If you’ve lived in your home for many years, you’re probably like me. You’ve accumulated a lot of… stuff. You don’t like it cluttering your home, but you’re not sure what to do about it. It’s all over the place, and you don’t know where to start. This feeling is much like the one you may be having about your current digital marketing plan.   

A lot goes into developing a website and driving traffic to it. Web pages, landing pages, and articles can quickly clutter your path to success. You don’t feel good about it because you can’t see through all of it. You don’t know what’s working, what’s not working, and what steps to take in order to get your site to the next level.

Luckily, I have a solution: refresh your digital marketing plan. It’s a lot like spring cleaning your home, but for your marketing.

Digital Marketing Plan Refresh: Out with the Old and In with the New

A digital marketing plan refresh can get rid of old, stale, and ineffective online marketing strategies to make room for new, powerful, effective marketing. It’s not as cumbersome as you may be thinking right now. You just need to get started by analyzing your current tracking tools.

 

Analyze Tools

In order to decide what marketing efforts to get rid of, you need to have a clear picture of which marketing efforts have been working for you. Conversions dictate if a strategy is working, so you need to identify what actions bring you leads or sales.  Here are a few actions that potential customers take that could be considered conversions.

  • Complete a webform
  • Make a phone call
  • Send an email
  • Start a live chat
  • Visit your business
  • Purchase a product or service

Once you know what you want visitors to do after visiting your site, find out which conversion tracking tools are delivering the results you need. Tools you may have used in the past may not be what you need now, so don’t be afraid to stop using ineffective ones.

You need tracking tools that provide you with information you can use to determine what works in your digital marketing plan. You can do this with the help of Google Analytics.

 

Determine What Works

Along with your conversion results, use Google Analytics to find the best performing channels (what is bringing you the most converting web visitors).

Sign into Google Analytics and go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels. These channels tell you how people are coming to your site. For example, they may be finding your site through organic Google search, pay per click advertising, or social media.

Once you know how people are coming to your site, find out what is making them take action. Review the content that is on the converting page. When you have a good understanding of why the content is making people convert, look at a page that doesn’t have as high of a conversion rate.

You can then develop a plan for pages that do not perform as well as others. It’s always better to improve low performing pages than create brand new ones. It takes less time and effort, which is what you need when making your way through your site’s content.

Once you know what you want to improve, you can move on to adding additional ways to bring in traffic, leads, and sales.

But first, brush up on the latest advancements in digital marketing.

 

Research Trends

The Internet and how you market on it is changing every single day. Researching the latest trends can help you stay ahead of the competition.

Let me give you an example:

In 2018, 52.2% of website visits came from mobile devices, up from 50.3% in 2017 and 43.6% in 2016. Plus, more than 60% of  Google searches are on mobile devices, up from 57% in 2018 and 56% in 2017. These percentages are expected to increase in the coming years, so mobile-friendly websites are essential to an effective marketing plan. 

People are changing the way they search the Internet, and your marketing plan must change with it. This often includes adding ways to market online, and with your new knowledge, you can start to identify gaps in your current marketing plan.

 

Identify Gaps

With the information you’ve gathered about the ever-evolving digital marketing world, you can identify what you need to add to your plan to take your site to the next level.

If you haven’t been utilizing social media, it might be a good time to do so, as more people are turning to social networks to research products and services. PPC has a lot of benefits to businesses in a competitive market. It’s a great way to not only bring in sales but improve brand awareness. SEO continues to be one of the leading digital marketing strategies to generate qualified traffic and leads.

All of these avenues and many more should be part of a digital marketing plan. Identify the gaps in your current plan to see what you can add depending on your budget.

 

Consider Budget

Money is best spent where it will produce the biggest return. This is the reason you need to consider your budget and prioritize your marketing plan according to what you have to spend.

The first step is to allocate money towards what is already producing results, so you can produce more of those results.

Next, consider improving low performing channels and content. Make a list of what needs to be improved, and allocate a part of your budget to it.

In addition, you should set aside money to add at least one new marketing tactic, such as SEO, Google Ads, Facebook Ads or organic social media. You won’t know if these tactics will work unless you try them and analyze the results.

Trust in the analytical tools you identified when you first started working on refreshing your current plan. They will help you decide what is or isn’t working, so you can change focus or strategy if needed.

 

When to Refresh Your Digital Marketing Plan

At the very least, I recommend refreshing your marketing plan annually. But, the best time to refresh your marketing plan is whenever you don’t feel as though it’s working for you. Businesses who are quickly growing may need to analyze their strategies more often.

Just like a home can seem like it’s closing in on you, your marketing plan can start to close in on your business. Breaking it apart, throwing out what doesn’t work, refining what does, and bringing in some new online marketing tactics can quickly and effectively take your business up a notch.

 

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