Sound familiar?
- You are doing a bit of everything (posting, boosting, the odd email) and none of it is joined up.
- You don't know how much you can afford to spend to win a customer.
- An agency sold you a channel without asking what the business needs.
- Nobody can say which marketing activity actually brings in work.
- You are about to launch something new and need a plan before spending money.
- Your team is busy, and you need priorities rather than a 60-page report.
Key facts
- Strategy work is charged at £45 an hour + VAT, with a fixed quote agreed before we start.
- Every strategy ends with a 90-day action plan, not just recommendations.
- We set a measurement plan first: GA4 key events, conversion tracking and a simple dashboard.
- Channel advice covers Google Ads, paid social, organic social, email, SMS, content and CRO.
- Ad budgets are set from your margins and customer value, and ad spend is paid directly to the platforms.
- We never promise rankings, ROAS or follower counts; we promise a clear plan and honest reporting.
What a useful marketing strategy looks like
A strategy is a set of choices: who you are trying to reach, what you want them to do, which channels you will use and, just as important, which ones you will leave alone. It should fit on a few pages and be clear enough that anyone in the business can tell whether a new idea fits.
dijitul marketing writes strategies at £45 an hour + VAT, with a fixed quote agreed first. The work starts with your numbers rather than our favourite channels: average order or job value, gross margin, how many customers come back, and how many enquiries the team can actually handle each week. A plan that generates 50 leads when you can only answer 20 is not a good plan.
Start with the customer, not the channel
Before choosing channels we pin down who buys from you and why. We talk to the people who answer the phone, look at your best and worst customers, read your reviews and check what people search for. Most businesses find they have two or three distinct customer types with different triggers. A plumber, for example, may serve emergency callers who want someone today and homeowners planning a bathroom months ahead. Those two groups search differently, respond to different messages and are worth different amounts.
For each group we write down what they need to hear, what stops them buying and where they look for help. That becomes the brief for every ad, email and page. It is also the simplest test for new ideas: if an activity does not reach one of those groups with the right message, it probably is not worth doing.
How we choose channels
Each channel does a different job. We match them to where your customers are and how they buy.
| Channel | Best at | Our page |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads search | Catching people already looking for what you sell | Google Ads management |
| Paid social | Reaching people before they search, with strong visuals | Paid social |
| Organic social | Staying visible, building trust, community | Social media management |
| Email and SMS | Repeat business and nurturing leads you already have | Email marketing |
| Content | Answering questions, supporting SEO and sales | Content marketing |
| CRO | Getting more from the traffic you already pay for | CRO |
SEO and AI search visibility are handled by our sister site searchenginetuning.co.uk, and we build them into the plan where organic search matters.
Budgets: starting from what a customer is worth
The right ad budget comes from arithmetic, not from what a competitor spends. We work out how much you can afford to pay to win a customer by looking at average order value, gross margin and how often customers return. A café with low margins and frequent visits has a very different ceiling from a solicitor with one high-value case per client.
From that, we set a target cost per lead or cost per sale for each paid channel and a test budget that is big enough to learn from. Ad spend is always paid directly to Google, Meta, LinkedIn or TikTok and is separate from any management fee. Our own published prices are on the pricing page, so you can see the full cost of running the plan before committing.
Measure first, then spend
Most of the plans we review have one gap in common: nobody can tell which activity produced which enquiry. Before increasing any budget we set up a measurement plan:
- GA4 configured with the actions that matter marked as key events, such as quote requests, calls and purchases (GA4 set-up)
- Conversion tracking for Google Ads and Meta, with Consent Mode v2 and the Conversions API (conversion tracking)
- UTM tagging rules so email, social and partner traffic is labelled consistently
- A one-page dashboard showing spend, leads, sales and cost per result
Without this, every later decision is guesswork.
The 90-day plan
Every strategy ends with a 90-day plan: what happens in each fortnight, who does it and what we expect to learn. Some clients run the plan in-house and use us for a check-in each month. Others hand parts or all of it to us. Either way, at the end of 90 days we review the numbers together and adjust. Channels that are not working get cut or changed; channels that are working get more time and budget.
If you need ongoing senior help to run the plan, see our fractional marketing director service. If you want an independent look at what you are doing now before planning, start with a digital marketing audit.
What you get
- A short discovery session on goals, capacity, margins and customers
- A review of current channels, tracking and results
- Target customer profiles and the messages that matter to each
- Channel mix and budget split, with the reasoning written down
- A measurement plan: key events, tracking and reporting
- A 90-day action plan with owners and dates
- A follow-up review session after the first 90 days
How it works and what it costs
Google Ads management from £150 a month, social media management from £125 a month and email marketing from £95 a month, all + VAT. Ad spend is separate and paid to the platform. No long contracts.
Free review
We look at your current ads, social, email and analytics, or your plans if you are starting out, and tell you plainly what we would change.
Plan and price
You get a written plan with targets, budgets and a fixed monthly fee before anything starts.
Set up properly
Tracking and consent first, then campaigns, audiences, content calendars or email flows, all in accounts you own.
Run and improve
We manage it every week: search terms, bids, creative, posts and tests, cutting what does not pay and doing more of what does.
Report in plain English
A monthly report on leads, sales and cost per result, not vanity numbers, with what we will do next.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a digital marketing strategy cost?
dijitul marketing charges £45 an hour + VAT for strategy work and agrees a fixed quote before starting. The total depends on how many channels and products are involved and how much data there is to review.
What do we get at the end?
A short written strategy covering goals, target customers, channel mix, budget split and measurement, plus a 90-day action plan with owners and dates. We walk you through it on a call and answer questions.
Do we have to use you to run the plan?
No. Many clients run the plan themselves. You can bring us in for specific channels, such as Google Ads or email, or for a monthly review. Everything we set up is in accounts you own.
How much should a small business spend on digital marketing?
It depends on margins, customer value and capacity, so we will not give a blanket figure. We work out what you can afford to pay to win a customer and build a test budget from there.
Do you cover SEO in the strategy?
Yes, at a planning level. Hands-on SEO and AI search visibility work is done by our sister site searchenginetuning.co.uk, so we can include it in the plan and hand over cleanly.
How long does a strategy take to write?
Typically two to three weeks from the discovery session. The main variable is how quickly we get access to your analytics, ad accounts and sales figures, and how many people in the business we need to speak to.
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Get a free marketing review
We'll look at your ads, social, email and tracking, and tell you plainly what we'd change. No obligation.