Develop a digital marketing plan

The situation analysis section of your digital marketing plan needs to describe the context in which your digital marketing will take place. It should include an analysis of your business' internal (micro) and external (macro) environments.

Internal factors include your:

• customers
• market, and any trends in this
• current online presence
• competitors

External factors could be:

• social - how changing consumer attitudes could affect your approach
• legal - ie complying with digital marketing laws, such as data protection
• environmental - eg making sure your approach is ethical and sustainable
• political - how local or national government could impact on your plan
• technological - how advances in technology could affect your marketplace

There are models to help you consider these factors, such as a SWOT and PEST analysis. See a SWOT analysis example.

Once you have considered each of these, you should carry out a digital-specific analysis showing your business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 

Where possible you should use qualitative and quantitative data to support your analysis, as well as images, charts and graphs to illustrate your findings.

Download a digital marketing plan template (DOC, 74K).