Online Marketing Strategy: Conception & Implementation

An online marketing strategy is the concrete plan for how companies make their products and services visible through digital channels, reach relevant audiences and grow measurably. Key factors are clearly defined goals, suitable channels and content, and consistent KPI measurement. A good strategy is not a one-time project but is continuously analyzed and optimized.

Top learnings

• With a targeted online marketing strategy, companies ensure more digital visibility and increased relevance in the online world.
• There is no single right online marketing strategy. Rather, the concept and implementation are aligned with pre-defined objectives.
• An online marketing strategy doesn't end with successful implementation, but includes continuous KPI monitoring and ongoing optimization.

What is an online marketing strategy?

An online marketing strategy is a concrete plan for how you make your company's products and services known to potential customers through various online channels. This plan typically includes realistic goal setting, marketing campaigns to achieve those goals and accompanying analyses.

How relevant is an online marketing strategy today?

Those who want growth instead of stagnation must stay in constant motion. Customers increasingly search online for products and services and inform themselves on the web before making a purchase decision. Therefore, it's crucial today to satisfy prospect information needs with a targeted online marketing strategy while making them receptive to your own products and services.

Is there one right online marketing strategy?

The 'one right online marketing strategy' unfortunately doesn't exist. For every marketing goal, there are different approaches. Likewise, different strategies are needed for each channel (e.g., website, SEO, SEA, email or social media). A strategy can in turn consist of several marketing measures that contribute to a common goal.

Digital marketing strategies use metrics to track and record customer behavior. Whether a measure is successful or not can be measured against previously defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

5 steps to your online marketing strategy plan

• Set realistic and measurable marketing goals: The formulation should be concrete, measurable, realistic, time-bound and activating.
• Define your target audience: Create so-called buyer personas — semi-fictional example customers that help transport the right messages through the right marketing channels.
• Formulate your advertising message: Ask yourself what motivates your target audience to find your product or service interesting.
• Choose suitable marketing channels: Evaluate a broad selection of platforms where you're likely to reach your target audience.
• Analyze your online marketing strategy: Set concrete dates for when you'll put your online strategy to the test.

KPIs for a successful online marketing strategy

KPIs evaluate which marketing measures contribute to your business goals and to what extent, and which don't.

The most important measures and KPIs:

• Company website: New users, pages/session, time on site, bounce rate, conversion
• Search Engine Advertisement (SEA): Impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, ROAS
• Social media: Impressions, reach, link clicks, likes, shares, comments
• Email marketing: Recipients, open rate, bounce rate, click rate, unsubscribes

Suitable measures for achieving online marketing KPIs

Traffic and reach: To increase the digital visibility of your own website, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a frequently applied measure. Over 69% of all global companies actively invest in optimizing their website for search engines.

Leads and sales: With paid SEA campaigns through Google Ads, you can also build reach, increase website traffic in a target-group-specific way and increase conversion opportunities.

Customer service and loyalty: Meaningful customer analytics & data insights form the foundation for customer-oriented strategies and enable continuous optimization of the customer experience.

Overview

Your guide to a successful online marketing strategy:

• Formulation of goals matching overarching business objectives
• Definition of campaign strategy for goal achievement
• Setting relevant milestones and KPIs for success measurement
• Definition of target audiences and creation of buyer personas
• Determination of relevant communication channels
• Select suitable content formats and plan content
• Operational execution of planned marketing measures
• Collect data, measure effectiveness and analyze results
• Optimize. Optimize. Optimize…