Developing a digital marketing strategy for a small B2B company – pitfalls to avoid and learning experiences

Abstract

Digital marketing is an increasingly important domain for companies to interact with their customers (Visser et al. 2018). Being successful with digital marketing requires marketers to have a good understanding of potential channels and marketing activities – not to mention the knowledge and skill to apply the most relevant ones to their own context (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick 2019). This thesis focuses on the practical implications of digital marketing strategy development. The author sets out to develop a digital marketing strategy for the case company using an action research approach. In the process, the author reflects on his learning experiences with emphasis on identifying the main pitfalls to avoid in digital marketing strategy development. Therefore, the objective of the thesis is to develop a digital marketing strategy for the case company. The main research question is: What are the main possible pitfalls to avoid when developing a digital marketing strategy for a small B2B company? In addition, the author discusses the application of action research for this purpose. The literature review presents digital marketing related concepts and frameworks that can be applied to support digital marketing strategy development. Some of these frameworks are incorporated into the action research. As a result of this action research the author managed to successfully develop a digital marketing strategy for the case company. Based on the author’s reflections, the main pitfalls to avoid in digital marketing strategy development relate to the following five categories: Prioritization, Resources, Planning, Process, and Analytics. The conducted action research and the identified main pitfalls and learning experiences provide a practical framework for developing a digital marketing strategy and to avoid some of the main pitfalls involved.