Digital marketing I - strategy planning

Most important things I learned from the lecture

This lesson mainly discussed what digital marketing is, different types of digital marketing including their specific features, how to identify target groups by creating buyer personas, how to set up goals and how to develop content themes. This is very important for me to learn about different types of digital marketing channels. Although, I have used some channels, there are some specific features that I did not use earlier. Moreover, I learned about new channels such as Search engine optimization, pay-per-click, content marketing and native advertising. I gained a better understanding of how to implement them to create valuable, attractive and clearly defined content for our target group as well as how to increase website traffic. Furthermore, affiliate marketing and influencer marketing are new for me. I got an idea about what can help to find commissions through digital marketing strategies and what influencers do.

The other most significant things I learned were the idea of buyer personas, how to build them and how organizations apply them to gain better understanding of their customers. Because of this concept, organizations can develop communication strategies according to their requirements, behaviors and interests.

How could this be useful for me

 The knowledge gained from this lesson could also be useful for my family business, which is a small furniture shop in Sri Lanka. Even though the business is small, communication strategies are important for attracting new customers and advertising products. We can share pictures of furniture designs, new items in various features and special discount offers through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp Business. I can create posts with furniture photos, home decoration ideas or short videos of furniture making by using channels such as SEO, content marketing and video marketing for my target group. I believe these things will help to increase traffic on my website.

Furthermore, creating buyer personas can assist us to figure out more about different customer groups. We can get a better idea of preferences, special needs as well as behaviors of different kind of clients by using this concept. Business can create communications that are more relevant to certain customer groups instead of trying to speak in the same way with everyone. This method may be effective for our business as our customers have different needs according to their standard of living, experience, economic status and purpose for purchasing furniture.

The knowledge from this lecture is very useful for any organization for developing communication strategies. By understanding digital marketing channels, creating buyer personas to define target group, making SMART goals, structuring content strategy as well as measuring the results all are useful for me for my further professional life as well as our family business.

I have created following buyer personas to represent our expected customer group.

Buyer Persona 1

Name- Anne 

Age- 28

Family Background- Husband , Newly married and settling into a new home

Online Behaviors- Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp

Questions and Frustrations- Is this furniture match to our home design?

                                              Are there available modern products?

Fears- Difficult to make decision among many options

Why she choose our business- She can suggest the designs of their preferences and we will make their furniture according to them.

Buyer Persona 2

Name- Robert 

Age- 50

Family Background- Wife, 2 kids

Online Behaviors- Facebook, WhatsApp

Questions and Frustrations- Is the wood good quality?

                                              Is the furniture durable?

Fears- Worry about poor products

Why he choose our business- We have only high quality wooden furniture.

                                              He can select the wood what he prefers among the wood we have.

Buyer Persona 3

Name- Peris 

Age- 55

Family Background- Wife, 3 kids

Online Behaviors- WhatsApp

Questions and Frustrations- How much is the down payment?

                                             Can I do the payment with an installment plan?

Fears- worry about the price of products.

           Fear of not being able to make full payment at once.

Why he choose our business- We have installment payment plan without down payments.