Chapter 1: Laying the Plans
Digital Strategy Development
Before any battle is fought, victory is determined in the planning. Sun Tzu declared, “The art of war is of vital importance to the State,” (Chapter I, §1) emphasizing a victorious general makes countless calculations in his temple before battle.
On the digital battlefield, this ancient wisdom is transformed into a comprehensive, data-driven digital marketing strategy which is a digital roadmap guiding every effort from attracting visitors to converting them into loyal customers.
Sun Tzu's Insight “the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought” (Chapter I, §26)
Sun Tzu teaches that careful planning is not a luxury but a necessity. His treatise outlines five constant factors essential for victory:
- The Moral Law – Unity and shared purpose inspiring unwavering loyalty. "causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger." (Chapter I, §5,6)
- Heaven – The external conditions, such as timing, trends, and market cycles. "signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons." (Chapter I, §7)
- Earth – The competitive landscape and digital terrain. "comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death." (Chapter I, §8)
- The Commander – Decisive leadership and strategic vision. "stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness." (Chapter I, §9)
- Method and Discipline – Systematic planning, organization, and execution. "are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure." (Chapter I, §10)
These principles remind us careful planning, disciplined execution, and intelligent resource management are the key to victory, whether on the ancient battlefield or in modern digital marketing.
Modern ApplicationLaying the Digital Foundation
Akin to Sun Tzu's statement, success in digital marketing begins before you launch your digital marketing campaigns. By combining ancient strategy with modern technology, you can create a robust digital marketing strategy giving you a competitive edge on the digital battlefield.
Let's dig deeper into the art of preparing for victory on the digital battlefield through:
- researching and gathering data to serve as your Digital Spies,
- developing buyer personas to Know Your Audience,
- crafting a strategic Digital Roadmap that aligns your tactics with your overall mission, and
- Integrating Intelligence with Execution.
You will see how each of these elements when properly applied can give you an edge over your digital competition to dominate the digital battlefield.
Intelligence Gathering
Data as Your Spy
Collecting and analyzing data will help you get the most for your digital marketing spend. According to Pulkit Jain of Simplilearn, "By turning raw data into meaningful insights, data analysis empowers businesses to identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and enhance their overall performance." (What Is Data Analysis: Examples, Types, & Applications)Analytic tools act as your digital spies, gathering intelligence to inform your digital marketing strategy. Some examples include:
- Google Trends,
- Google Analytics,
- SEMrush,
- Ahrefs, and
- Moz
According to Shopify, a well-known website platform, “A robust data-driven marketing strategy can help you fully understand the customer journey and guide more leads to conversion.” (How To Use Data-Driven Marketing To Drive Sales) Emphasizing data-driven decisions help optimize campaigns ensuring every dollar is well-spent. By gathering and analyzing this intelligence, you’re gaining a better understanding of your digital landscape, allowing you to act with precision.
Now, let’s see how each of these digital spies can play a role in helping you acquire and understand intelligence on the digital battlefield.
Google Trends
This free tool can help you monitor emerging keywords and market interest at no cost. According to Christoph Manetsch of Advance Metrics article Google Trends in Practice: From Keyword Research to Market Research, "Google Trends is more than just a tool for keyword research; it is a crucial factor for successful online marketing strategies. Its wide range of applications allows marketing professionals to make informed decisions, enhance the effectiveness of campaigns, and gain deep insights into audience interests."
Google Analytics
This free digital spy gives you the power to allows you to track website traffic and user engagement, offering insights into who is engaging with your digital assets. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), "...it is time to use the data you can obtain from GA to develop an expert marketing strategy." (How to Improve Your Digital Marketing Campaigns Using Google Analytics) In this article by the AMA they introduce how Google Analytics can be effectively implemented to make your digital marketing strategy more effective.
SEMrush
This digital spy may be a bit more expensive, but the amount of intelligence it provides can be invaluable to your overall digital marekting strategy. From competitive analysis to basic keyword research this all-in-one platform can can be the cornstone to an effective digital marketing strategy. According to an UpGrowth article by Amol Ghemud, "Semrush is a robust online platform tailored to help businesses enhance their online presence and gather critical marketing insights." (How to Use SEMrush to Improve Your SEO Strategy)
Ahrefs
This tool is predominantly focused on SEO; however, the intelligence provided can translate into other areas of your overall digital marketing strategy to produce results. Richelle Peace of Agency Analytics eloquently points out, "Metrics like ranking position, last crawl, redirects, and external links are valuable, but their true power lies in the ability to translate them into strategies that enhance a client’s online presence." (Top 8 Ahrefs Metrics to Track) She is pointing out the need to be able take the intelligence you gather from Ahrefs and turn it into actionable items enhancing your overall digital marketing strategy.
Moz
Here is a digital spy that's helpful when you understand how website and competitive data can be utilized to improve your digital marketing strategy. According to Richelle Peace, Content Marketing Specialist at Agency Analytics, "Analyzing and interpreting this data helps agencies improve their SEO strategies, boost organic traffic, and achieve first-page rankings, ultimately helping client businesses grow." (5 Key Moz Analytics to Demonstrate ROI) While it is important to gather analytics, keep in mind they need to be properly analyzed and leveraged to provide value to your overall digital marketing strategy when done properly they can give you and edge over the digital battlefield.
Ideal Customer Profile
Know Your Audience
Just as a general must know his army, enemy, and the battlefield understanding your target audience will help you effectively market on the digital battlefield. By understanding your ideal customer and creating a profile you are setting yourself up to craft better content and deliver that content to your audience where they will be when they want to engage with you the most. Debra Murphy of Masterful Marketing says, “Before you can create an effective message, you need to determine exactly who you want to work with. It is much easier to strengthen your message when you are laser focused on your target audience.” (Crafting an Effective Marketing Message for Maximum Impact) Your buyer personas should capture:
- Demographic Data – Age, gender, income, and location.
- Psychographic Data – Interests, values, and lifestyle.
- Behavioral Data – Online habits, purchase behavior, and engagement patterns.
To develop your detailed ideal customer profiles you may want to consider using the tools previously mentioned or others that can provide insight into who your audience is, what they need, and where they are so you can be there when they need you the most.
Here are some platforms that can give you some additional insight into your ideal customer:
HubSpot
Knowing your audience also involves identifying unique personas and HubSpot offers a suite of tools to help create detailed personas. According to HubSpot, "A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer that you create from audience and market research." (How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business) From your website, to social media and several other online sources HubSpot offers tools that help you know your audience in a way that will improve your ability to craft meaningful engaging content delivering results and providing value to your ideal customers.
Mixpanel
According to Mixpanel, "...has developed a highly compatible behavioral analytics platform that can help product managers and development teams delve deep into user behavior. " (Understand User Behavior with Data and Analytics) Being able to gain insight into the behaviors of your ideal customers will help you know how you can better serve them with value and relevant content.
Sprout Social
Who better to speak about a tool than the company that developed and supports it, according to Sprout Social, "...makes distilling online conversations easy with its social media listening tool. This tool tracks conversations around your brand and identifies trending topics. These insights then help you discover your target audience’s interests, preferences and pain points." (Social media target audience: How to find and engage yours) Sprout Social has many applications, and these audience related insights can help you understand your audience and prepare for digital dominance.
Facebook Audience Insights
Meta says, "The more customer insights you have, the better you’re equipped to deliver meaningful messages to people. That’s the thinking behind Facebook Audience Insights, a new tool designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences, including aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more." (Audience Insights) Meta has done a good job throughout the years providing organizations with the opportunity to leverage big data to optimize their digital marketing and this is just one example of what they offer for you to identify your ideal customer.
As you can see there is a wide variety of tools you can arm yourself with to wage battle on the digital battlefield. Arm yourself properly, learn how to use them to prepare and you can succeed instead of wasting your money, time, and valuable resources aimlessly pushing content.
Defining Your Digital Roadmap
Digital Marketing Strategy
A digital marketing strategy starts with clearly defined, measurable goals such as: boosting brand awareness, generating leads, or driving sales.Just as a general evaluates the conditions of: Heaven (timing and trends) and Earth (market terrain), you should assess the competitive landscape and customer environment. This strategic planning process sets the stage for targeted campaigns across the channels that best fit your business, such as:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
- Content Marketing,
- Social Media, and
- Paid Digital Advertising.
Each channel you include in your digital marketing strategy should contribute to your overall mission, creating a cohesive effective roadmap guiding all of your digital marketing activities.
Before any battle is fought, victory is determined in the planning. Sun Tzu declared, “The art of war is of vital importance to the State,” (Chapter I, §1) emphasizing a victorious general makes countless calculations in his temple before battle.
On the digital battlefield, this ancient wisdom is transformed into a comprehensive, data-driven digital marketing strategy helping to guide your digital marketing activities from attracting visitors to converting them into loyal customers.
Integrating Intelligence with ExecutionPutting Your Digital Marketing Strategy to Work
Sun Tzu teaches success is forged long before the battle begins. In digital marketing, this means synthesizing the intelligence you’ve gathered into a cohesive digital marketing strategy.
By:
- setting SMART goals, (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable, Timely)
- analyzing market conditions, and
- aligning your tactics with your overall mission,
This deliberate, calculated approach ensures your digital marketing strategy is as prepared as a general’s battle plan which is built on a foundation of thoughtful preparation and continuous optimization.
Closing Thoughts
Preparing for Digital Dominance
As you can see Sun Tzu’s timeless strategic principles can be merged with modern digital marketing best practices to help you lay a solid foundation for sustained success on the digital battlefield. With data-driven insights, a deep understanding of your audience, and a meticulously crafted digital roadmap, your campaigns are poised to dominate the digital battlefield. Thoughtful preparation transforms challenges into opportunities, ensuring your brand achieves sustained growth and digital dominance.
Prepare, plan, and then prevail. Let your digital marketing strategy be the blueprint guiding your digital marketing activities and positioning your digital brand for victory.
As we transition to the next phase of this journey through The Art of Digital Marketing, it’s time to address the critical issue of resources. Sun Tzu declared, “He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.” In his chapter on Waging War, he emphasizes a successful military campaign depends on careful tracking and understanding of every expense. On the digital digital battlefield, this means developing a detailed marketing budget accounting for dollars, data, creative energy, and time.
In Chapter 2: Waging War Resource Allocation & Digital Budget, we will explore how to:
- Calculate & Track Resources: Learn to measure your:
- ad spend,
- content creation costs, and
- technology investments, ensuring every resource is optimized.
- Execute Timely, Focused Campaigns: Understand prolonged campaigns drain resources and morale, and discover how agile tactics can keep your marketing efforts swift and impactful.
- Leverage Competitive Insights: Utilize competitive intelligence to identify market gaps and optimize your strategy without overextending your resources.
Just as a well-planned army avoids protracted warfare, a well-calibrated digital marketing strategy prevents resource exhaustion and sets the stage for successful, efficient campaigns in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.
Stay tuned for the next chapter in The Art of Digital Marketing where we explore the art of resource allocation and digital budgeting, and learn how to wage war effectively on the digital battlefield.
