define your customer in a new way Previously, digital marketers collected qualitative and quantitative information about the target audience that included age, gender, occupation, interests, and location. The definition of the potential customer has been taken to another level recently, with buyer personastaking over. Now, the most effective marketing strategies are incomplete without them

identify goals and tools Every professional marketer knows how important this stage is. Without goals, the strategy simply will not work, so defining them is your main task. To make sure that the goals you developed are suitable, and make them measurable.

focus on blogging Blogging will be important for online marketing and far beyond. This key aspect of the strategy performs some critical functions, including bringing more traffic to your website, reinforcing social media presence, positioning against other companies and ranking all those long-tail search queries and keywords.

evaluate digital marketing channels Analyze the digital assets and channels that you are already using, including website, blog content, social media account, word-of-mouth, native advertising, Google Adwords, paid advertising and so on. Ask yourself: how effective were they and how they can be used?

Automate marketing The report of digital marketing trends from SmartInsights states that marketing automation will be a huge thing. In fact, it has been in the top 3 for the last 5 years in terms of trends and many businesses still have not improved their automation. If your company is among them, make sure you add marketing automation to your strategy.

make mobile marketing work According to the aforementioned report from SmartInsights, mobile marketing has been on the rise in the recent years. However, there are still many opportunities for growing in the area of smartphone conversions, as these rates were very low (SmartInsights). Desktop and tablet were the most widely used tools for this task so far, so if you are looking for opportunities in mobile marketing, here is your chance.

make it easy for customers to reach you Online business is all about connecting with potential customers, so traffic on your website should be high to ensure positive outcomes. Your digital marketing strategy therefore should ensure that your leads and visitors are not exerting unnecessary effort to connect with you. Engaging with your customers is invaluable for your business.

use the right technology A marketing effort is wasted if an ineffective or inappropriate technology is used. For example, email marketing should not be done manually but rather by tools like Vendasta that advance it by providing sophisticated functions.

confirm your differentiators If your company is not different from your competitors, you should not expect high profits. Make sure you change (or reinforce) your difference from the others by talking to your customers and asking them why they selected your company. Then, fix your existing differentiators if needed.

track your progress Constant monitoring should be provided to ensure that the strategy is working effectively. This is done by assigning teams that would deliver this task. Remember to learn from the mistakes and always find improvement opportunities!