How To Develop A Digital Marketing Strategy For A Brand

Last updated on July 10th, 2025 at 12:25 am

Want to grow your company fast?

Digital marketing can help you with that.

But you need to be strategic about it.

That’s why today we are going to discuss how to develop a digital marketing strategy for your brand. 

Step #1: Clearly Define Your Dream Customers

You need to know who your dream customers are if you want to create an effective marketing strategy.

If your company is brand new and you haven’t made any sales yet, then you will have to make an educated guess. Who would benefit the most from your product or service?

Note that you should start by targeting a small niche even if you believe that your product or service could have a much wider appeal.

For Example:

When Facebook launched in 2004, the company started by targeting Harvard students, then expanded to other Ivy League universities, then to most universities in the United States and Canada.

Only in 2006, two years after the launch did Facebook open to the general public.

Now, 18 years after the launch, the company claims to have 3.65 billion monthly users across all its core products (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp). 

But it’s probably safe to say that Facebook, now known as Meta, wouldn’t be where it is today had Zuckerberg targeted “everyone in the world with Internet access” from day one. 

So no matter what your product or service is, you should start with a small niche, dominate it, and then expand from there.

Meanwhile, if your company is already established, then you can identify your dream customers by looking at your sales data. Who is actually buying your products or services?

We recommend applying the Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) which states that:

“For many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes.”

In the business context, this means that it’s likely that roughly 80% of your revenue is generated by 20% of your customers.

The exact ratio doesn’t matter, so don’t get caught up in numbers – the point is that it’s likely that a minority of your customers are bringing in the majority of your revenue.

If that’s the case, then it’s reasonable to assume that if you could figure out how to attract more of these lucrative customers, you would be able to significantly increase your revenue. 

So here’s what you should do:

1. Analyze your sales data.
2. Identify the minority of your customers that are generating the majority of your revenue.
3. Figure out what these lucrative customers tend to have in common.

Once you have a profile of this customer segment, you can use it in your marketing campaigns to target people that fit it.

Step #2: Conduct Extensive Customer Research

Once you know who your dream customers are, the next step is to learn everything you can about them.

Ideally, you want to get to the point where you understand them better than they understand themselves.

Pay attention to:

1. What your dream customers want to achieve
2. What your dream customers are struggling with
3. What language do your dream customers use to express themselves (words, metaphors, slang, etc.)

Fortunately, the Internet makes customer research relatively easy, as you can learn a lot by simply:

1. Figuring out where your dream customers hang out online
2. Observing conversations that are happening there

This could mean:

• Following relevant influencers on social media
• Following relevant hashtags on social media
• Subscribing to relevant subreddits
• Registering to relevant online forums
• Reading relevant blogs
• Watching relevant YouTube channels
• Listening to relevant podcasts

…etc.

You might also want to consider using text analysis – a machine-learning technique that allows you to analyze vast quantities of data in a short period of time.  

Say, it’s not humanly possible to read every single tweet that includes a popular hashtag, but text analytics software can analyze them all and provide a summary of the overall sentiment, words, and phrases that keep coming up, etc. 

Text analytics tools are quite affordable nowadays so investing in one might make sense as it would drastically speed up your customer research + provide insights that you couldn’t obtain manually. 

Also, according to Gerald Zaltman, professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School, one-on-one customer interviews can yield deep insights:

“Many researchers tell us that one-on-one interviews are superior to focus groups. 

That is, even a few conventional one-on-one interviews yield essentially the same data as several focus groups.

Additionally, there is now a lot of evidence that personal interviews yield deep insights that can’t be obtained from focus groups. 

So, my preference is to conduct in-depth, one-on-one interviews that are enriched by using various techniques from clinical psychology and sociology. 

Often, the results of such interviews can be used to design more comprehensive surveys. And properly designed surveys, when subjected to careful statistical analyses, can yield further insights into unconscious consumer thinking.”

So don’t shy away from talking to your dream customers one-on-one. 

If you are just starting out and don’t have any customers yet, then reach out to people who fit your dream customer profile and ask them if they’d be willing to jump on a 15-minute Skype call with you. 

Everyone wants to feel heard so you might be surprised how open people tend to be to such proposals. They might even feel flattered that you want to pick their brain!

And if your company is already established, then you can reach out directly to your existing customers.

You might want to offer them some freebies as an incentive (e.g. if you run a SaaS business, then offer them a free month).

Also, as Zaltman suggested, you can use what you learn in these one-on-one customer interviews to design surveys for your entire customer base. Apps like SurveyMonkey or Typeform might be helpful here.

Keep in mind that the better you understand your dream customers, the more effective marketing campaigns you will be able to create.

So don’t skip this step – doing so would be shortsighted!

Step #3: Decide What You Want to Convey With Your Brand Image

What is a brand image?

An easy way to conceptualize it is to think about it as the overall “vibe” of your brand:

• Serious, reliable, trustworthy?
• Hip, tech-savvy, futuristic?
• Outdoorsy, rugged, self-reliant?

…etc. 

There’s no right and wrong answer here – it all depends on your dream customers. Your brand should match their:

1. Self-perception
2. The Image of themselves that they want to convey to the world

You should also get clear on the values of your brand – needless to say, these should match the values of your dream customers.

You might even take it as far as taking a stand on various political issues but you should only do that if your politics are aligned with those of your target audience.

Say, if your dream customers tend to be conservative, then taking a stand that aligns with conservative views might be beneficial for your brand.

Likewise, if your dream customers tend to be progressive, then taking a stand that aligns with progressive views might be beneficial for your brand.

However, if politics aren’t a significant variable in your dream customer profile, then you might want to stay out of it as getting involved might needlessly alienate a significant portion of your target audience.

What’s important here is that you live what you preach as brands that pay lip service to certain values yet don’t practice them tend to eventually come under fire.

As your company grows, you will inevitably attract criticism from people who don’t share your values but that shouldn’t be a problem because these people would have never converted into paying customers anyway.

However, if you engage in hypocrisy, you will alienate your dream customers, which might result in a loss of potential revenue and in some extreme cases might even put you out of business. 

So really think about what your brand values are and make sure that they inform your business practices, your branding, and your marketing campaigns.

Step #4: Embrace Agile Marketing

Traditional marketing works like this:

1. You come up with an idea for a marketing campaign
2. You create that marketing campaign
3. You launch it and hope that it works

This approach is extremely risky because you are betting everything on that one unproven idea. But what if it turns out to be a flop?

Of course, it makes sense when you consider the environment in which modern marketing as we know it has emerged – the 20th century.

It’s not like marketers back in the day had any other options – handing out leaflets, sending letters, and running ads on newspapers, radio, and TV, all that necessarily required a substantial up-front investment. 

However, today we have digital marketing, so it doesn’t have to be like that anymore. You can use the Lean approach to marketing, also known as agile marketing.

Here’s how it works:

1. You come up with an idea for a marketing campaign
2. You create a minimum viable version of that campaign
3. You use that minimum viable version to test your idea
4. You analyze the results
5. You adjust accordingly

For Example:

If you have an idea for a Facebook Ads campaign, you can set a $10/day budget, start running ads, and see what happens. 

If it works, great, you can start scaling it. 

And if it doesn’t work, then you only lost a few hundred bucks, so it’s not the end of the world. 

This approach also allows you to rapidly test a bunch of marketing ideas, then discard the losers and continue investing in the winners. 

Needless to say, agile marketing is much less risky than traditional marketing, which is why we recommend it to everyone but especially to bootstrapped entrepreneurs who simply can’t afford to make expensive mistakes.

Step #5: Create a Value Ladder Sales Funnel

We believe that the most effective way to sell anything online is the Value Ladder sales funnel.

It was created by our co-founder Russell Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!). 

This sales funnel has four stages:

• Bait – You offer the potential customer your lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
• Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product or service.
• Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and valuable product or service.
• Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product or service.

Ideally, you also offer a continuity program of some sort, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue. 

We also recommend adding downsells, upsells, and cross sells to these core offers in order to maximize your revenue.

The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:

1. Start the relationship with that person by offering free value.
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email.
3. Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage.

Here’s how Russell explains it:

Fortunately, you don’t need to have a lead magnet + three offers + downsells, upsells, and cross sells ready in order to create a Value Ladder sales funnel.

You can start with just a lead magnet  + frontend offer, then build out the rest of your sales funnel over time.

Create a Lead Generation Funnel 

The first stage of the Value Ladder sales funnel, the Bait stage is also known as the lead generation funnel.

Its purpose is to convert potential customers into leads by persuading them to give you their email addresses in exchange for your lead magnet.

A lead magnet can be anything that the potential customer can either download to their device or access online:

• A report
• An eBook
• A cheat sheet
• A video course
• An email course
• A webinar

…etc.

What matters is that:

1. Your lead magnet provides a solution to a problem that the potential customer is struggling with.
2. That problem is either the same one or related to the one that your frontend product addresses.

Note that people won’t give you their email addresses unless you offer them something super valuable in return. 

That’s why the key to designing an effective lead magnet is creating something that your dream customers desperately want…

And then giving it to them for free!

There are quite a few variations of the lead magnet funnel.

Here are the five most popular ones:

Squeeze Page Funnel 

It only has two pages: 

1. Squeeze page – This is the most basic type of landing page that features a headline, an opt-in form, and a call-to-action button.
2. Thank you page – This is the page that is shown to the potential customer after they provide their email address.

Here’s an example of a simple, yet high-converting squeeze page that we are using to promote one of our lead magnets:

And here’s the thank you page:

Squeeze page funnel can work well for all kinds of lead magnets + it’s simple and therefore easy to build.

If you have never built a lead generation funnel before we recommend starting with this variation.

Reverse Squeeze Page Funnel

The reverse squeeze page funnel consists of the same two pages:

1. Squeeze page
2. Thank you page

So what’s the difference between a regular squeeze page funnel and a reverse squeeze page funnel?

It lies in the way the free value is delivered:

• In the squeeze page funnel, all free value is kept behind the opt-in wall – the potential customer has to provide their email address in order to access any of it.
• In the reverse squeeze page funnel, some free value is right there on the squeeze page. And If the potential customer wants to access the rest of it, they need to provide their email address.

In practice, this typically means that there’s a video on the squeeze page that people can watch without opting in.

That video ends with a call to action to get the lead magnet (usually either a resource related to the video that they just watched or more videos on the same subject).

Reverse squeeze page funnels work best in niches that favor video content – fitness, cooking, beauty, etc.

It’s especially well-suited for video course lead magnets – you can put the first video on your squeeze page, then encourage people to opt-in to get the rest.

Product Launch Funnel

And what if you want to launch a brand new product?

Well, guess what, that’s what the product launch funnel is for!

Here’s what it looks like:

1. A squeeze page. 
2. Video #1. Position yourself as an authority and explain to the potential customer how your product will make their life better. 
3. Video #2. Address the most common objections. Provide social proof by sharing case studies of previous customers (beta testers). Then foreshadow the next video. 
4. Video #3. Express how excited you are that the potential customer has made it this far. Then take a step back, explain the big picture and help them visualize how your product will make their life better. Then foreshadow the next video. 
5. Video #4. Launch your product! It’s time to make it available to the potential customer. This page should have a “Buy” button below the video that will take them to the product order form. 
6. A product order page. 
7. An order confirmation page.

Note that the goal of this funnel isn’t just to build a pre-launch email list but also to create anticipation and excitement about your product.

So don’t make all four videos available immediately – send one every day or one every two days.

Webinar Funnel

Russell primarily used webinar funnels to get ClickFunnels off the ground.

Back then he would aim to do 5-7 webinars a week and sometimes would end up doing 2-3 in a single day. Pretty crazy but it worked!

In fact, it worked so well, that to this day Russell believes that the best business model in the world is to:

1. Create a webinar selling your service or your product
2. Do that webinar live every single week for a year

Here’s what a webinar funnel looks like:

1. Webinar registration page
2. Thank you page
3. Webinar page if the person is watching it live or the webinar replay page if they are watching a replay
4. Sales page
5. Order confirmation page

Webinars work especially well for selling online courses and service packages that don’t require a phone call to close the deal.

By the way, Russell has developed a system for creating webinars that sell, which we highly recommend if you want to use webinar funnels to grow your business:

Phone Funnel 

Not all products and services can be sold through completely automated sales funnels.

So what should you do if you need to get on the phone with potential customers to close sales?

You might want to consider creating a phone funnel.

Here’s what it looks like:

1. Success story page. Share your best customer case study.
2. Application page. Ask qualifying questions to make sure that this potential customer is a match for your business.
3. Homework page. Assign the potential customer a simple task to complete while they are waiting for you to contact them (e.g. watch a video, read a short PDF, etc.)

That way, by the time you make that call, you will know that the potential customer is interested in your product or service and that they are a match for your business.

Much better than cold-calling random people, right?

Create an Irresistible Frontend Offer

It’s important to understand that the purpose of the frontend offer isn’t to make you loads of money, it’s to convert leads into paying customers.

You can use an existing product or service but we recommend creating a separate product designed specifically for that.

Here are some tips on how to maximize its effectiveness:

• Make it super valuable.
• Price it at $7. At that price point, it’s not cheap enough to make potential customers skeptical of its value but also not expensive enough to make them stop and think twice before purchasing it.
• Offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. This removes all financial risk from the purchase decision which makes potential customers more likely to take the leap and buy it.

Our previously mentioned product “Perfect Webinar Secrets” is a great example of this:

We could charge way more for it given Russell’s track record of using webinars to grow an online business.

But our aim with this product isn’t to make as much money as possible right now, it’s to convert leads into paying customers…

Which enables us to maximize our revenue in the long run!

Create a Sales Page for Your Frontend Offer

Once you have your frontend offer, you need to create a sales page for it.

Sales page copywriting is a huge subject, so we can’t adequately cover it in a few paragraphs, but here are a few quick tips:

• Create a headline that conveys the #1 benefit of your product. How it will make the potential customer’s life better? Focus on that. 
• Add a sub-headline that explains the offer itself.
• Focus on the benefits of your product all throughout your sales copy. Reiterate the #1 benefit you mentioned in the headline + explain additional benefits. 
• Provide as much social proof as you can – feature “As Seen On” media badges, share customer testimonials, mention relevant accomplishments, etc. 
• Provide a 30-day money-back guarantee. Display it next to the “Buy” button so that it would be impossible to miss.

By the way, our friend Jim Edwards wrote a book called “Copywriting Secrets” which we recommend to everyone who wants to learn how to write copy that sells.

Create a 6-Email ”Indoctrination” Sequence

We don’t recommend hitting the potential customer with a sales pitch the moment they give you their email address.

Send them this email sequence instead:

• Email #1: Who Are You? Introduce yourself.
• Email #2: Where Did You Come From? Share your “origin story”. How did you come to do what you do now?
• Email #3: What Do You Do? Explain in more detail what it is that you do.
• Email #4: How Did You Gain This Expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to do what you do.
• Email #5: Who Do You Do This For? Explain who are your dream customers + share a case study on how you helped such a person get the results they wanted.
• Email #6: How Can You Do It For Me? Pitch your frontend product.

We recommend using the “Hook, Story, Offer” copywriting framework to structure these emails. 

Here’s how Russell explains it:

Step #6: Figure Out How to Run Ads Profitably

Once your Value Ladder sales funnel is all set up, it’s time to start driving traffic to it with paid advertising.

All major social media platforms allow you to run ads:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• TikTok

Regardless of which platform you choose, the general process remains the same:

1. Create an ad campaign to promote your lead magnet
2. Set a small daily budget and start running ads
3. Analyze the data and adjust accordingly

Your aim should be to figure out how to run ads profitably. Once you do that, you can start scaling your campaign.

Step #7: Build Traffic-Generating Assets

Paid advertising is great but you don’t want to be completely reliant on it forever.

That’s why we recommend investing in building traffic-generating assets such as:

• A social media following
• A YouTube channel
• A company blog

Realistically, it will probably take at least 12 – 18 months of consistently publishing high-quality content to start gaining momentum.

However, once you get to that point, growing these assets will become much easier. 

The key to success is consistency, which is why we recommend implementing a productivity technique called The Law of 100.

Commit to publishing:

• 100 social media updates – ideally, one update per day, for 100 days in a row
• 100 YouTube videos
• 100 blog posts

By the time you reach these goals, you will likely feel motivated to continue creating content.

What’s important is that you don’t give up too soon!

Want Russell to Show You How to Build Your First Sales Funnel?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads
• Create your first lead magnet
• Build your first sales funnel
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
• And launch your funnel

…in just five days!

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!