Ensure 2018 Measures Up: What to Watch, Do, and Look for in Your Marketing

 

With all the time, energy and money that goes into marketing, it’s critical you know what you are getting out of it. The team at @revenue put together our top tips and notes to ensure your 2018 marketing plan is measuring up.

Social Media

Successful social media is so much more than how many people like or follow you. The success is in building a community who interacts, shares and ultimately, buys. How do you know you’re building a community?

  1. Go beyond vanity metrics (page views, number of followers). They may feel great, but the point of social media is to be SOCIAL!
  2. Carve out time in your calendar to engage and connect with those in your community. The more you engage, the more engagement you can expect from them.
  3. Monitor the actions people take on your content and the conversations people are having with you and one another. Leverage free tools like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Instagram for Business and LinkedIn post analytics to find more meaning in your measurement.

You can’t just post articles and content, you have to connect and engage to be the most effective on social media. Connect with Sue Koch to identify the best ways to build your audience, respect your tribe and make sure to have fun with it for your needs!

 

Email

Email metrics are widely available through your email service provider, but there are a couple of key things to keep your eye on. Ensure your email is as effective as possible by measuring, optimizing and improving key elements.

  1. Make sure your emails are getting read by monitoring your open rate. Try testing subject lines and your from line to optimize visibility. It doesn’t hurt to throw in an emoji here and there! ????
  2. Your next level of engagement are your clickers. All of your emails should have very specific calls to action that will engage your audience brings them that much closer to a sale. Be sure to make your email clickable by linking images, headlines and large buttons. The more options they have to click, the more clicks you get.
  3. Less common than clicking, some recipients will actually reply to your marketing email! This is much less frequent than just clicking but provides the highest level of engagement. Be sure to respond quickly and take advantage of the outreach.

You don’t need the fanciest, most advanced email servicer to make a big impact in your marketing campaign. Talk with Megan Robinson today to effectively engage, connect, and rank your email list!

 

Search Engine Optimization  

Getting on Google search’s first page is the name of the game. We measure SEO success by our keyword rankings (the higher the better), volume of targeted traffic (the more the better), and the number of conversions on the site.  

  1. SEO success is ultimately measured by how well your website ranks for specific keywords. Make sure you are looking for consistent improvement month over month and maintain your position.
  2. Although ranking well is important, we do it to get more website traffic. Be sure to monitor the traffic you receive and the quality of it. Is your bounce rate increasing? Is your time on the site getting shorter? Make sure that the traffic you are getting is of high quality.
  3. We not only want to rank well and get quality traffic to the site, but we also want to make sure that traffic is converting. Whether making a purchase, filling out a contact form or picking up the phone and making a call, visitor conversion is the ultimate goal and indicator of SEO success.

 

Networking

Effective networking is every bit as critical to your success as a solid digital presence. If you are sitting in your office relying solely on your website to fill your pipeline you will have a lot of really good opportunities to organize your office supplies! But how do you quantify effective networking? It takes some elbow grease but when you have an additional 30-50% of your leads coming from the relationships that you’ve built, you will be singing a different tune!

  1. Identify organizations that cater to your specific verticals or sizes of business. Associations should be a part of your research, not just Chambers of Commerce or high priced networking opportunities.
  2. Try it, track it, change it. You must have a system (CRM, spreadsheet or other) that allows you to track what your investment in the networking is. This includes travel time, time at events, follow up time, etc. Use your hourly rate to calculate your total investment and after 6 months compare that to the anticipated value of leads received. Check this number every six months.
  3. Keep in mind that Strategic Partners (those that can refer you LOTS of business) are often as valuable if not more than just one lead. These are the folks that you build deeper, long-term relationships with, invest your time and track the results. You will get a stronger ROI and create a more significant network than just hoping to get leads from events.

If you aren’t tracking your results from networking, you are simply socializing. Make sure that you give your effort the proper value!