By David Reske
When you’re starting a new marketing campaign, it’s really important to make sure you are focused on the right audience with the right message and the right offers. But when you’re running a small business, there’s often not enough time for long strategy sessions or marketing research studies to make sure you are on the right track.
While there is no substitute for good strategy, here’s a quick list of marketing items to work on so that you can make an immediate impact on your organization. I’ve run through this checklist with hundreds of companies and have never found a company that was doing an excellent job in all areas. If you use this list to honestly assess your own digital marketing programs, I’m sure you’ll find immediate opportunities for improvement. These items are the most common tactical issues I find with digital marketing campaigns, and you could double or triple your results within weeks, if you make changes immediately.
- Website Home Page. Look at your website home page. Do you have a call to action with a strong offer visible on the screen when you first arrive at your website? A call to action is something like, “download now,” “buy here” or “get a free consultation.” If not, add the call to action now, and you’ll see an immediate increase in traffic to your landing pages.
- Landing Pages. Do your landing pages have a form visible on the screen when you first get to the landing page where people can give you their contact information? Do you give users a strong reason to give you their contact information? If not redesign your landing page immediately. This change will dramatically increase the number of leads or “conversions” you get from traffic to your landing pages.
- Digital Advertising. Are your digital advertising campaigns taking visitors to welldesigned, dedicated landing pages or to your home page? If you are paying to send traffic to your home page, you may be wasting money. By sending your ad traffic to good landing pages instead of your home page, you may double or triple your lead flow from advertising, and cut your cost/lead in half.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Use a tool like Spyfu to look at your organic search results compared to your competitors. Are you more or less visible than your competitors on important keywords? If you are behind your competitors, add better SEO keyword tags on your most important website pages today.
- Email Lead Nurture. If you are using a lead nurture email program such as HubSpot or Pardot, look at how many follow-up emails you are sending to each new lead. If you are only sending one, create a simple email follow-up series to nurture new prospects.
- Social Media. Look at the number of followers you have on each of the major social media networks compared to at least two of your competitors. Do you have more or less total followers? If you are behind, start building your follower base through advertising or more social media posting.
- Analytics. Look at the data you have available from tools like Google Analytics and any other marketing software you are using. Are you measuring your results? Do you have a simple dashboard that lets you track your progress? If you don’t have integrated reporting software, open a spreadsheet right now and write down the number of visitors and leads per week for each your campaigns. Very soon you’ll start to see trends be able to and make changes based on real data.
These quick hits are no substitute for an integrated digital marketing strategy and plan, but they will help you make an immediate impact in order to show results quickly. By taking action now, you’ll be better equipped to go deeper once you have a stronger plan in place.
David Reske founded Nowspeed, Inc. in 2003, and is focused on delivering world-class digital marketing services to clients across the US. David has over 20 years of Internet marketing experience and has personally worked with hundreds of clients to optimize their marketing programs. David is a past President of the Entrepreneurs Organization, Boston Chapter, and he has been a speaker at many marketing industry conferences. His new book is DIGITAL MARKETING IN THE ZONE.
