Today is the last day of my family beach vacation, which pretty much marks the end of summer for me.  Plus, schools are starting up, preseason football is nearly over, and baseball games finally have more at stake.  Yup, summer is over, and that means it’s time to get back to work! :)

Before summer speeds by and we’re officially into the fall season, I recommend taking some time now to tune up your marketing so you have a strong finish to 2015. Before we know it, the holiday season will be here… and then with the blink of an eye, the ball will drop in Times Square.

To help you assess your digital marketing and make fast improvements I put together the following 3-question “summer tune-up.”

digital marketing

Question 1: Where Can You Get More Website Traffic?

First, look at what’s already working and find ways to improve those campaigns.  What are you doing now that is driving traffic to your website? For example, if SEO is working (generating leads and sales), then determine how you can improve your current rankings and expand to even more relevant keywords.

This sounds overly simple, but do not skip this step!  It’s easy to overlook these easy opportunities to improve your marketing because they are typically not very exciting.  Personally, I find it hard to rally behind “doing more of what we’re already doing,” but the reality is that it’s by far the cheapest and most effective option.

Expanding into new territory is nearly always more expensive and more time consuming so focus on what’s already working first.  Then once you’ve maxed out a particular marketing tactic, then review your options to expand.

Second, assess what’s missing.  What are you not doing that could be driving traffic to your website?  For example, if you’re using AdWords Search advertising, then consider expanding to Bing Ads to get even more exposure when your prospects are searching in Bing or Yahoo.  Or if you’re advertising in AdWords and Bing, then look into launching an ad campaign on Facebook.

 

Question 2: How Can You Increase Your Website Conversions?

Driving traffic to your website is only half the battle in digital marketing, yet it’s where most businesses invest most of their time and resources.

The second half, which is arguably the more important half, is converting that traffic into leads and sales.

Consider this example.  One business invests in marketing to drive 1,000 visitors to their website and converts 1% into customers.  A competitor invests half as much to get 500 visitors , but their website converts 2% into customers.  Both businesses generate 10 customers, but the competitor invested only half as much to get the same number of customers!  If everything else is equal then the competitor is twice as profitable and can now afford to invest to drive even more traffic.

Can you see now how important it is to focus on improving your website conversions?

Now let’s review your website.  Do you have what’s called a “lead magnet” to capture contact information from website visitors?  A lead magnet is a free offer (report, white paper, video, coupon) like the report we offer on our homepage, The Internet Marketing Survival Guide.

Note that a lead magnet is not an email newsletter subscription!  Email newsletters are not as compelling all by themselves and only a very very small percentage of your visitors will sign up.  Instead of an offering your email newsletter directly, offer a report that provides information or reveals a secret your ideal prospect needs to know. And when people opt-in for this report, they’ll also receive a subscription to your email newsletter.

If you already have a lead magnet, then take a closer look at it.  Could you make it more compelling? Can you offer more lead magnets that more closely match each of your different customer avatars?

 

Question 3: How Can You Improve Your Digital Marketing Tracking?

I’m not going to waste time in this article explaining the importance of tracking.  Most people know it’s critical.  The problem is many businesses don’t take the time to set it up correctly, which means they can’t accurately measure the results of their marketing campaigns.

Here are the 3 key components you need to track your digital marketing:

  1. Google Analytics to measure visitors and their activity on your website
  2. Phone tracking to measure number of calls for each of your marketing channels
  3. CRM (customer relationship management) tracking to measure leads and sales for each of your marketing channels

 

If you’re missing any of the components above, then set them up in the order they are listed.

The thing about tracking is it’s not retroactive.  That means if you’re investing in marketing now without tracking, then there is no way to determine which campaigns were profitable and which were losing money.  Only after you set up tracking can you start to calculate your return on investment (ROI).  That’s why I always recommend businesses get their tracking set up as soon as possible.

 

Finish 2015 Strong With a Marketing Action Plan

For a limited time, we’re offering a special marketing bundle that includes a step-by-step Marketing Action Plan to tune up your digital marketing.

Click here to learn more about the bundle and Main Street Inner Circle

When you sign up today, you’ll get 21 of our step-by-step, digital marketing guides for just $1.  This bundle includes best practices on:

  • Search engine optimization
  • Google AdWords
  • Email marketing
  • Website conversion
  • Google Analytics
  • And more…

Click here to get 21 marketing guides for $1 when you try Main Street Inner Circle today.

 

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