Today, most companies have at least one website, an eNewsletter, traditional PR and social media campaigns.
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According to INC, strong entrepreneurs are respected for their intuition, passion, creativity and decisiveness while others talk about the importance of surrounding yourself with smart people.
But are they listening, not only to their supporting cast, but to their digital analytics?
Today, most companies have at least one website, an eNewsletter, traditional PR and social media campaigns. When asked how their online strategy is working, you get comments like, “We’re doing fine, the IT department has it covered, or nobody gets real clients from the Internet.”
When it comes to digital, the smartest one in the room may just be the analytics tools showing the general health of each digital asset and specific performance of your campaigns.
Website: Often considered the mother ship of one’s online presence, many sites are outdated, aren’t mobile-ready and don’t deliver a quality user experience.
DO regularly install the updates, review the Google Analytics and Google Console information showing who’s visiting, what they are looking for, where they were referred from and if they are engaging by downloading content, signing up for your eNewsletter or requesting an appointment. Fielding subject or product-specific landing pages also helps attract and engage website visitors.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is still high priority. If you aren’t listed high up on Page One of Google for your targeted keyword terms, it will be difficult find your business.
After years of trying to game Google, marketers have learned that it’s best to offer the visitor great content, images, infographics, Q&As and video instead of keyword stuffing or hosting umpteen landing pages.
If you want to see how you are doing on Google, have a qualified SEO expert do an analysis for you, including where your company stands on its Google business listing and other key directories.
DO perform research as to what pain points people are trying to solve and information they are looking for. Conduct original research and blog on the results, and don’t forget to incorporate your media coverage, contributed articles and TV coverage into your blog.
Regularly review websites analytics and don’t forget to check out your competitors to see how they rank on your high priority keyword terms on Google. Complete your onsite SEO title tags, internal links and alt descriptions, as well.
Having your content appear on authoritative websites and blogs with backlinks to your site is still golden and contributes to your search rankings.
Social media: Whether it is b2b or b2c, implementing a social media campaign is a tremendous way to reach your target audiences, engage them and generate new business, positive online reviews and build your brand.
DO invest in in-house or outside expertise to run your campaigns and explore and test paid campaigns with ads, boosts and stories while also featuring great images, photography and video.
Plan a social media calendar and integrate it with your company’s traditional PR campaign. Regularly check the analytics from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram to determine what’s working and what is not.
E-newsletter: Finally, your e-newsletter might be your top platform to keep your contacts informed. But just as with the other digital assets, you should utilize an up-to-date database and monitor open rates and other key engagement and performance metrics.
Following these fundamentals will help ensure you are not flying blind, but instead, listening better and improving your batting average.