Learning digital marketing in 2023 without an effective digital marketing roadmap can be very challenging and time-consuming especially if you are not following any learning structure.

I started my digital marketing journey in 2016 when I was still in my 3rd year of engineering. Initially, I started with social media marketing and content creation to promote my college fests. I was doing these when I was not even aware of all these terms.

After getting placed, I moved to different city and then started doing proper research. I took up a course but left it in just 2 weeks because that institute was teaching us Photoshop and After effects in the name of digital marketing which I’m pretty sure that even today many institute do the same. They give us an ocean full of syllabus which becomes very overwhelming for someone who’s completely new to this field

So in this blog, I’ve shared only the steps that are still very much effective in 2023 and followed by many industries. Make sure to take notes and write the steps that look relevant to your industry. For this blog, I’m sharing the digital marketing steps for handmade small business owners based in India as an example.

7-Step Digital Marketing Roadmap

1. Doing Thorough Market Research

Performing a market research can never go out of trend. It is the most crucial step to plan an effective digital marketing strategy for your business. This is the stage where you discover the market trends, who are your target audience and understand their needs.

For an effective market research you can take the help of social media platform, survey tools, FB groups and similar platforms.

A thorough market research will help you make an effective marketing strategy for your business.

Market research for handmade small business owners based in India can be done using social media platform like Instagram and FB to keep an eye on competitors and analyze what is working best for their business. You can easily track their marketing strategy by studying their online presence thoroughly and taking inspiration from their content

2. Audience Segmentation in your Digital Marketing Roadmap

Segmenting your audience is very important step in planning your digital marketing roadmap. You can form different groups of your target audience in this stage and understand the requirements of those specific groups.

Based on the requirements of this groups your brand can plan better content that resonates with those groups

Audience Segmentation for handmade small business owners based in India can be done by understanding what your audience is looking to buy, their age groups, current location, relationship status, current occupation etc.

3. Content Creation Strategies

Content Creation is the most crucial element for the digital marketing roadmap for your business. A well-planned content that resonates well with your target audience segment will not only keep them engaged with your brand but also give a boost to your marketing objectives.

Content Creation for handmade small business owners based in India  should include 5 types:

1. Product/service promotion
2. Educational content for more awareness
3. Entertaining content
4. Offers-based content
5. Behind the scene content

These content pieces can be used on website, social media platforms, emails, guest postings etc.

4. Online Advertising Strategies

When we run online targeted ads, the individuals who come across these ads will come and visit your website and social media handles. So you need to first clean up all the visuals and make sure that wherever your visitors land, the space looks professional and matches the vibe of your brand.

The audience segmentation that we did in step 2 is going to be very helpful while running paid ads for handmade small business owners based in India.

It is very important to carefully select your platform while running ads. Ads that can give better results on Instagram Platform might not give any result on Google ads or Quora Ads. All these are done by analyzing the results of trial and error method.

5. Collaboration Strategies

This is one of the most effective strategies in the digital marketing roadmap of your business. Once the foundation is set after following the above mentioned steps, you can collaborate with the influential names in your industry to promote your business.

Handmade small business owners based in India can collaborate with other small business owners and create some combo offers or product hampers. They can also collaborate with influencers who are relevant to their business and can promote the products with their social media followers.

PS: Collaboration with influencers can be done on a barter basis, paid feature or by creating affiliate links.

6. Analyzing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

So far we have implemented so many strategies and have done many trial and error methods to test an idea. But how can you understand which digital marketing strategy is performing best for your business?

The best thing about digital marketing is that you can track which of the online marketing strategy is performing better. This way you can focus only on the best platforms and keep improving your marketing strategy.

There are various free and paid analytical tools using which you can track traffic, engagement, and conversions and hence refine the complete marketing funnel.

7. Updating Strategies in your Digital Marketing Roadmap

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving industry with tons of algorithm updates and new tools being introduced on a daily basis. Hence in the last stage of your digital marketing roadmap, you need to continuously keep tracking your analytics and keep refining your strategies.

Ask your audience what they like about your products/services, what new they would love to see, what are their needs and problems that your brand can solve. These all answers will play an important role in improving your brand’s online presence hence completing your marketing roadmap.