Christopher James, CEO of ePost, a computer systems design and marketing services company in Kingston, indicates that local businesses can do much better in the digital marketing space if they stick to key fundamentals and do relevant research.

Digital marketing is now used alongside or as an alternative to traditional advertising and marketing by companies seeking to increase sales and revenue flow. James indicates that the place to start for the marketing planner or business owners must be first to “identify your target market”.

He outlines, “It is important to identify your ideal target audience. Even if you are able to convince someone that he/she needs your goods or services, you should always know who you are selling to. This will shape your strategies and reveal the channels to invest in for maximum return.”

Steps to be taken in this task include defining the buyers’ personas. James explains, “Segment your audience into a couple of distinctive customer types. Define them demographically, identify their challenges and expectations.”

It is advisable to hire experts for market research. Work with experts to develop a better understanding of your market and its changing habits and expectations. Planners are also advised. Talk to prospects: “Engage with them on your website and/or social media accounts through comments, conversations, surveys, polls, forums, and elsewhere. Communicate with them directly and learn about your audience right from the source.”

After identifying your target market, the next step is to identify their challenges and how your products and services will address them. Identifying prospects or customers’ challenges will help you to send a clear personalised message when marketing to them, which speaks to their needs and provides a sense of security that your company knows and understands who they are speaking to.

How to identify customers’ challenges

– To establish the particular challenge or pain point affecting your customer, you should pursue, through interviews, customer support cases and surveys.

– Directly communicate with stakeholders, sales and support teams that are familiar with customers’ requests and business operations.

– Look for third-party industry research on the shared challenges, and take note of the key findings to decide on your approach.

Develop a strategy for campaigning

You should develop a strategy for campaigning and a budget to support the same. James states, “It is important to establish objectives that your company hopes to achieve and the steps needed to execute them.”

In developing a digital marketing strategy, James stated that it’s best to set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (SMART) goals and define the tools, channels, and tactics to achieve them.

He advises, “Keep track of your progress and fine-tune your strategy based on results.” James notes that posting on social media without a plan or clear guide is not recommended. Social media provides great opportunities but there has to be an implementation of a tactic that will support the increased audience reach and engagement that your business wishes to achieve.

He concludes, “Research has shown that consistency and good timing are the two important factors for the social media posting strategy.”

*ePost, led by CEO Christopher James, assists other firms to grow their businesses by streamlining communication with customers via their preferred channels.