Digital marketing questions for SMEs

5 SIMPLE BUT ESSENTIAL DIGITAL MARKETING QUESTIONS

I know you haven’t got much time, so I have selected five simple but essential questions to get straight to the point. Five traditional marketing questions revisited in the digital age.

QUESTION 1 – WHO ARE YOUR COMPANY’S BUYER PERSONAS?

Buyer personas are “marketing personas”, that is to say semi-fictional (fictional but based on data) representations of your ideal customers. Digital marketers create and use buyer personas to “put faces” to their (potential) customers and to relate to them in terms of wants, needs and pain points.

​Why should you create or update your buyer persona profiles?

Because, just like in traditional marketing, digital marketing is first of all about creating value for your customers. Your buyer personas will help making your efforts more customer-focussed and your offer more relevant. They will help you target the right people, in the right places, at the right times with the right messages.

QUESTION 2 – WHAT ARE YOUR USP AND UVP?

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is a statement about what makes your company different from others, whilst your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a statement about the benefits (that is to say the tangible results) your customers get from using your products or services.

Why should you clearly state your USP and your UVP?

Because your Unique Selling Proposition and Unique Value Proposition state the value your company brings to the market, what makes your brand stand apart from your competition, and where your products or services fit in the market. Your USP + UVP will help you communicate your competitive differentiation and serve as the foundations for your overall marketing message.

QUESTION 3 – WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF YOUR COMPANY’S BRAND IDENTITY KIT?

Your brand identity is more than your name, your logo or your website. Your brand identity is about how you want your company to be perceived. It is the mix of tangible and intangible elements, rational or emotional, that you create to appeal to your customers and clearly distinguish your company from others in people’s mind.

Why should you create your brand identity kit?

The internet is global, fast, overpopulated and extremely noisy. This is why clarity, cohesion and consistency across all your communication means (website, social networks, email campaigns, events, advertising, publicity and marketing materials) are vital to your brand identity. Your brand identity kit will help you make sure that all your identity elements work systematically and harmoniously together, and demonstrate the unique experience that your brand represents. As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, once said: “your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room”.

QUESTION 4 – WHAT ARE THE STAGES OF YOUR MARKETING FUNNEL?

A marketing funnel refers to taking potential customers through the whole buyer journey: from discovering a need to be satisfied and considering a brand, all the way to purchasing the products or services on a regular basis and recommending them to other potential customers.

Why should you map out the stages of your marketing funnel?

Your marketing funnel will help you visualize the process of guiding your leads, prospects and clients through a series of steps. You will lead them to take specific actions. Your final objective will be to convince your most delighted customers to become promoting fans of your brand, so as to feed your marketing funnel with new leads and create a loop that will restart the process and the repetition of the various steps of your funnel.

QUESTION 5 – ARE YOU USING APPROPRIATE KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND METRICS?

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results” said Winston Churchill. As a matter of fact, regardless of how wonderful your website, newsletters, social media and marketing materials may look, you will never truly know how well they are doing, how much effective they are, unless you measure them.

Are your marketing and communication activities adding value?

Are your marketing and communication campaigns adding value to your brand rather than adding a component to your overhead costs? Has this question ever crossed your mind?

Yes, because internet marketing is a discipline you need to monitor and measure. Appropriate KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and metrics will give you the insight to measure your return on investment. You will need to analyze the performance of your various marketing activities in order to identify the good ones, and modify or eliminate the ineffective ones.

MORE DIGITAL MARKETING ADVICES

In today’s digital world more than ever, these traditional but revisited marketing questions need to be answered before any effective communication or public relations campaign can be developed.