Comparing 5 Factors Driving a Zoe Digital Marketing Strategy

“How do you come up with our digital marketing strategy?”

It’s one of the most common questions that marketing agencies hear. And it makes sense. Marketing can feel like a complicated beast, from the layered tactics to the bottom line.

And, as a business owner, you want to feel like you’re making the best investment possible.

We understand the weight of this decision. At Zoe Marketing & Communications, we’ve helped clients fine-tune their marketing for 40+ years. We want you to feel empowered about the factors influencing your marketing plan. It all comes down to your top goals, including:

1. Boosting brand awareness and engagement
2. Ranking higher in search results + increasing web traffic
3. Generating qualified leads + customer value
4. Increasing revenue
5. Establishing brand authority

This article will help you see how these goals affect your strategy and budget. You’ll walk away empowered to pinpoint your goals — and approach an agency with confidence.

1. Boosting brand awareness and engagement

Visibility is where it all begins, and it’s often a constant goal in marketing strategies. These tactics can include:

• Targeted display ads, which appear on websites and apps based on browsing behavior, interests and demographics
• Email marketing, which delivers engaging messages to lists of curated subscribers
• Programmatic, which provides digital ads based on real-time audience data
• Strategic media partnerships, which leverage existing audiences aligned with yours

Strategy for brand awareness

This strategy casts a wide net and creates meaningful interactions with your audience. Here, your partner agency should be looking to:

• Gain broad reach through various channels
• Deliver shareable, engaging content to spark conversation and interactions
• Build community through tactics like social media groups, forums and events
• Foster brand partnerships to tap into new audiences and gain credibility

You’ll see success over time by measuring the impact of these efforts on brand perception and audience growth.

Budget impact of brand awareness

Growing your presence and fostering connections take time and steady investment. The main factors that influence the budget are:

• Diverse channels. It’s common to spread a budget across various platforms to maximize your reach.
• Content that draws people in. This starts with social media posts and ad and email copy. It often expands to blog and website content.
• Promotional activities. Social media ads, giveaways and sponsorships are examples.
• Analytics and monitoring. Track brand mentions, engagement rates and people’s sentiments to gauge campaigns’ effectiveness.

It’s essential to consider “reach,” or how many people you’re sending your messages to. Plus, consider the frequency at which you’re doing it.

It can be more cost-effective, for instance, to send one email to a smaller audience. Then, follow up with retargeting emails to those who opened the email. That builds awareness with a more interested crowd. And they’re more likely to take action.

2. Ranking higher in search results + increasing web traffic

When people are searching for you, your products or your services, you want to appear in those results. Here, a typical mix of approaches can include:

• SEO (search engine optimization), which optimizes your website with relevant keywords, mobile friendliness
• SEM (search engine marketing), which increases your odds of appearing at the top of search results
• Content marketing, which includes publishing valuable content that answers your audience’s questions
• Social media marketing, which drives engagement and helps boost SEO

Strategy for web results

To appear higher in search results and draw more traffic, a marketing agency should focus on:

• Optimizing your SEO with keywords and on-page tactics that align with your audience
• Creating high-quality content that addresses the needs and questions of your ideal prospects
• Building backlinks from other reputable sites to lift domain authority
• Improving user experience so your site is easy to navigate, reducing bounce rates 

Tools like Google Analytics provide data-driven insights to see how your rankings and traffic improve with time.

Budget impact of web results

Consistency is key. Without steady marketing, your search results and web traffic can take a hit. Your dollars go towards:

• SEO tools and services. This can include paid tools like SEMRush, Moz or Ahrefs. The budget here covers keyword research, competitor analysis and tracking rankings.
• Content development. This larger investment covers blog posts, videos, infographics and more. It all encourages people to spend more time on your site.
• Technical SEO. Costs improve site speed optimization, mobile-friendliness and more.
• SEM. Money may also go to Google Ads to complement your organic search efforts. You’ll gain more visibility in searches for keywords, too.

There’s a lot of room for variety here, which affects your costs. Even if you focus solely on Google Ads, it can be more expensive in a high-competition industry. It takes more effort to stand out.

3. Generating qualified leads and customer value

Getting prospects who are likely to buy from you means giving them value first. Several methods can finish this job:

• Search engine marketing, which grabs the attention of people searching for your types of services or products
• Social media marketing, which offers extensive targeting
• Email marketing, which personalizes messages and nurtures leads based on people’s interests
• Content marketing, which addresses your audiences’ needs, positioning you as a solution provider

Strategy for leads and value

Honing in on your best possible leads — and drawing them in — includes:

• Qualifying leads with a higher likelihood of becoming customers through specialized content
• Creating value propositions that show a deep understanding of customers’ needs
• Nurturing leads with a process that includes helpful content, emails and other tactics
• Using customer relationship management (CRM) to track leads’ progress towards becoming a customer

The focus is on building meaningful interactions with top prospects. Giving them value can lead to more sales.

Budget impact of leads and value

Going after higher-value leads takes a sophisticated approach that can affect your bottom line:

• Targeted spending. Reaching more leads is more costly since you’re competing with others who want the same audience. 
• Resources for content creation. This can include blogs, downloadable guides, case studies, webinars and other value-enhancing content.
• Tech-based tools. Lead scoring, analytics and CRMs take time and effort to manage and grow.

You’re investing in activities that support lead qualification and nurturing. It’s all carefully tracked to ensure it’s paying off.

And, again, more competitive markets can result in more expenses.

4. Increasing revenue

Growing your revenue takes more than saying, “OK, go!” Branding, traffic and leads all feed into the bottom line. But for this goal, these tactics play a role:

• Search engine marketing with Google Ads, which allows you to appear in search results, increasing traffic and sales
• Social media marketing, which drives engagement and purchases (especially on high-volume Facebook)
• Email marketing, which nurtures leads, promotes products or services and maintains customer loyalty
• Content marketing, which attracts and retains customers and, long-term, influences buying decisions

Strategy for revenue

Again, bringing in dollars doesn’t take one surefire approach. A healthy strategy involves:

• Targeting and personalizing your content to reach people who are making buying decisions
• Optimizing messages to draw traffic that’s more likely to turn into paying customers
• Aligning marketing strategies with sales goals to better “convert” leads into revenue
• Upselling and cross-selling also help to keep existing customers

The best revenue-focused strategy emphasizes a customer’s lifetime value — and repeat purchases.

Budget impact of revenue 

Since this goal is to bring in money, it does take more marketing dollars. Also, keep in mind that getting new customers can be more expensive than selling to existing ones.

Each of these factors can affect your bottom line:

• Higher customer acquisition costs. The process takes longer. Plus, it’s pricier to persuade people to buy something than to let them know it exists. It’s more work.
• Technology investments. Advanced analytics, customer relationship management (CRM) and automation tools can increase the budget.
• Content and offer development. It takes resources to create compelling content and promos like free trials or discounts that drive sales.
• Testing and optimization. These two tactics call for data analysis and experts to install and track the changes.

Also, targeting and personalization need a deeper understanding of your customers. This can be more complex and costly to develop. 

5. Establishing brand authority

This goes beyond brand awareness — and establishes you as a trustworthy source. It’s another long-haul goal that often uses these tactics:

• Content marketing, which offers helpful insights in blogs, white papers and videos to showcase your expertise
• Social media, which can highlight your content, let you lead and engage in conversations and build your voice
• Advanced approaches like public relations, partnerships, speaking engagements and webinars, which enhance your credibility and put trusted expert faces to your name

Strategy for brand authority

This builds over time by delivering on your promises and keeping a strong and reputable presence. A good strategy here includes: 

• Developing “thought leadership” that highlights your brand as an expert
• Creating content (blogs, guides, etc.) about core concerns, from cost to “bad fits,” in an easy-to-share and non-promotional way
• Sharing your expertise in videos, webinars and other methods that connect with your prospects
• Offering insights in social media groups or other spaces that show you value community engagement 

The goal here is to show your experience and share your knowledge in various ways, online and off.

Budget for brand authority

This budget also tends to be higher, since building trust takes time and the right message. In particular, costlier components can include:

• Content marketing. Crafting and pushing out content that’s expert-driven and high-quality is more costly.
• Social media. Sharing content, engaging with people and boosting your voice takes ongoing effort and feedback.
• Public relations, speaking engagements and webinars. These advanced methods take extensive planning, production and management, which drives up prices.

Next steps for creating a marketing strategy with Zoe (or any agency)

No matter what marketing agency you choose, it’s important to understand what affects your strategy — and budget — going in.

Here at Zoe, we’re transparent about how your goals will impact your strategy and costs. This includes brand awareness, search results/web traffic, qualified leads, revenue and brand authority. 

Want a better idea of what your strategy might be with Zoe? Talk to us. We’ll customize a plan for you, and you can determine whether it fits you.

Still researching your options? Learn more about how to develop a marketing strategy with these reads:

• How digital marketing can help you achieve your business goals
• How to set a marketing budget for your digital campaigns