Most businesses understand the value of digital marketing to attract and retain customers. Most businesses have at the very least a company website, a Facebook page, and a Google My Business page. What they might not realize is that this constitutes the start of a digital marketing campaign or plan.
What? Wait. You didn’t ever consider digital activities in those terms. Well it is a strategic marketing initiative, and you really need to keep it on track.
Let’s first define digital marketing to include all your online marketing efforts like Google searches, SEO, email campaigns, social media, display ads, and company website. You may be doing a few or all of these activities, adding new digital aspects as time has gone on. Certain aspects of your digital marketing may even be coordinated through a SEO firm.
But to ensure digital plans pay off to the highest degree, now entails a great deal of coordination from both internal and external team members. Digital marketing efforts for 2018 require everyone working from the same playbook. Clear communication and an eye on these five tactics will help guarantee success for your company.
It’s all about the data. Each of your campaigns such as SEO, paid keyword searches, video, display ads, Facebook likes, shares and followers will have metrics and data to analyze. Consider each channel and determine if what is being consistently measured are the right metrics. Remember to also look at the data as a whole, which often provides the best read on a campaign’s effectiveness.
Paid search spending conundrum. Like SEO, paid search requires constant attention. So if you’re working with a vendor on this piece it’s worthwhile for you to answer this question and to pose the question in terms of your budget to them. Where would you cut the budget in half and where would you double it? It should get the conversation going about what’s not working even if it technically should be and what’s showing a glimmer of possibility that needs to be given more attention.
Look at Integration. Digital marketing works best when integrated with traditional media and response channels. More specifically, you can look at offline activity like direct mail or TV advertising, which may be driving traffic to your site at certain times and purposefully coordinate your digital outreach in order to get a greater pay out.
Focus on Conversion. Yay, you’re getting a ton of traffic, but is it converting at an acceptable level? Because you may have different digital media driving traffic, you probably also have different types of qualified prospects hitting your site. Your landing pages need to have a clearly defined customer value proposition tailored to the different target prospects and appropriate to their stage in the path to conversion.
Make your site mobile-friendly. There are now more search queries conducted on mobile devices than personal computers. With much of your traffic coming from mobile audiences, you need to test your site’s integrity on some devices to see how it operates. You need a responsive site that adapts to mobile settings to ensure a positive and productive experience for mobile users.
Don’t let your digital marketing efforts drift into the land of underperformance. Keep the line of communication open and continually ask questions about the campaigns you’re running. Digital marketing requires a high level of diligence and attention to see the type of results that lead to improved ROI.
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