The start of a new year is a great opportunity to get your digital marketing plan in place for your business. Planning your internet marketing in advance means you can ensure that your campaigns are well thought out, support your business objectives, run on time and are executed within their assigned budget. Here’s a quick checklist for planning your internet marketing in 2018.
1. Look for trends in your business
Knowing when your customers are searching for your products means that online marketing campaigns can be planned to match their search patterns. This gives your business opportunity to be present when customers are searching online or researching your product. Key dates and celebrations can have an influence in your customers’ online behaviour, along with product cycles and renewals. It may be surprising to learn the gap between searches online and when the customer makes a purchase.
2. Plan your budget and Calculate an expected outcome
Allocating the same budget to your Internet Marketing campaigns each month may lead to your business missing out on valuable traffic to your website. Some months may have surplus budget, and some may not have sufficient budget to reach all the potential customers searching for your product or service. Calculating a yearly budget and distributing it intelligently through the year can better support your marketing goals.
It’s also important to calculate what you expect from your digital marketing. How many conversions do you expect from the campaigns and what is an acceptable cost per conversion? These figures are essential in measuring success.
3. Automate your campaign launch and advance where possible
Most online advertising platforms allow the preparation in advance and automated launch of campaigns. Preparing some of your paid search, banners and boosted posts in advance allows you to ensure valuable campaigns are well prepared and go live on time. It also helps as it focuses the business on becoming proactive with campaigns rather than responsive, making sure your marketing is closely tied to your strategy and deadlines are adhered to.
4. Examine your audience structure
Check your audience for 2017. Who was buying? When? Are there clear market demographics? Modern online marketing enables your company to deliver more personal and relevant marketing messages. Reaching the audience with the right message will improve the return from that advertising. Get to know your audience, segment them and vary your marketing across various channels. Facebook Ads and Google AdWords both have tools to examine who is responding to your digital marketing activity, and provide a mechanism to push your marketing to those demographics.
5. Examine the on page experience and goals of your audiences
Getting your audience to your web site is only half the task. Take the opportunity to review what your customers see when they arrive at your site. Is the page neat, modern and professional? Is what the user expected to see present and well presented? Is there a clear call to action, an obvious next step for the visitor? Does the website work well on desktop and mobile?
Reviewing your site and using tools to examine a potential customers experience means you can make adjustments to better guide them to contact you, make a purchase or signup to a service.
Internet Marketing in 2018 – A Positive Toolset
Internet Marketing in 2018 can be successful. The methods to reach potential customers have never been better. With a little thought and preparation businesses can promote their products and services in an effective way.
To review your online marketing activity, or to prepare a 2018 digital marketing strategy, please get in touch for a no-obligation discussion.