TL;DR
- A strong digital marketing strategy puts out your brand story and the right message to the right audience at the right moment.
- Without one, you’re spending budget hoping for results instead of engineering them.
- The best strategies are built on data, tested constantly, and adjusted without ego.
- Small and mid-sized Midwest businesses have a real edge when they work with a local digital marketing company that understands regional audiences. Steer clear of generic plug-and-play advice.
The Digital Marketing Strategy Your Business Needs
If you’re a part of a business operating in the new online space, you’ve probably heard a million different pieces of advice about a space that frankly feels like this vast, unknowable thing. Before you take a leap of faith into “digital marketing”, pause for a moment.
eMod has partnered with businesses across the Midwest since 2012, helping them grow their business. Here’s your cheat sheet: a digital marketing strategy is your plan for how you’ll use digital channels (that’s your search engines, social media, email, paid ads) to find customers, earn their trust, and turn them into loyal buyers. Here’s what it’s NOT: a single campaign or your business’s social media calendar drawn up by an intern.
It’s the overarching framework that makes all those individual efforts flow in the same direction.
Done right, it’s the difference between throwing money at ads and actually nurturing your business.
Why Most Businesses Skip Strategy (And Pay for It Later)
It goes without saying (but we’ll acknowledge it for you anyway): small and mid-sized businesses are busy. The temptation is to dive straight into tactics: run a Facebook ad, post on Instagram three times a week, maybe try Google Ads. Is this all sounding painfully familiar?
The problem is that tactics without strategy are expensive guesses. You might hit on something that works (yay!) but you won’t know why, which means you can’t repeat it.
A proper internet marketing strategy gives you:
- A defined target audience: If you’re a law firm, you cannot be advertising to people searching for pizza recipes or skincare tips. If you end up advertising to everyone, you’ll be converting no one.
- Channel clarity: If your brand resonates with Gen Z on Instagram, that doesn’t mean an older Facebook audience will respond the same way. Your budget needs to go where your customers actually spend time.
- Measurable goals: Something to aim towards, so you know what “working” actually looks like.
- A feedback loop: So every campaign makes the next one smarter.
How Can Businesses Build a Digital Marketing Strategy?
Let’s put down some foundations for you so you can join the millions of businesses that already invest in their marketing efforts.
Phase 1: Start with a Competitive Market Analysis
Before you spend a dollar on ads or write a single piece of content, you need to know what you’re walking into.
A competitive market analysis answers three questions:
- Who are your direct competitors, and how are they conducting themselves online?
- Where are the gaps? That’s the keywords they’re not ranking for, the audiences they’re ignoring, the messages that aren’t resonating?
- What do customers in your market actually want and are you failing to deliver it?
A regional plumbing company in the Twin Cities is not competing with a national chain’s brand budget but it absolutely can outrank them on local search terms. A manufacturing supplier in Duluth doesn’t need to out-spend a competitor on the coasts; it needs to be smarter about where it shows up.
Start your competitive market analysis by:
- Searching your top 5 keywords in Google and cataloging who shows up
- Reviewing competitor websites, social profiles, and ad copy
- Using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to see what they rank for and where they’re investing in paid search
- Reading customer reviews of competitors (a goldmine of unmet needs)
The gaps you find here become the foundation of your strategy.
Phase 2: Build a Marketing Strategy That Fits Your Business
There’s no single template that works for every business. That’s why this is so tricky: everyone needs an independent strategy.
That said, every (good) digital marketing strategy shares the same skeleton:
Define your goals (and make them specific)
“More website traffic” is not a goal. “Increase organic traffic by 30% in six months” is. “Get more leads” is a wish. “Generate 25 qualified leads per month through paid search by Q3” is a target you can build toward.
Pro tip: Use the SMART framework: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.
Your goals should also ladder up to business outcomes (more revenue, more customers, higher average order value) not just vanity metrics like follower counts.
Know your audience deeply
Demographics are a starting point. Yes, you want to know the age, location, and income of your ideal customer. But you also want to know:
- What problems keep them up at night?
- How do they research purchases in your category?
- What does trust look like to them?
- Which platforms do they actually use (not just which ones are popular)?
For B2B companies across the Midwest, LinkedIn tends to outperform Instagram significantly. For local service businesses, Google Search and Google Business Profile are often more valuable than any social platform. Knowing your audience keeps you from building a TikTok presence for customers who are searching Google at 9 PM.
Choose your channels strategically
Be excellent on two channels before you try to be decent on five.
The major digital channels worth considering:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): 41% of marketers say the top trend they’re exploring is updating SEO strategy for changes in search. This is the long game, but one of the highest-ROI plays for most businesses. When someone searches “commercial HVAC repair Minneapolis,” you want to show up. SEO is how that happens.
2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) / Search Engine Marketing: Here’s your fast track. You’re only paying when someone actually clicks (unlike billboards or TV spots). This makes it adjustable and ideal for product launches, seasonal promotions, or capturing high-intent buyers. With effective optimization, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can get you returns of $2 for every $1 spent. That’s a 200% ROI.
3. Email Marketing: Still one of the most effective channels in existence. 53% of small business owners in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia used email marketing as the most frequent strategy for finding new and retaining repeat customers.
4. Social Media Marketing: The platform you choose to focus on matters greatly.
a. Facebook and Instagram are for consumer brands with visual products.
b. LinkedIn for B2B and professional services.
What Does a Digital Marketing Strategy Look Like in Practice?
Here’s a digital marketing strategy example for a mid-sized manufacturing supplier looking to grow its customer base:
Goal: Generate 40 qualified leads per month within 12 months.
Target Audience: Procurement managers and operations directors at manufacturing companies with 50–500 employees.
Channel Mix:
- LinkedIn for organic thought leadership and paid targeting
- Google Ads targeting high-intent search terms like “industrial parts supplier Minnesota”
- Email marketing to a segmented list of existing and prospective customers
- SEO focused on technical content that addresses buyer questions
KPIs: Cost per lead, lead-to-close rate, organic search traffic, email open and click-through rates.
90-Day Priority: Launch paid LinkedIn campaign and Google Search campaign while beginning SEO-optimized content production.
Digital Marketing Strategy Best Practices Worth Actually Following
A lot of “best practices” content is recycled noise. Here’s what actually moves the needle for SMBs in competitive markets.
- Test relentlessly, but test one variable at a time. Running two completely different ads and wondering why one performed better tells you nothing. Change the headline, keep everything else the same. Then you know.
- Don’t sleep on your Google Business Profile. This is often your most converting asset (particularly true for local and regional businesses). It’s free, it feeds directly into local search results and Google Maps, and most businesses maintain it poorly.
- Your website is the hub; everything else feeds it. Social posts, ads, and emails should all nudge people into what is essentially your digital home. Buy some furniture and decor before inviting people in.
- Use automation, but keep it human. Email drip campaigns, social scheduling, and other automation are meant to free up time for strategy and creative work. What they can’t replace is the authentic, local voice that resonates with audiences who are wary of corporate gibberish.
- Revisit your strategy quarterly. Algorithms will change: that’s a constant. Competitors adapt. Customer behavior shifts. A strategy that was working in January may need a meaningful update by April.
How Can You Measure the Success of Your Digital Marketing?
An online marketing strategy only earns its keep if you can measure results. The metrics you track should connect directly to the goals you set.
Some high-value KPIs by channel:
| Channel | Key Metrics |
| SEO | Organic traffic, keyword rankings, time on page |
| PPC | Click-through rate, cost per click, conversion rate |
| Open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribes | |
| Social Media | Reach, engagement rate, link clicks |
| Overall | Cost per lead, lead-to-customer rate, revenue attributed to marketing |
Set up a simple dashboard. Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and your ad platforms together give you a strong picture. Review weekly, analyze monthly, and make strategic decisions quarterly.
A Partner to Build Your Online Presence
Building a digital marketing strategy takes more than picking a platform and posting consistently. It takes real clarity on your goals, honest analysis of your competition, and the discipline to measure and adapt.
Are your fingers itching to do the real work? The right digital marketing company can act as your partner so you can focus on the more enjoyable parts of your business. eMod has been working with businesses across Minnesota and the Midwest for over 10 years. We help develop strategies grounded in local insight and expertise. We think like your customers and build backwards from there, so you always hit the mark.
Let’s chat about a strategy!
Call us: (612) 616-4200
Email: info@e-mod.com
Frequently Asked Questions
A digital marketing strategy encompasses the goals, target audience, brand positioning, and channels a business will use to grow. A digital marketing plan focuses on execution and outlines the timelines, campaigns, budgets, content schedules, and tactics needed to carry out said strategy. In simple terms, the strategy explains the “why” and “what,” while the plan covers the “how” and “when.”
The amount a small business should budget for digital marketing depends on its goals, industry, and growth stage, but many growing businesses invest around 7–10% of their revenue into marketing. A significant portion of that budget is often directed toward digital channels such as Google Ads, SEO, email marketing, and social media. For newer businesses, focusing on one or two high-performing channels first is usually more effective than spreading the budget too thin.
The timeline for seeing results from a digital marketing strategy depends on the channels being used. Paid advertising campaigns, such as Google Ads or social media ads, can begin generating leads within days. SEO typically takes three to six months to show meaningful organic traffic growth, and six to twelve months to see strong ranking movement in competitive spaces. Email marketing can show ROI quickly with the right list and offer. A balanced strategy uses paid channels for short-term results while building the long-term foundation through content and SEO.
