Marketing priorities and digital tactic effectiveness: A business strategy perspective

Digital marketing has emerged as a key component of marketing strategy and by extension has become an important source of competitive advantage for the firm. Firms adopt digital marketing strategies and tactics to address specific marketing priorities (eg sales growth, brand building etc). Digital marketing strategies represent the adoption of specific sets of digital marketing tactics. While these tactics are widely recognised, little attention has been paid to determining the conditions under which some digital marketing tactics are more effective than others. In this exploratory study, marketing managers were surveyed to understand the comparative importance of seven alternative strategic marketing priorities and the perceived effectiveness of seven alternative digital marketing tactics in addressing those priorities. Responses from 236 senior marketing managers/executives were analysed through a series of paired t-tests and one-way ANOVAs in SPSS Version 26. Significant differences were observed between firms pursuing prospector, analyser, low-cost defender and differentiated defender business strategies. These findings provide marketing and general managers alike with practical insights into the management of their digital marketing strategies.