by Taylor McKinney

As a solopreneur, you know that no good business can run without a solid digital strategy. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail. With a carefully curated approach, you can anticipate increased sales, new and returning customers, and long-term growth. Here’s what you need to know about creating your digital strategy as a team of one.

Determine your mission

This is the foundation upon which your entire business is run, so consider this one carefully. For example, Patagonia’s mission statement isn’t just about selling outdoor clothing and gear, but to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

Ask yourself what’s at the heart of your business and what made you pursue it in the first place? These core values will be echoed and maximized in all parts of your brand and marketing, so make sure it’s authentic and something you’re proud of. It should be about more than revenue, but how you’re planning to make your place in the world and make the lives of your customers better or easier, no matter how small the scale. Look to bigger companies for influence if necessary, and especially these inspiring mission statements.

Identify Your Goals and Measure Them

Key Performance Indicators and targets goals—it’s all business-speak for the most important part of growing your business, which is identifying where you want to be and tracking your performance to get there.

If you’re just starting out, choose “stretch goals” or achievements that won’t be easy, but are still realistic. Make sure they’re quantifiable and able to be tracked, whether it’s getting 100 email subscriptions or 500 followers on social media.

If you’re already in the business, consider increasing your lead generation by 25% or to increase time on page by 20% in the next month. Google Analytics and other web analytics tools are great to help measure your conversions, social media analytics will track your engagement. Content marketing software can measure the success of your content marketing.

Develop Audience Personas

A successful business speaks the language of their customers or buyers. And just like with the mission statement example, chances are you have an idea of who’s using your services or buying your products, but why settle for a roundabout guess when you can use data to find out the nitty-gritty of who they are and what they need?

To start with, record all the demographic information of your customers. To find out how they best like to engage, determine how they find and interact with your content through Google Analytics. If you don’t have access to this information, add form fields or surveys to your site to capture all pertinent data. You can even determine trends and personas through feedback and communication via your social media sites. These persona templates will help you get started.

Strategize with SEO—and Update it Frequently

You’ve put countless hours into your content creation and overall marketing strategy—and it’ll all be for naught if no one sees it. If you’re just starting out here, make a list of themes or topics that are most relevant to your brand—both descriptions of your product or services, as well as possible blog topics—and conduct keyword research (both short and long tail) via Google Keyword Planner to see what terms you should be targeting in your page structure, as well as anchor text, meta description, h2 tags, and titles, etc.

You’ll also want to initiate a link building plan to get backlinks, so reach out to relevant sites and offer to write content for them in exchange for a link back to your site. Once you’ve optimized your site and all associated content and marketing materials, continue to monitor your progress, as well as that of any direct competitors.

The best part is that this digital marketing plan is scalable, no matter how many people you add, or how many moving parts you add to your vision. These steps are a solid core of the business plan to help you stay ahead of the curve, keep ahead of digital marketing trends, and fully achieve your business goals.

Taylor McKinney is a Marketing Specialist at TrustRadius, which has become the most trusted website for B2B software reviews. When she is not writing about the latest tools and small business trends she is enjoying Austin’s beautiful scenery with her family.

International Business Travelers can face many issues. As a Consultant, I would tell you about all the compliance issues and the option of being held in detention if you get caught with the wrong visa or work permit. This is my tale of trying to book a ticket that involved three countries called Switzerland, Germany and France.

Once upon a time in a land far away, locked inside a few mountains, a middle-aged lady, Mrs. W. tried to live in a more environmentally friendly way. So she sent her carriage to Africa. It was the age of mass transportation, the neo-romanticism movement had just begun and a few freaks committed to train travel as a way of life.

Our middle-aged lady, Mrs. W. did consider a horse carriage but the train was the transportation of choice. It promised to offer safety, a view, the potential for a class of wine in the restaurant carriage and most importantly, it was supposedly reliable. Our lady had a commitment in the beautiful city of mustard: Dijon, France.

After two days in this beautiful little town she planned to liaise with her old-time university friend TK and his new, soon-to-be fiancée that she had not met yet. Mrs. W. needed to take a train to Frankfurt in Germany. Then she planned to return home, too late to see off her lover who was going to go on a long adventure in the lands, formerly known as Hindustan.

Mrs. W. tried to book her tickets. Her handmaiden was off on vacation so Mrs. W. so to the task herself. She also could not send her delivery boy, because she had let all the staff go due to urgent renovations happening in her castle (or cottage or mini city apartment).

The first part of the trip, from Zurich to Dijon went fine. The second part seemed more complicated. She first consulted with the train company in Switzerland. It seemed to be difficult for them to issue a ticket where none of the train station was in their territory. Then the train company in Germany told her it would take several days to process a ticket.

She hoped for a faster solution and asked locals in France for help. One of her assigned supporters from the university, gave her the hint to work with the French train company. When she finally managed to obtain a ticket, the confirmation letter told her that the ticket would arrive in four days with the mail. This was the day she would already be gone. Despite the potential of using the telephone, Mrs. W. was not sure if her French was up to the standard for such a complicated conversation.

So Mrs. W tried to contact the French train company again via the common mail exchange.

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How innovative she thought. She first received an answer from a machine.

Bonjour Angie ! Tu l’as sans doute remarqué, j’ai changé … Désormais, je m’appelle OUIbot pour que la seule réponse à tes envies de voyage soit « OUI » !

T’aider à réserver des voyages en train, c’est ma spécialité ! Mais ce n’est pas la seule corde à mon arc… NOUVEAU Maintenant réserve avec moi des trains TGVmax en ajoutant “en TGVmax” à ta recherche !

Mrs. W responded: I don’t speak French

The Machine said:

Désolé, je ne suis pas encore polyglotte… Mais je travaille dur pour y arriver!

The machine told her that he is not “polyglotte” but was working hard to get there. He tried to be funny. Even used emoticons to express his feelings. Mrs. W. was not amused.

She pressed the button “Talk to a Human”. Then she left the scene for a walk in the cold and icy city. She ended up in a bar where she met a friend and was at ease when she returned home. After dinner, she returned to her desk. A human seemed to take of her matter.

Un conseiller va prendre le relais. Pour qu’il soit le plus efficace possible, peux-tu me préciser ta demande ?

Mrs. W. tried to explain the issue in French and English.

Oui, je voudrais changer le ticket pour un ticket en ligne, pas de papier. (I don’t speak French so well but I need to have an online ticket, not a ticket sent by mail. I did not see that the ticket would be sent by mail. I assumed it was always a pdf or online ticket). Can you help me please?

Several hours passed. Nothing happened.

She got the same response. She would have to get a new ticket on the counter and claim the cost back via registered mail.

Mrs. W. gave in. She went to the counter and explained the issue. The lady at SNCF was efficient and helpful and showed her how to claim the ticket costs back. She typed a letter in French. The registered mail cost her CHF 8.60 and she had to go to the post office in person, because her handmaid and the butler had taken the day off again.

The SNCF tickets came a week after she had ordered them. In good time and they looked perfectly like back in the last century. “Handwritten tickets, that’s what’s missing” she thought to herself. The nostalgia that overcame her when she held the tickets in her hand was priceless. Yes, another adventure in the digital age. So Downton Abbey.

Angie

PS: Here is more on International Business Travelers (IBT) and if you need a more serious discussion about the topic please make an appointment with me.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/question-judgement-personal-reflection-nicolas-stramilos