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Failure To Plan Is A Plan To Fail

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This week I drove across the country visiting our offices and taking in the good ole US of A. Driving that long and that far in between meetings and other obligations meant I really had to know when and where I would be. Before I started the journey I planned out where I would stop for the night as well as rough estimates as to where I’d need gas. Excessive? Maybe, but I never ran out of gas, never went starving, and had a warm bed every night. This reminded me about how important having a plan is. How do you know where to go if you don’t know where you’re going?

Before you begin any digital marketing campaign it is imperative that you develop a plan, such as:

  • Who are we targeting?
  • How do we target them?
  • What do we say to them?
  • Where do we send them?
  • What is their goal?
  • How do we track them?

If you do not have the answers to all of those questions then you ARE NOT ready to launch your campaign. More importantly, don’t look at these within a vacuum. The question that is not listed above is “How does this campaign fit in with our overall strategy?” That question is so important but is rarely asked. If you do not stop and ask yourself these questions you will have gaps within your digital marketing and you’re missing out on opportunities. Do us a solid… ask these questions each and every time you launch a new campaign. You’ll be better off for it and you won’t have to pull off to the side of the road on your tip to more conversions!

Content is King, and Queen, and Prince…

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types of digital contentAl Gore created the internet to distribute content to all (*Disclaimer, Al Gore did not create the internet). Too often we see websites with too much or too little content and no clear strategy about what content they should have. An eMarketer article recently noted that many organizations are just pushing out content with no clear strategy, as evidenced by the chart on the right. We believe in data-backed decision making and content decisions are no different. Below are a few quick things that you could do next week in a white board session to make sure you’re presenting the right content to the right audience.

How to determine the right content for your website

  • What is it ya do here? : Develop 5-10 competitive advantages & business goals. Involve EVERYONE; Sales, Upper Management, R&D…
  • Who are your customers? : Develop about 5 target personas. What are their needs & wants? What do they do an a day-to-day basis online. Are they heavy social users? Are they mostly offline?
  • Does your marketing match their needs? : Too often upper management forces messages or tactics on marketing departments. Take the time to review all of your marketing messages and see if they align with your goals as well as the customers.
  • How do you deliver messages? : Evaluate the tactics you’re using and match them up with what you developed in bullet number two. Are there gaps and areas you might be missing?
  • Are you delivering the right content? : Now back to that eMarketer article! If you’ve followed the steps above you should have a perfect guide for what you do, who to target, how to target them, and what to say to them. Now you need to evaluate the types of content you have on your site. Does it match customer expectations?

    • A few content type case studies;

    PROBLEM: We once worked with a hospital who provided Harvard-level explanations on how they treated patients however their target audience were parents who leaned more towards having a high school education.
    SOLUTION: We developed a shortened version that cut the content down by more than 75% and then provided links to the more in-depth sections for visitors to learn even more.

    PROBLEM: One of our clients featured lengthy thought-leadership content when their audience targets were mostly ‘people on the go’ with little time to read.
    SOLUTION: We helped them to develop infographics that showed their expertise on the subject matter but displayed it in bite-sized pieces so it was easily scannable.

    PROBLEM: An upper-level manager forced the marketing team to take up a large amount of homepage real estate for logos of media sites that had mentioned the brand in the past. After talking with customers they told us these logos were either not seen nor useful in their purchase decision.
    SOLUTION: We removed the logos which brought the Calls to Action front and center. Conversion subsequently increased!

    In conclusion…

    Follow the steps we bulleted above to make sure you’re delivering the content experience that meets your business goals but also matches your customers’ expectations. Give visitors what they want and conversion will climb higher and higher!

Online Marketing Strategy You Say?

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Current Digital Marketing Landscape

In today’s complex digital marketing landscape decisions are made on a daily basis.

  • What marketing tactics should we use?
  • Where should we drive visitors?
  • What do we do with the pages to make visitors convert more?

Often these questions are answered by pulling some data from the analytics platform and running with whatever it spits out. But what if the data is skewed, what if visitors simply don’t see what you are promoting on your pages?

This is the heart of digital strategy. Taking data, evaluating what they say, deciphering the user intent, and ultimately recommending a better approach. All too often these steps are not taken into account and the design team simply requests some data that either confirms or goes against their design theory and they move on.

The Why of Digital Strategy

Data is any marketing team’s best friend. Tracking opens, clicks, engagement and conversion happens every day, every hour, every second. But often we get lost in the data and we are no longer telling a story or creating a journey. When data alone is the only means of decision making it can easily lead you astray.

The Analytics Gap

A digital strategist can bridge the gap, translating volumes of data into actionable advice and clear recommendations.

For example, analytics may show that no one visits the “locations” page on your site. So the data would suggest that it is unimportant and can be buried. However, what if the links to the page are hidden or the color of the button/text do not stand out?

The data provided a problem, but the digital strategist can provide the solution.

The Design Gap

On the other side, a design mockup can be developed that is stunning, but when it goes live, engagement drops like a rock. Had a digital strategist been involved, they would have uncovered that 90% of website traffic views it in a browser smaller than a tablet. Since the design did not account for such a small screen size, only 10% of the audience saw its beauty.

And Before You Start

A digital strategist is the key to day-to-day marketing decisions as well as the principle of any web project. A digital strategist not only evaluates web analytics, but conducts surveys and Q&A sessions with stakeholders and visitors to gauge their needs and wants, develops website testing plans to evaluate website usability, and so much more.

A handful of hours at the beginning of a project can save you thousands in the long run and tons of frustration. A digital strategist gets to the bottom of any user problem online and helps to ensure your digital efforts are optimized for website conversion!

Digital Strategy on Vacation

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Bluefin Strategy came to be because of our love for fishing, well that and it was an available domain name. Never the less tomorrow Bluefin Strategy embarks on a much needed tuna fishing vacation. While our minds drift to the thoughts of fresh sashimi and tuna salad we must first make sure all our ducks are in a row on the work front. We all need time away and so here’s a quick guide to remind you of things to take care of before you power off and how marketing automation can keep your mind focused on the beach!

Pay Per Click (PPC) Automation

If you run pay per click advertising make sure that you set up any rules that you may have otherwise been doing manually. Turning off and on keywords, raising bids at certain times, and many more tasks can be automated through AdWords’ automated rules. Also, take one last look through your keywords and ads to make sure you aren’t targeting anything vague. Vacation is not the time to be testing out brand new ideas!

Content Strategy, Blog Posting & Social Media Scheduling

Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you can’t publish content! And no, I don’t recommend posting content after a few Alabama Slammers. Most Content Management Systems allow for future postings, so you can write the content piece before you leave and schedule it to post when you’re gone. The downside to this is that you’re posting something while you’re gone and technically “something” could be incorrect. Well, that’s why you triple-checked the content before clicking “schedule post”, right? Everything I just mentioned, do it all the same for your Social Media posts as well (NOTE: Many CMS’s automatically push new blog or page content to Social Media platforms, does yours?).

Email Marketing Scheduling

Combine the powers of automated rules and content scheduling and you have the tools available to you in most email marketing platforms. It’s time to do a double-check and make sure the messages are correct, in a particular order, and all links point to the right location. Any automated emails through forms or CRM’s should also be double-checked (eg: did you properly get submissions yesterday and today?).

Gone Fishin’

There isn’t really much to do with Display, nor do you have much need for auto reports from your analytics platform. Go enjoy your vacation and have peace of mind that you took all the strategic steps to ensure your web strategy keeps on truckin’ while you do… well, whatever it is you do on vacation!

Digital Strategy, explained to a four-year-old

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We were recently asked by a client to explain what we do as if they were a four-year-old, paying homage to Denzel Washington in “Philadelphia”. At first we laughed, as did they, but then we got to thinking that there is a lot of stuff to think about when you’re a small(er) business and it has to be difficult to sift through all the clutter. So, since we had to do it any way for our client, here is our explanation of digital strategy & marketing, to a four-year-old. Well, a four-year-old with some business acumen…

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