How do you know if your digital marketing is working?
It can be difficult but there are criteria you should review
Visitors are flocking to your website, which means your digital marketing is successful. Right?
Perhaps you’re even seeing a bit more revenue in your bottom line. You’re thinking that’s a sign of success as well.
If either of these metrics are down, it’s likely time to rethink your digital strategy—you know all the marketing efforts you’re making via the internet. These include taking advantage of digital channels like search engines, social media, email, text and multimedia, and websites (your own and others) to connect with current and prospective customers
A word to the wise, though: Despite the website visitors and boost in your bottom line, it’s always good to periodically review your digital strategy.
Even when things are going well, there may be some not so obvious shortfalls that could catch up with you down the road.
What’s more, when it comes to the internet and marketing via digital, things change quickly. It’s important to keep ahead of the curve because you don’t want to miss out on the opportunities digital marketing offers your business:
- You have access to tools that help you target the right prospect—even to segment further within your ideal customer base. In fact, digital marketing gives you the chance to capture customer attitudes and research who your ideal customers are
- It’s cost-effective when compared to traditional marketing methods.
- It provides you with all the tools you need to measure success.
- Change is easy; you can scrap one tactic and usher in another quickly and conveniently.
- You have the ability to engage customers at every stage of the customer journey.
Knowing what to look for is a must to confirm current success, maintain that positive outcome, or regroup when necessary.
Here are some things to think about:
Assess your visitors
Remember all those site visitors? More than having them and the number of them, you need to track who they actually are. Are they there because they’re specifically on the lookout for your products and services and have been drawn there by your rankings on Search Engine Page Results (SERPS). What do they do when they’re on your site? Stay on for a full exploration or eventually bounce? And if they bounce, where on the site and when? Tracking visitor behavior will enable you to evaluate who’s valuable and who’s not and whether you’re getting a bang for your buck in the time and money you’re expending on your digital content.
Digital analytics software enables you to see the pages they visited, what device they were using, and, extremely important, what channels they came from so that you can make sure you are marketing to your desired demographic on the right channels.
What’s more, because digital marketing allows you to identify trends and patterns in people’s behavior on their buyer’s journey, you can make more informed decisions about ways to attract them.
Establish your goals
Determining what you want to accomplish in each digital campaign is essential. Plus, establishing those goals is often dependent on your industry and your type of company.
Most companies do want to attract leads. Ecommerce and product companies more frequently want to sell products. Your goals and how well you achieve them will also show whether you are promoting your products and services on the right channels and platforms and creating offers that will trigger interest among your ideal prospects and customers.
Your goals will also determine the measurement tools you must use to evaluate your digital marketing ROI overall and in specific areas.
Appear on the right channels
Be savvy about where your ideal prospects and customers hang out. Looking for business in the wrong places will never work. You may know who you’re focused on reaching. Equally important, where are you looking for them? That alignment is key.
Use the right measurement tools
Making sure you are using the right tools to track success is essential. Each channel has its own tools and software to track certain outcomes. For example:
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- SEMRUSH is helpful in analyzing your SEO
- Loomly and Sprout Social allow you to extract business value, providing stats on how well your social is performing
- Google Search Console helps measure search traffic and performance
- Google Ads provides feedback on how well your ads are set up
- CallRail tracks incoming phone calls, forms, texts, and chats
- Google Data Studio measures provides reports and dashboards that inform decisions
- Google Analytics helps generate more leads and improve user experience and conversion rates
- BuzzSumo provides content insights, keep you abreast of what your competitors are doing, and tell you how popular a particular blog post is
- Listen Notes allows you to schedule podcasts and measures the number of downloads to track popularity
Content is king
And it is king because it is the vehicle through which you raise brand awareness and showcase your brand and its purpose, style, and values to inspire action. Content comes in many formats which run the gamut from words to images: blogs, video, podcasts, social media, infographics, texts, eBooks, white papers, and photos. These formats engage your audience and draw people in rather than using heavy sales tactics. It’s wise to integrate a variety of formats and produce content regularly and consistently to increase audience interest.
Knowledge, Understanding Trump Overwhelm
The extent of information surrounding digital marketing can seem overwhelming. Still, it’s important that you develop a basic understanding so that you can make the most of its benefits.
Working with Ballantine or a similar agency can help. Even then, you must be up to speed so you can have productive conversations with an agency and make informed choices
You’re always welcome to call us. Digital marketing is what we do. We’re here to ensure you’re getting the most out of your digital marketing strategy.
I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
