Adapting Digital Marketing Strategies to Different Industries

Well-developed and documented digital marketing strategies provide you and your team with roadmaps to guide you and your team to reach your goals and objectives.

Nearly all businesses engage in some form of digital marketing.

Yet, according to a study published by Smart Insights, nearly half (47%) of them don’t have a documented digital marketing strategy.

Source: Smart Insights

It’s easy to presume these businesses aren’t taking their digital marketing efforts seriously or don’t know how to create a digital marketing strategy.

However, the reality is that businesses in some industries face many challenges that make it difficult for even seasoned digital marketers to develop or implement a strategy to help these businesses hit their goals.

This article will explore five industries and the factors that make implementing a digital marketing strategy challenging.

We’ll then discuss some practical tips and strategies on how digital marketers working for businesses in these industries can craft a digital marketing strategy that delivers results.

Top 5 Industries Struggling in Implementing a Digital Marketing Strategy

Not all industries are created equal, especially in digital marketing. Here are five of such industries:

Healthcare

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a surge in the amount of healthcare-related content consumed online.

According to a study published by Medical Press, over half of adults in the US are turning to the internet to find information and answers to healthcare-related topics.

Yet, only 28% of digital marketers working for healthcare companies have a documented strategy in place for their digital marketing efforts.

The reason is simple: Healthcare is a heavily regulated industry.

Companies offering healthcare products and services must abide by many rules, policies, and guidelines across all their business activities, including marketing.

One is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, more commonly called HIPPA.

In addition to mandating how healthcare companies should use and handle patient information, HIPPA includes specific guidelines on creating your marketing strategies and even what marketing tools and platforms you can use.

As if navigating HIPPA isn’t challenging enough, healthcare marketers must also ensure that the content they publish meets the guidelines of government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This is crucial when describing the benefits and features of a healthcare company’s product or service.

Marketers must ensure that health claims on the company’s website meet the FDA’s Significant Scientific Agreement (SSA) Standard. Otherwise, the company they’re working for could face severe penalties and litigations.

Legal

Just like in the healthcare industry, marketers planning to launch a marketing campaign for law firms are expected to comply with various rules and guidelines, all of which are imposed by the American Bar Association (ABA).

For example, under Rule 7.1 of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, marketing content promoting a law firm can be considered misleading if it causes potential clients to assume that they may get the same results as the firm’s previous clients.

Law firms violating this provision can face sanctions ranging from a reprimand to disbarment of the lawyers running the firm.

As if the rigid restrictions aren’t bad enough, competition within the legal industry is also highly fierce, which is why many short and long-tail keywords are expensive.

A snapshot of keyword difficulties and cost-per-click (CPC) rates of short and long-tail keywords for lawyers

Retail

Developing and implementing a digital marketing strategy for retail businesses can be challenging, especially for those who sell their products online and through a traditional brick-and-mortar store.

The reason can be summed up in two words: user experience.

Marketers are responsible for ensuring customers have an excellent online and offline user experience. This is essential since Google considers experience an influential factor that affects a website’s ranking on its search results page (SERP).

So, in addition to ensuring that the digital marketing strategy they develop provides consistent messaging online and offline, marketers need to assure that the right marketing tools and platforms are in place to allow seamless and secure delivery of a retail brand’s customer data across all channels.

Real Estate

Real estate is another industry where marketers struggle with developing a digital marketing strategy and and the integration of AI in digital marketing is starting to offer smarter solutions and insights.

One reason is that marketers need to understand the different factors affecting the local real estate market, like zoning regulations and neighborhood dynamics, which vary from state to state.

Another reason is that the buyer’s journey within the real estate industry involves a complicated process that crosses multiple industries.

The marketer’s job is to develop a digital marketing strategy that guides potential clients through each process stage and complies with policies and regulations observed in the industries where these stages intersect.

This is, of course, on top of the various state regulations and guidelines that govern the real estate industry.

IT

Marketers face several challenges when developing and implementing a digital marketing strategy for IT businesses, particularly those observing a B2B business model.

For starters, marketers need to ensure that they map sufficient content across all stages of an IT business’ marketing funnel that will support the sales team and increase the likelihood that they will close the deal.

Another challenge is the number of stakeholders involved in the buying process.

According to a study by Foundry, as many as 25 stakeholders can influence a client company’s buying decision.

Marketers must ensure that their digital marketing strategy includes content for each of these decision-makers and map them throughout the IT business’ marketing funnel.

And since some of these decision-makers aren’t familiar with the jargon and concepts understood by those with an IT background, you must also ensure the content and messaging are easily understood without oversimplifying them, which could lead to misrepresenting the product or service.

How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy that Delivers Results

Now that you know the different challenges marketers face in these industries, here are some actionable tips to help you create a digital marketing strategy that delivers results and addresses these challenges.

Conduct a Comprehensive Audit

Conducting a comprehensive audit of all the company’s digital and non-digital marketing collateral is tedious. But it will be worth the effort.

It gives you access to materials you can repurpose, saving you and your team precious time and effort from creating something similar.

At the same time, a comprehensive audit will help you identify gaps you can capitalize on when creating your digital marketing strategy.

Redesign Your Marketing Team

Since these industries are heavily regulated, you’ll need to ensure that your team has  knowledge management consultants in place to ensure the digital marketing strategy complies with these guidelines.

For example, if you’re working in the healthcare industry, have someone on your team with an in-depth understanding what is HIPAA compliance and ensure that all your digital marketing channels and content have the proper disclaimers.

Adding a link to an FDA certification like this one on Novaalab’s FAQ page not only adds credibility to their brand and product but also ensures they comply with the necessary guidelines in their industry.

Focus on Your Customer’s Needs

At the heart of any successful digital marketing strategy lies your ability to create and publish content your customers will find valuable and helpful.

One of the best ways to do this is to create content to answer your customers’ most common questions.

For example, if you’re working in a real estate firm and you notice many potential customers asking your sales team about your process, why not consider creating a page detailing it?

Off-Pod’s Our Process page not only provides potential clients with answers to many of their questions but also helps shorten their sales cycle.

These types of pages provide valuable and helpful information to your potential clients, allow you to use high-traffic, low-competition, long-tailed keywords, and implement the Topic Cluster model.

Here are some ways how you can get insight into the topics and kinds of content your target audience wants to consume:

• Leverage your CRM’s analytics on your customer’s data.
• Ask your sales and customer success teams what the questions commonly asked by potential clients are.
• Use surveys to solicit feedback and suggestions from your existing customers.
• Check out platforms like Quora and Reddit for the most frequently asked questions about your product or industry.

Set Clear Expectations

While you and your team understand that any digital marketing strategy you implement requires significant time and investment to generate results, senior executives in your company may not.

That’s why before you even start planning your digital marketing strategy, it’s crucial to ensure that you manage stakeholders’ expectations with your digital marketing strategy’s results and returns on investment (ROI).

You must make it crystal clear to them that you’ll need to stay consistent with implementing the strategy for weeks, even months, before they’ll start seeing results.

Otherwise, they’ll start pushing back and may even decide to end it prematurely.

Make Updating a Habit

Businesses today are constantly in flux, thanks to the rapid advancements of technology and changes in consumer buying behaviors.

That’s why developing a habit of regularly checking and learning the latest digital marketing strategies in your industry is crucial.

It’ll provide you and your team with valuable data and information you can use to update your current digital marketing strategy so it continuously delivers excellent results for your business.

Key Takeaways

Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Well-developed and documented digital marketing strategies provide you and your team with roadmaps to guide you and your team to reach your goals and objectives.

But as you’ve learned in this article, there are some industries where developing and documenting digital marketing strategies is more challenging than usual.

Implementing the tips in this article can help you overcome the additional challenges you’ll face in these industries.

Combine this with the proper application of conventional digital marketing best practices, grit, and patience, and you’ll be able to adapt a digital marketing strategy that delivers results.