Your digital marketing strategy likely has many of the essential elements in place. From a strong social media presence to a well-written business blog, the basics may be covered, but what's missing from your marketing strategy?

Take a look at these tips to beat the competition.

          1. Create buyer personas to determine your true target market.

Buyer personas are surprisingly underutilized, but they are a great asset when it comes to determining your target market. Who are the main members of your audience? Using raw data and informed, well-researched guesswork, you can and subsequently improve the way your business engages with your customers.

Give your character a name and identify where she works. Fine tune the details. Is she a stockbroker? A preschool teacher? How old is she? Where does she live? What are her hobbies? 

By digging deeper into what makes your buyers tick, you'll not only identify with your audience, but also empathize with them, helping you better solve their problems. This will also inform the way you look, not just in emails, but on social media and more.

Which brings us to the next tip…

          2. Personalize the UX of your brand online.

 It's taking targeted marketing one step further, providing personalized landing pages in response to all kinds of user data. This is best achieved with a strategy called account-based marketing, which allows your website's algorithms to be based on visitors' history with your business, the ads they've clicked on, the device they're using to access your page and more.

A great example of account-based marketing at work is Amazon, a company that automatically displays suggestions based on a customer's browsing and purchasing history. One way the company does this is by periodically displaying items from a wish list associated with the user's account, accompanied by a text message saying "buy yourself something" or something similar. It will also generate product recommendations based on this data, while also displaying the items recently viewed by the user.

This is a particularly great strategy if your business has a wide variety of product offerings. Instead of wasting the user's time with an endless catalog of irrelevant offers, you can focus on what the user is really looking for.

This is also true for B2B companies. For example, if a customer has already signed up for your introductory services and is satisfied, you don't need to keep showing the same service. Instead, guide your customer through a sales funnel. You've established a relationship with this company, so you should already know information about their industry, company size, and the like. Use this knowledge to guide them towards your other services.

           3.Use the right metrics to measure success.

How do you measure success? Many startups tout big numbers: tens of millions of downloads, registered users, tweets, and more. While this kind of raw data can certainly help you track your media traction—for example, if your mobile app was downloaded a million times but can only boast a few thousand active users—the number of downloads won't tell you. it says a lot.

By focusing on real metrics like retention, repeat usage, and active membership, you'll bring meaning to this data. What matters is the context; without context, you are left with nothing but vanity metrics.

final thoughts

Too many startups opt for a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy. As a result, they miss out on forging meaningful connections with their buyers. By identifying your buyers, personalizing your marketing approach, and measuring true success, you'll gain a real edge over the competition.