In today’s modern age of technology, a strong digital marketing strategy is key for the organisational success of a business. Time and time again, we are seeing that companies that heavily invest in digital marketing strategies are thriving. In essence, with the right digital marketing strategy, you can reach customers across various different platforms, driving more revenue and an improved conversion rate.
What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?
A digital marketing strategy is a plan…a plan that will help your business reach specific goals through a number of marketing channels, including paid, owned, and earned media. Many businesses run digital marketing campaigns without an appropriate strategy but, in my opinion, this is like driving to an unknown destination without running Google Maps in the background – you will take MANY wrong turns, get immensely frustrated, and take a longer journey to achieve your business goals.
So, think of your digital marketing strategy like you would think of an itinerary for your trip – an essential part of your planning to make the most of your budget and time.
What Does a Digital Marketing Strategy Look Like?
A strong digital marketing strategy can increase sales and build brand value in a limited time period. A digital marketing strategy is a combination of all the fundamentals of digital marketing. Yes, it is more than just running ads or posting on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
The most successful brands build their strategy around four key pillars: clear goals, a deep understanding of their audience, budgeting, and ongoing performance tracking. Let’s break it down with a real-world example Coca-Cola.
Pillars of a Strong Digital Marketing Strategy:
1. Set Clear Goals That Actually Matter
An advanced strategy starts with a goal — not just “traffic” or “post more,” but something measurable and aligned with your overall business direction.
Example:
A big brand, Coca-Cola, set a goal to boost brand engagement by 25% in one year. That gives their marketing team something specific to aim for and a way to measure success. It’s not just about being online — it’s about moving the needle in a meaningful way.
2. Target the Right Audience
If you have no idea about your audience, your campaign will never work as per your expectation. Detailed research about the target audience is needed during the strategy phase — knowing who they are, what they care about, and how they consume content is key to building campaigns that actually connect.
Example:
Coca-Cola has focused on Gen Z, a big generation that values creativity and social impact. They target them where they are — like on social platforms — by advertising engaging short videos and user-generated content that feels genuine. So, promoting your product in the right place, in the right way, plays a big role in a successful campaign.
3. Spend Your Budget Smartly
You don’t need the biggest budget — you need a smart one. That means investing in channels and tactics that give you the most return for your spend.
Example:
Coca-Cola puts a significant portion of its budget, around $5–6 million, into digital. But it’s not random. They spread it across influencer partnerships, social ads, and programmatic campaigns that target the right people at the right time.
4. Insights
You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Tracking results isn’t just about reporting; it’s about learning what’s working and what needs to improve or be removed from the current scenario.
Example:
Coca-Cola watches metrics like:
- Engagement (likes, shares, comments)
- Reach and impressions
- Brand sentiment (what people are actually saying)
- Conversions and retention
These insights help them adjust on the fly and get smarter with every campaign.
Why This All Works
When brands set clear goals with the right audience insight, thoughtful limited spending, and real-time measurement, they stay relevant — even on a global scale.
As discussed, Coca-Cola’s strategy isn’t magic; it’s smart, data-driven marketing that adapts with the times and always puts the customer first.
Audit your current scenario
The first step is always the hardest – this is where you have to be the most critical and harshest towards your business’ current point of view. Before going anywhere near a digital marketing strategy, you will need to audit your current owned, paid, and earned media.
Here’s a quick refresher of what these three media consist of:
- Owned media represents channels that your business owns such as a website, blog, video channels, podcasts, and others. You can use these channels to your advantage in your digital marketing.
- Paid media refers to third party channels such as influencer marketing, sponsored content, digital advertising, and others – mainly media which you pay compensation for.
- Earned media is content that is separate from your business gained from reviews, awards, testimonials, user-generated content, and others. This is the most authentic form of content.
Your Digital Marketing Strategy Components
There are several digital marketing strategy components that your business can utilise to get the message across to customers. Each business differs from the other so what works for one business might produce a completely different outcome for another.
- Content marketing: We all know that content is king. You can use your business’ owned media, such as a blog to target potential customers. With high-quality content comes improved rankings and website traffic.
- Website marketing: Your website can help reel in potential clients, especially if you employ effective call-to-action messaging.
- Search engine optimisation (SEO): Writing content does not stop there. The practice of optimising your content for seo including keywords, meta descriptions, internal linking, and readability improve your rankings in search engines, which will ultimately result in reaching prospective clients.
- Social media marketing: By communicating your message through social media, you can attract more customers to your brand and business.
- Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising: PPC falls under digital advertising, where businesses place ads on a third-party website to drive traffic. However, you will only pay whenever a user clicks on your link, making it more targeted and cost-effective.
- Email marketing: Email marketing can be used to target new clients and re-target old customers. An effective tool to strengthen your relationship with customers.
- Customer relationship management (CRM): A CRM can extract essential contact information from those who interact with your content and sort it out efficiently, decreasing manual work.
How do I go about producing an effective digital marketing strategy?
After analysing each business separately, taking into consideration the business goals, vision, and current marketing standpoint, I follow the below five steps to effectively come up with a unique and personal digital marketing strategy.
- Conduct a SWOT analysis: The first step is to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the business in question.
- Establish SMART business goals: Every business has goals but I try and break these down into specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals to make them more manageable and digestible. I also like to ask myself these questions: ‘What, Why, When, and How’?
- Market segmentation: I like to divide a business’ target market and audience into smaller groups to make it easier to tailor unique content to these digestible groups.
- Create a persona: A fictional profile that represents your target audience. This helps businesses understand their customers better, which in turn, gives a better understanding of how to target those clients. When creating a persona, it is also important to consider buying stages: awareness, consideration, and conversion.
- Identify budgets: All businesses are different, especially when it comes to their budget. The type of digital marketing strategy that you apply will heavily depend on a budget so it is crucial to get an understanding of how much a business is willing to invest from the start.
Essential Digital Marketing Tools
Using the correct tools in each stage is key to nailing down your digital marketing strategy. This will allow you to make hard choices on hard data! Data comes from all kinds of sources. Here are my go-to tools when analysing customer data:
- Google Analytics: The tracking code on your website will bring invaluable data to Google Analytics including traffic, where this traffic is coming from, how long it stays, where the engagement is, where the traffic is dropping off, among other metrics.
- Google Ads: Every digital marketing strategy should include some kind of paid media, irrespective of whether you have a tight or abundant budget. Google Ads also offers opportunities for ad optimisation and re-marketing.
Gordon MT Can Help To Make A Digital Marketing Strategy that will Deliver Results
If you need assistance with the creation and setting up of a digital marketing strategy, I am here to help. With 18 years of experience, I specialise in creating digital strategies proven to deliver results.
My goal is to be an extension of your team by bringing in innovative ideas, sharing knowledge that will bring in positive results, and building a digital marketing strategy that your business is looking for.
For expert help, check out our Digital Marketing Services in Malta
Let’s talk! Feel free to get in touch via LinkedIn or drop me an email at [email protected]
About Gordon Mt
Gordon Mt is a No. 1 SEO and digital marketing agency in Malta that helps local, national, and international businesses rank higher on Google and AI platforms. With deep local insight and global SEO expertise of 20 years of experience, we deliver results that drive visibility, leads, and real growth.
