by Mertcan AtikPLANNING
Creating a brand and strategy requires effective planning and management processes. Establishing the right team is a key element that supports the business in achieving its goals. The talents, experiences, and perspectives of each team member add diversity and strength to the brand’s strategic goals. A good team makes the branding process more efficient, increases creativity, and ensures focus on strategic goals. Effective communication and collaboration among team members require a unified effort around a consistent brand message and a similar vision.
Creating a budget, creating a timeline, and projecting are important steps to successfully manage branding. The budget determines the financial resources to be allocated for the brand strategy of the business. This enables effective allocation of resources for marketing campaigns, brand design, digital presence creation, and other strategic activities. The timeline outlines each stage of the branding process and helps keep the business plan moving consistently within the schedule. Project planning, on the other hand, ensures focus on strategic goals by determining the steps, tasks, and responsibilities required to achieve the determined goals.
01 | WORKFLOW
There is a lot of work that needs to be done from defining the brand strategy to marketing communication studies. Each job has to occur in a certain flow. Marketing activities, which are sometimes tried to be carried out with large teams and sometimes with limited groups, are only possible by designing an effective workflow. All duties and officers need to be defined and planned throughout the business process from start to finish. Workflow plans are created to establish a team in digital marketing and to share each work accurately, completely, and on time. Who will be responsible for social media? Which team will produce the designs? Who will respond to comments on shared content? Who will conduct regular brand research? Today, complex brand and marketing activities can be made more manageable with comprehensive workflow plans. Workflow automation tools developed with the development of technology made it possible to make this type of management easier and more comprehensive. This innovation has further improved the time and resource management processes of creative teams.
Creating a workflow makes it possible to progress some steps without needing to be repeated. Creating an easy-to-follow workflow simplifies management, no matter who the team members are. Projects can be managed more accurately from start to finish, the whole team can be coordinated, and the rotation between employees is managed more efficiently. When we think of social media marketing, there are many business items in the process. Creating content, finding new ideas, getting ideas approved, preparing designs, sharing content, and analyzing comments… A comprehensive and clear workflow plan is needed to properly manage and organize all these works. The same is true for content marketing. The right content enables the brand to differentiate from its competitors digitally, provides customers with the information they need, and creates moves that will increase the conversion rate. Performing competitor analysis, identifying keywords, writing content, making technical reviews… It is not possible to start all these processes from scratch each time and to create a workflow for the new members of the team from the very beginning. It also needs to be measured to improve processes. Measuring the way of doing business is only possible with a workflow plan with a certain framework.
02 | BUDGETING
Determining the digital marketing budgets of a brand is a very critical issue. Budgets need to be planned according to certain periods. When digital marketing budget planning is not prepared meticulously, the picture that emerges in the final will be surprising for everyone. Digital marketing budgets include media costs, production expenses, agency or freelance fees, digital tools, and technology purchases. In addition to these, it is necessary to include team expenses in the budget.
Media costs are the biggest budget of the digital marketing plan. Comparisons from past campaigns or performances will be effective for creating a new budget plan. In this process, budget estimates should also be obtained from the media or platforms that are desired to be negotiated. The brand’s strategy in that year and the goals it wants to achieve determine the scope of the budget. If the target in digital marketing is to make direct sales, it would be appropriate to turn to PPC channels and shift the budget to this area. If the aim is to increase brand communication, it would be right to turn to social media channels. There is no budget plan to be determined for each strategy and implemented in other years. Past data and achievements form the forecast of the future budget plan.
Creative production makes up the other big part of the budget. Digital marketing is all about content. Creating visual, textual, or audio content is possible with creative teams. It is necessary to produce a lot of content for websites, social media channels, e-mail marketing, or advertising work. Significant budgets are required for designers, contributors, analysts, and then the team to moderate.
Agency fees are planned for studies where companies need third parties for some services. The support of agencies is needed in media purchases, above-the-line communication studies, reporting, and campaign processes. At this point, different pricing policies are applied between companies and agencies. Hourly pricing can be made, as well as monthly or performance-based pricing methods. In addition, if media expenditures are managed by an agency, a certain percentage of the expenditure is paid to the agencies for this service.
Digital tools make it possible to manage digital marketing processes in a more controlled and systematic way. Design programs, administration panels, analysis tools, or subscription information platforms create monthly or annual costs.
Setting a budget is a process that starts after asking the right questions and getting real answers. How many people is the target audience? What is the goal we want to achieve as a result of marketing? What is the number of potential customers? How much of a budget do you want to allocate to digital communication? Is it possible to increase the price during the campaign times? Is an extra budget allocated for advertising? The answers to all these questions will be effective in the sketching of the budget. How many customers does the company need to be successful? How much is the budget for this? Have we narrowed down the target audience enough? If the budget is not enough, it is necessary to allocate the target audience to certain age ranges. Or the limited budget is focused on the gender that is thought to be the target audience. The same narrowing can be made to certain regions or cities of the country or the world. Ads don’t need to play every day. The times when the target audience is busy can also be selected as an ad display. This leads to more planned spending of the budget.
Digital marketing has provided the opportunity to reach customers through many different channels. The advertising budget policies of each media platform on the Internet are different. To use the budget in the right direction, it is necessary to choose the most suitable platform for the budget. How much traffic is needed, a suitable channel is selected based on the conversions obtained from the previous periods. In addition, the amount to be paid after the ad display can be calculated by considering the CPC or CPMs offered by the platforms. There is no limit to the amount of money that can be invested in digital. The important thing is to know which target will reach how many customers and to choose the appropriate platforms. To complete all these processes completely and professionally, monthly and annual budget plans should be created. This is the most critical point of budget management in digital marketing. While doing this, it should also be calculated that the budgets will fluctuate in a certain period. While doing this, with the support of the calendar, it is possible to calculate what will happen in certain periods and which months will be concentrated.
03 | TIMELINE
Among the digital marketing plans, the most critical issue along with the budget is the timeline. Timelines allow teams to see all the issues they are responsible for during the year. Thus, projects, campaigns, events, and sales are planned in such a way that they do not go unnoticed. A timeline is essential for organizing, executing, and following all the strategies considered for marketing. Timelines create a map of what, when, and how teams will do. Its scope depends on business objectives and marketing strategies. Campaigns and intense communication periods are the times when planning is most needed. Along with the timeline, where and where the marketing plans are over time is determined in advance and can be followed during the process. It is a structure in which many teams work in marketing, it can be overlooked who will focus on which job during intense communication periods. With the timetable, this problem is eliminated and the work is completed on time before the deadlines. Thus, employees with different duties and responsibilities can be employed in different projects in a balanced way. What tasks will be done? Who will be responsible for which tasks? What date is the deadline for things to be done? Which tasks are a priority? The answers to all these questions are most clearly revealed by determining the timeline.
Here’s what to do to plan a timeline:
Before starting a new timeline, the workflow processes of the existing team should be examined. It is necessary to observe which work is completed with how many people and in what period. The more the workflow can be optimized, the faster the tasks will be completed. This is possible with the clearest definition of job descriptions in the marketing process. Is the marketing goal clearly defined? Need traffic to the website? Are sales targeted with social media ads? Clearly defining goals will serve the purpose of the timeline more. Campaigns to be created with a determined strategy should also be defined in detail. After the budgets are determined, the dates of each communication work should be determined clearly. However, the success of a communication or campaign work with a defined start and end point can be measured. With the measured success, it will be clearer which projects have been successful and which works have not been completed within the specified time.
04 | CHANNELS
When we say digital marketing, we mean all kinds of marketing activities that take place on the Internet. Marketing communications are carried out through various channels on the Internet. These channels are platforms whose success can be measured compared to traditional methods. At the same time, its management is much easier and more practical than traditional models. Brands can manage how often, where, to whom, and when they will appear through platforms. Each platform has its audience and experience. The important thing is to determine the most suitable channel for marketing communication.
Content marketing is the meeting of the content determined by the strategies with the target audiences by determining the channel and time. Effective content attracts customers and allows them to listen to the brand’s discourse. Content can arouse curiosity, it is effective in raising emotions and establishing a bond with the brand. Reinforcing the brand personality content and perceiving it correctly by everyone is possible with content marketing. Content marketing is seen in every process of digital marketing. The website, search engine marketing, social media posts, or email messages contain a lot of visual and textual content.
Search engine optimization is the activities carried out to increase the ranking on search engines to attract qualified traffic to the website. By the quality rate determined by the search engines, many studies are carried out inside or outside the website. Searching for keywords, anchor links, or content titles is constantly improved by a particular one. This process also ensures that the articles written by Seo become original.
Email marketing is one of the most traditional digital marketing channels. There is an opportunity to communicate directly with the authorized e-mail addresses collected from the customers. The important thing is to prepare content suitable for categorized customers instead of sending the same e-mail to every customer.
Social media marketing is the ideal channel to raise awareness, increase engagement, and strengthen bonds with customers. The most important feature is that customers convey their comments and suggestions to brands through these channels. Twitter, Meta, Linked, Tiktok, and YouTube are the most widely used digital marketing channels today. Each channel has its audience and category. Brands choose social media channels according to these categories. With the analysis tools developed within the scope of social media channels, brands measure the success of their communication efforts.
Performance marketing is also called pay-per-click advertising. In paid digital channels, advertisements are carried out with various goals. Campaigns, keywords, ad groups, ad messages, and pricing offers are all aspects of performance marketing. Contrary to search engine optimization, which aims to provide organic traffic on search engines, taking part in these areas for a fee is within the scope of performance marketing. Results are faster than SEO. It is ideal for a new product launch or short-term campaigns.
Digital channels don’t just cover certain major platforms. Each platform on the Internet with a similar target or target audience as the brand can be a digital marketing channel. A website selling similar products, an influencer page where a joint project can be developed, and even the most trafficked lines of a related blog can be turned into a channel for digital marketing. The video content produced can be played on any channel where the target audience is present. Today, with the increase in internet technologies, different channels expect marketers to use them. The important thing is to clarify more critical issues before making a channel selection. A campaign cannot be without a target. Communication, where the target audience is not determined, cannot be successful. It is quite wrong to choose a channel and start sharing without determining the budget.
05 | CAMPAIGN
Brands initiate intensive communication activities at certain periods. Campaigns are organized to achieve marketing goals such as promoting products, brand awareness, or gaining new customers. Campaigns are intensive marketing efforts with various digital marketing channels. The most critical results of campaigns are conversions. Conversions planned by the determined goal are evaluated at the end of the campaigns. The success of campaigns is determined by conversions. Today, depending on the development of technology and the internet, the types of campaigns also vary. Sometimes different types of channels are integrated into a campaign.
The correct management of the campaigns affects the result of the conversions in the desired direction. Planning, implementation, and analysis processes should be carried out with great care. Digital marketing campaigns are a set of activities planned and implemented to achieve the best results.
After determining the marketing objectives, the campaign idea that will bring the best results is found. The emergence of new platforms and the change in user behavior every day also affect the diversity of campaign ideas. It is observed that the campaigns that received effective conversions in the past years could not give the desired conversions over time. This is because platform algorithms are different every day and new ideas must be found to compete.
It is not enough just to choose the right channel for the campaign. It is necessary to use digital channels appropriately and to find moves that will attract the attention of customers.
Content marketing campaigns are planned to provide information about products and services, increase brand awareness, or inform customers. Customers refer to the content of the brand to answer their questions. Creating a content calendar is critical. Keyword research is required to drive traffic. Content production is the most time-consuming part of me. The content needs to be shared and the results analyzed.
Social media campaigns are intense communications made by brands through their social media accounts. Unlike regular social media posts, they are special communications planned for campaigns, important days, launches, or product promotions.
Search engine optimization and marketing campaigns are intense efforts that aim to rank higher in search engines during the periods when traffic is planned to drive the website. Choosing keywords for the campaign is critical. Blog posts that will attract traffic should also contain keywords and keep a high level of interest.
Make sure that the campaign goals are achievable. In addition, being traceable is critical for changes to be made during the campaign process. The duration and intensity of the campaign are usually related to the budget. The budget should be effectively allocated to the campaign plan. For this, past campaigns and conversion rates can be examined. With remarketing campaigns, communication studies can be carried out on the data obtained from the campaigns. Remarketing campaigns are very effective because the data of the previous campaign is the most up-to-date. Old visitors who can’t complete the purchase process are closer to purchasing the products and services they come across with remarketing campaigns.