If you have chosen to walk the startup path, an exciting journey awaits you. You will see lots of challenges and exciting opportunities in the days ahead. When it comes to promoting your startup, digital marketing should be on your priority list. But while digital marketing sounds exciting, stats suggest that only one out of five start-ups feel happy with their initiative and results. Here we list four important things you need to focus while creating your digital marketing plan.

#1 Know Where You Come From
Well, it isn’t about your origins but more to do with the industry you are a part of. Let’s put it straight; every industry has its inherent factors that decide the success of a marketing campaign. If you are a taxi app your digital marketing plan would have to be different from one that offers home care services for seniors. While aggressive social media campaign can offer you the thrust in case of the former, blog marketing may be a better option when it comes to explaining your USPs for the later. If you don’t get this right, you will simply waste time and resources without seeing the kind of dividends you expect.

#2 Don’t Open Multiple War Fronts
It is important to understand that digital marketing is no less than a war as all your competitors are also actively engaged in their respective campaigns. Here trying to do too many things initially may deviate your focus and deny you the edge. You have multiple marketing channels to choose from which include blogs, Facebook, Twitter or Google+.  Ideally, you should choose the most rewarding channel and beat your competition there before trying out other channels of marketing. It doesn’t mean you shut your eyes on others, but ensure that there is no shift in your focus.

#3 Write Your Plan of Action
One of the biggest undoing factors of a digital marketing plan is to have no plan at all! As an entrepreneur or group, you may have prepared a strong plan in your mind but unless you make the pen meet the paper you are most likely to fail in your initiative. The reason behind this is simple; until you have a detailed roadmap written on paper you aren’t likely to follow it. The plan should include –

• Details of strategies you want to adopt and the platforms you want to use
• Frequency of posts and blogs to be published
• Time devoted to these strategies and assigning to people concerned

#4 Hiring Experts
Most startups actually start off with a casual approach to digital marketing. You may start writing your blog posts, create social media profiles and post on them occasionally. While you may be able to devote time and effort to this initially, with time other important tasks and assignments will come up and your digital marketing plans will take a back seat. In worst case scenario, you start with a wrong strategy which becomes irreparable with time or you lose connection with your audience. In such cases, you are left with only presence on digital platforms and not earn dividends from it. The fact is, once you start with a digital marketing campaign you can’t put it in the back burner. To get the best out of your campaign, hire an agency or a team of in-house experts to handle your campaign.

Keep these things in mind and you will sail through with your digital marketing initiative. Remember you have no options but to embrace digital marketing in today’s world.