5 Checks for Your Digital Marketing Meter
Your brand can’t keep doing the same things and expect the end result to automatically move like seismic plates do under the ground. While you can set your digital marketing campaign to automatic, you have to think about the strategy, profile, choose the platforms, execute, and then iterate.
Now, with 2015 only days before going down in history, here are five clues to check before you make the same mistakes in 2016.
Did you really engage your consumers?
Some brands are still on page SEO and the use (or overuse) of keywords. But the world of engagement has moved on (even Google has moved on): the new mantra is quality content. Was your brand able to engage your customers and prospects with hilariously funny, deeply educational, and thought-provoking content? If you didn’t, you can still clean the slate because in digital marketing, the present is always fresh. You may not have the in-house capacity to develop such content, which means you would initially have to outsource this segment while you train or hire new staff to fit and meet the requirements. But make sure you do something!
Did you target your consumers?
Did you really take the time to develop a persona(s) for your user or consumer? Did you really find out about him or her? Did you care enough to find out about her challenges so you could help mitigate them in some way? The data you get from Google Analytics or Egg Sprout will be useless to the brand if it can’t be interpreted as real human beings, who have feelings.
Your brand needs to understand that you are either driving people away with your content or moving them closer to the point where they become ambassadors (without coercion) of your brand. Check this out quickly!
Did you offer exclusivity?
Was there anything to be gained by engaging with your brand? And we’re not just talking about freebies here… there are a lot of brands that are giving things away and people are still out of touch. True friendship should be about give and take and your consumers are already giving you their money and loyalty by buying whatever you sell or offer, what will you give them back? It’s the season of gifts: make your customers feel that you recognize their loyalty!
Did you choose mobile over desktop and tablet?
Many brands still believe and are developing desktop and tablet based web solutions but this is simply outdated. Because? Because more than 80% of the target market now uses a form of smartphones to connect to the Internet. The mobile device is the always-on device that is constantly altering the way most of the world lives their lives right now. You might as well have a mobile-friendly website or platform, but there’s nothing safer about your marketing than building a mobile-only solution and watching your engagement grow. Let’s not even talk about apps!
Did you have patience?
As we will always say, Digital Marketing is not magic. Even magicians need to put something in before they get something else. With over 2 million pieces of content being developed and published every day, the only thing that will make a brand stand out eventually is consistency and quality. If you have developed a strategy for engagement, you must be patient. Don’t Get Frustrated When You Get Just 1 Like all week long people are watching and waiting and no one can determine that particular threshold when everything would fall into place. One thing is for sure though – it will surely snap into place!
These aren’t the only things that will determine success—you may need to bring in some experts to help analyze the situation and offer solutions—but it’s a good place to start.