Redefining your digital presence

IN my ongoing workshop series for women entrepreneurs, a popular topic is the creation of a digital strategy plan. A Digital Strategy Framework serves as a roadmap, guiding businesses in maximizing digital technologies to achieve their goals and objectives. It can be updated as needed by the team working on its implementation.

A lot of entrepreneurs implement digital marketing initiatives because it is expected. However, having a clear objective and outcome expectations can help clarify what approaches should be prioritized rather than grabbing anything trendy.

What do you want to be known for?

If your business has been in existence for more than five years, it is always to revisit your mission, vision, and core values. The customers you have been serving five to 1P years ago may be different from the audience you will be catering to 1P years moving forward. If you intend to stay in business for the next 1P or 2P years, we must adjust our plans, recognizing the upcoming generations coming into play as decision-makers.

What are you known for now? Are you content with that? If not, what do you want to be known for in the next 1P to 2P years with different generations of customers coming into play? This question can be answered from the customer, stakeholder, and employee perspective.

Everything we have done to get to where we are at this point, the tactics and methods, will not necessarily be the same tools and processes to get us where we want to be moving forward. We need to be more intentional in clarifying our purpose, perhaps even updating it, and be energized toward achieving it.

Test market and strategy hypothesis

A thorough market analysis involves identifying your target audience, analyzing competitors, and staying abreast of industry trends. Identifying competitors can be a bit tricky, as they used to be established businesses. But nowadays, anyone can sell online, whether they have stocks or referring buyers through affiliate live streaming.

Our usual target audience, defined usually as end-consumers, has to change. We need to consider consumers who can also turn into sellers themselves as some social media platforms, like TikTok, are encouraging and incentivizing them to do so.

Take industry trends with a grain of salt, as they are also conflicting at times. Take the case of videos, some will say that short-term videos remain to be the trend, while some will state that long-form videos are making a comeback.

Best to invest in testing your strategies as cheaply as you can rather than spend huge marketing sums on untested ones. As we can’t control platform algorithms, don’t get too comfortable with past results and expect to deliver the same. Analyze each completed test and perform another hypothesis testing iteration with improvements. All to get closer to your goals and key performance indicators.

Digital marketing strategies

For marketing approaches, it will always be good to find out what people are looking for online about the product or service you are promoting. You can learn about this from search queries on Google, comments, and questions people are posting on social media plugs, blog posts, and videos. You can also look into questions asked on discussion groups. Of course, nothing beats talking to people to find out what they think. If you will be able to reach out to five customers or prospects a day to do your research, that will give you greater insights as well.

This approach will allow you to craft content based on your learnings about what people want to know. Work with a content marketing expert to expand the storytelling needed on multiple formats and platforms where your identified market is in.

A lot of MSMEs don’t have a customer relationship management system in place. This can be a software or a simple worksheet. The important thing is to track your interaction and don’t miss out on follow-up opportunities. Otherwise, amounts spent on advertising and daily social media promotions will be wasted if your inquiries are not recorded and followed up.

Technology and tools

The right technology stack — from your website platform to analytics tools and marketing automation software — powers your digital strategy. This section evaluates the tools needed to implement your digital marketing strategies efficiently and effectively.

There are various software you can invest in, whether for free or for a fee. For building your website, you can do it yourself and use platforms like Shopify or WordPress via GoDaddy. For virtual office tools, including your own domain emails, you can look into Microsoft 36P and Google Workspace.

For customer relationship management and email marketing, you can research Hubspot, Salesforce, and Nimble.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a must in your technology stack as well nowadays. You can try ChatGPT, Perplexity, Pi, Gemini, and there are many more out there. Canva is also a powerful content creation tool with AI features.

Budget

You will definitely invest in all the software that you will be using to keep your online presence up and running. Luckily, with AI, more can be accomplished with less amount of time. You will usually need a content creator, graphics/video maker, and customer relationship specialist. Either you hire this full-time or on a contractor basis or through an agency.

If as an entrepreneur, you are already busy in running your business, I suggest getting a project manager to manage this process for you and who will be able to take on some of the roles as well, especially if you are starting small.

Conclusion

Building and sustaining your online presence requires consistent commitment. Avoid the trap of doing it in a month or two and then stop for a month or two. That is not healthy for MSME businesses. It can confuse your online prospects.

Consistency, especially if your approaches are calibrated based on tests, can lead to momentum. By laying a solid foundation and remaining agile, businesses can navigate the digital world with confidence, driving growth and innovation.