technologies missing from your current stack which could greatly benefit your updated marketing campaigns. Review the technologies within your stack and assess whether a key component is missing which could help you plan for the year ahead. Now, more than ever is a great time to do so.
8. START LETTING ANALYTICS DRIVE YOUR DECISIONS
For years, many of the marketing initiatives in B2B pharma have involved attending trade shows and conferences simply because “that’s what we’ve always done as an organisation.” Often, such organisations do not know if those events are providing an ROI, or if positive brand awareness and leads are generated from events, organisations don’t know specifically which events are generating that ROI. Moving to digital means you will naturally be more inclined to look for that ROI in the data that your platforms will provide as data is readily provided on those channels for everything that you do.
“Data is the oil of today’s digital-first era and is fast becoming a key growth driver and differentiator for the digital marketing value chain,” said Neha Kulwal on Entrepreneur, and I couldn’t agree more. Leveraging data and analytics to generate marketing insights can provide you with intelligent recommendations that can unlock better opportunities to sell, upsell or cross-sell. Data-driven insights can also be coupled with advanced digital capabilities to augment purchase experiences.
9. PREPARE A NEW (DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN)
Now that you’ve assessed your current situation in relation to a changing environment, as well as in relation to the behaviours of your target audience including the channels that are being used, it’s time to edit your existing marketing plan or create a new one from scratch. We have a marketing plan template for download right away or we have a post on the marketing plan process to follow if you want to create one from scratch. Either way, you will need to document your new change in direction for accountability.
The pharmaceutical marketing plan includes the budgets, channels and the ideas which will take the pharmaceutical organisation, and its products and services, forward in the current digital landscape.
10. PRACTICE CONTINUAL LEARNING
As we started, we shall finish with continual learning. Digital evolves fast. The digital channels your audiences may be using today, might not be used tomorrow. Keep yourself updated on what is going on in terms of digital marketing, exploring any new technology and channel developments, and then cross-examining those innovations within the life science sectors. And more importantly, the sectors your organisation operates within.
Navigating the marketing landscape can be difficult at the best of times. If it’s not gridlocked, it's full of roadblocks with an abundant of routes to a given destination. This is certainly the case when it comes to digital in 2020. Therefore, we much keep in touch with new approaches, consider all our options and use all the information available to us to make informed decisions. Always staying fresh; always generating new ideas. Make yourself a promise to keep in touch with your personal and professional development as things change around us for the rest of 2020 and beyond.
ADOPTING A DIGITAL-FIRST APPROACH
If digital is new territory for you, drop us a line to explore how we can help. It might be the most important step on this list!