7 Steps To Plan A Digital Marketing Strategy

Last updated on February 21st, 2025 at 06:49 am

A haphazard approach to online marketing is a surefire way to waste time, energy, and money.

It’s important to be strategic and think things through before you start promoting your business online. 

That’s why today we are going to discuss how to plan a digital marketing strategy.

Step #1: 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 makes sense when you consider the context in which marketing as we know it developed:

You could reach your target audience via mail, print advertising, and with radio and TV ads.

None of these mediums allow you to quickly test your ideas – marketers had no choice but to take the “big bang” approach to marketing described above.

However, times have changed, we have digital technologies now, and that allows marketers to use the Lean methodology where you:

1. Come up with an idea for a marketing campaign
2. Design a minimum viable version of that campaign
3. Use that minimum viable version to test your idea
4. Analyze the results
5. Adjust accordingly

That way, instead of betting everything on one “big bang” launch, you make a bunch of small bets on various ideas, then drop the ones that didn’t work and invest in those that did work.

This approach is known as agile marketing.

Needless to say, it’s much less risky than traditional marketing.

That’s why we recommend it to everyone but especially to bootstrapped entrepreneurs who have extremely limited resources and can’t afford to make expensive mistakes.

Step #2: Clearly Define Your Dream Customers

One of the most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make is targeting an audience that is too broad. You need to avoid this trap!

Even if you have a product that could benefit different people, you should pick a narrow niche, to begin with, and zero in on it.

Say, when Facebook launched in 2004, its access was limited to Harvard students.

Then Zuckerberg gradually opened it up to students of other Ivy League universities, then to students of most universities in the United States and Canada, and then finally to the general public in 2006.

Now the company has rebranded to Meta and claims that it has 3.65 billion monthly users across all its core products (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp).

But it’s probably safe to say that Meta would have never grown to the behemoth that it is today if Zuckerberg targeted “everyone in the world with Internet access” from day one.

This same principle applies to all businesses, not just software startups – you need to pick narrow a niche, dominate it, then gradually expand from there.

Note that a niche is not the products or services that you sell, it’s a group of people who share a common interest.

Say, if you sell fitness equipment, then your niche isn’t fitness equipment, it’s people who are into fitness.

However, that’s way too broad as a starting point, so you would be better off narrowing it down to yoga enthusiasts, weight lifters, CrossFit folks, etc.

Once you have picked a niche, you should get clear on the demographic traits of your dream customers, as that will help you with targeting.

The three basic demographic traits are:

• Location
• Gender
• Age

Beyond that, depending on your product or service, you might want to know their:

• Nationality
• Education level
• Occupation
• Income level
• Political affiliation

…etc.

By the way, if your business is already generating revenue, then the best way to define your dream customers is to:

1. Look at who is already buying your products or services
2. Figure out what these people have in common
3. Use those commonalities to create a demographic profile of your dream customer

Not every person who buys from you will fit into that profile, but it should help you target people who are the most likely to convert into paying customers.

Step #3: Conduct Extensive Customer Research

Once you have clearly defined your target audience, it’s time to conduct extensive customer research and learn as much as you can about the psychographic traits of your dream customers:

• What are their values?
• How do they see themselves?
• How do they want to be seen by others?
• What are they struggling with?
• What do they want to achieve?

…etc.

The aim here is to understand what is driving your dream customers. What do they really want?

Typically, the most obvious answer that comes to mind immediately barely scratches the surface, so you will likely need to dig deeper to truly understand your target audience.

Say, if someone is interested in weightlifting, they probably want to get stronger. Duh, right?

But the real question you should ask is:

Why do they want to get stronger?

Is it because they want to:

• Be healthier?
• Become more attractive to the opposite sex?
• Have better chances at defending themselves in a street altercation?
• Improve their performance in another sport?
• Improve their performance in weightlifting competitions?

You need to understand what is driving people in order to come up with messaging that resonates with them.

Fortunately, you can learn a lot about your dream customers by figuring out where they hang out online, then observing the conversations happening there.

This could mean:

• Following relevant hashtags on Twitter
• Subscribing to relevant subreddits
• Registering to relevant online forums

…etc.

You can also learn a lot about your dream customers by consuming the content that they consume:

• Books
• Articles
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Online courses

Also, when you are doing customer research, pay attention not only to what people are saying but also to the language that they are using to express that.

Take note of the words, expressions, metaphors, etc. that come up over and over again, then use them in your marketing materials. 

Ideally, when you are writing copy, you should talk to your dream customers in their own language. 

Finally, we recommend creating a customer avatar, also known as a customer persona – a fictional character that will serve as a representation of your dream customers.

Say, in the early days of Facebook, its customer avatar would have been a fictional character that represented the average Harvard student.

Alternatively, Zuckerberg could have created several customer avatars that would have represented different groups of Harvard students (STEM, humanities, etc.).

The reason customer avatars are so valuable is that they allow you to conceptualize an abstract demographic (e.g. Harvard humanities students) as one person (e.g. Jane, 22, English literature major). 

That can help you empathize with your dream customers and write copy that resonates with them on a deep, emotional level.

Step #4: Design Your 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:

You should create a Value Ladder for your business if you want to make the most out of your marketing budget. 

This sales funnel is the best way to convert people in your target audience into paying customers!

Step #5: Create a Paid Advertising Campaign

Once you have your Value Ladder sales funnel set up, it’s time to create a marketing campaign designed to drive traffic to it.

We recommend starting with paid advertising because paid traffic is easy to measure, reliable, and scalable.

All major social media platforms allow you to run ads:

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

You should pick a platform that makes the most sense for your business. 

Say, if you are selling B2B products and services, then LinkedIn is probably your best bet.

And if you aren’t sure which platform would be the best fit, then you might want to go with Facebook as it’s the most universal one – everyone advertises on it, from your local pizza place to startup consultants.

What’s important is that you promote your lead magnet, not your products or services – you want to drive traffic to your lead magnet landing page. 

The purpose of your ad campaign should be to convert potential customers into leads by persuading them to give you their email addresses in exchange for your lead magnet. 

In fact, that should be the purpose of all your marketing efforts, regardless of the methods that you are using (paid ads, SEO, influencer marketing, etc.).

Once you get their email address, then you can pitch them your products and services via email.

Step #6: Start Driving Traffic to Your Value Ladder Sales Funnel

Set a small daily budget and start running your ad campaign.

Then sit back and watch what happens.

Step #7: Analyze the Data, Adjust Accordingly

Once you have enough data, start analyzing it.

The most important question that you need to ask is this:

Is your ad campaign profitable?

Only start scaling it once you are sure that it is. 

You should also use the data that you have collected for conversion rate optimization:

1. Identify which page in your sales funnel converts the worst
2. Figure out what the problem is
3. Fix that problem

Once you have improved the conversion rate of that page, move to the next weakest link in your sales funnel, then the next one, and so on.

Over time, this process can help you 2x, 5x, or even 10x your sales funnel profits!

Your Sales Funnel Works! What’s Next?

Everything up until now was designed to help you:

1. Build a sales funnel
2. Validate that sales funnel

Now that you know that your sales funnel works, it’s time to start diversifying your sources of traffic:

Experiment With Paid Advertising on Other Social Media Platforms 

Once you have figured out how to profitably run ads on one platform, you can start experimenting with other platforms using the same agile marketing principles:

Set up a small daily budget, start running ads, then see what happens and make adjustments accordingly.

Create a Webinar Funnel and Start Doing Live Webinars

Our co-founder Russell Brunson primarily used webinar funnels to get ClickFunnels off the ground.

At the time, he aimed to do 5-7 webinars a week and sometimes would end up doing 2-3 a day. And guess what? 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

Note that you can partner up with content creators in your niche whose audiences overlap with your target audience. 

Offer them an affiliate commission for every sale if they promote your webinar to their email list. 

This can be a great way to get people to sign up for your webinar when you don’t have an audience of your own yet.

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:

Learn How To Create Webinars That SELL

Invest in Building Traffic-Generating Assets

You should also build traffic-generating assets such as:

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

Realistically, it will probably take 12-18 months of consistently publishing high-quality content to gain momentum, but once you do, growing your audience will become much easier. 

There are a lot of tactics that can help you with this and you should do your research before you begin. 

 But the single most important factor is consistency. 

The reason why the vast majority of people who attempt to build an audience fail is this:

They give up too soon. 

That’s why we recommend using a productivity technique called the Law of 100 where you commit to:

• Posting on social media for 100 days in a row
• Uploading 100 videos to YouTube
• Publishing 100 blog posts

…etc.

This will help you stay motivated when you start feeling demoralized.

Say, if you have been uploading videos to YouTube for three months, it might be tempting to give up if you only have 38 subscribers after all that work.

However, if you implemented the Law of 100 technique, then instead of obsessing over your subscriber count, you would be focused on reaching your goal of uploading 100 videos.

In all likelihood, by the time you got to that point, you would have gained enough traction to feel motivated to continue.

Obviously, content quality is also extremely important, so we aren’t saying that consistency is the only thing that matters.

But content quality is something that can and should improve over time, so don’t agonize over it too much. Simply learn as you go.

What matters the most is that you:

1. Get started
2. Keep going

So don’t give up!

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!