There are about a million ways to spend your marketing budget, and choosing one can feel like a gamble.

You roll the dice, and maybe you make some money and new connections — or maybe you walk away with empty pockets and nothing to show for it.

The days of leaving the success of your marketing efforts to luck are long gone.

But the days of leaving the success of your marketing efforts to luck are long gone. The power of digital transformation has changed the game for marketers; and if you don’t use it to create a solid strategy before jumping into execution, you’re wasting your money.

Otherwise, you might find that you spent money on a campaign that targeted the wrong people. Or you were targeting the right people, but with a message they don’t care about. Or maybe your lack of a media strategy means no one will see your efforts, regardless of how much money you poured into them. The odds that you’ll come out ahead aren’t good.

Narrow down those million marketing options by first understanding your goals and then developing a customer-centric path to reaching them.

WHAT’S YOUR MARKETING GOAL?

Base your up-front strategy on the specific outcomes your company wants to achieve. It’s important to look at where you are today and set a realistic target. Once you know the outcomes you’re working toward, you can work backward and determine the best way to get there.

Digital transformation has given customers the power.

If you’re jumping into writing blog posts simply because you think you need a blog, you need to take a step back and look at the bigger marketing picture. Maybe you do need a blog — or maybe you’ll discover that to reach your objectives, a website redesign, and a robust social media campaign are a better investment.

Keep in mind that the key to getting what you want from your marketing is to give your customers what they want from your marketing. You can put a fancy name on your new initiative or create a flashy sales pitch, but none of it matters if it doesn’t line up with the way your target audience wants to experience the sales cycle.

Digital transformation has given customers the power. They don’t have to talk to your sales team as soon as they start considering a purchase, so it’s essential to understand how they make their decisions and how they want to receive information.

HOW DO YOU GET TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER?

A good plan starts with getting inside the customer’s head. The question is not only who is your audience, but what’s the best way to reach them?

A few things to help you pin this down:

Stakeholder interviews: Talking to a variety of employees at your company can give you a more well-rounded picture of the customer experience you should be trying to create. Seeing the customer from the perspective of those outside the marketing team is critical, so talk to executives as well as those working with customers on the front line.

Customer analysis: Use data to find out who your customers are and how they act. For B2C companies, that’s demographics. For B2B, it’s firmographics. Both will want to look at psychographics to see how decision-makers behave.

Journey mapping: Walk through the journey your customers take as they go through the purchase cycle, considering each touch point. By viewing the current experience from their perspective, you can strategize the next steps to take to improve it and achieve your outcomes.

Segmentation: Develop personas for specific segments you discover in your target audience. This will help you dive deep into their habits and desires to reach them in the most effective way.

With your specific goals in mind and audience research in hand, you can craft a marketing strategy that will yield the best return on investment.

I’d wish you good luck, but you won’t need it.

Read more on this topic on the D Custom blog, and connect with me on LinkedIn for more insights.

Dallas Innovates, every day