The end of one year, the beginning of another. Lots of lessons learnt and plans for 2011 to make The Christmas and New Year period can be a quiet time for some and a chance to catch up on some of those tasks that you keep putting off, tasks that are critical to bring you the best results from your on-line marketing activities.
Now is the time to get your on-line marketing ready for 2011. Here are 4 things you should do this month, if not first thing in January.
1. Put an On-line Marketing Plan together
Your plan might be in your head but by putting it in writing it makes it more official and available for others to follow and deliver. A good plan should contain
- Who are your target market?– who are you aiming at and why they should buy from you.
- What are your goals? - specific figures around sales, market share, growt
- What resources to you need? – people (internal or outsourced), suppliers, hardware, software, social media platforms
- Set out a 12 month plan – what is planned and when. Think topics, compelling events and activities
- Document your on-line policy if you have other people working with you to ensure everyone is consistent in message and deal with feedback, enquiries in the same way.
2. Review your Website
Your website is pivotal to your on-line marketing. As well as ensuring the design is right for your target market, speaking the right language and clearly answering their questions. You should also have the ability to:
- Fully edit / add / manage main pages of the site as well as regularly add content such as news, special offers, events
- Add and edit “Call to Action” buttons on every page if appropriate
- Add unique titles, descriptions, keywords to any new pages, posts and if the content changes. Integrate with social media channels – follow on Facebook, Twitter etc buttons available on the site
3. Set up Google Analytics
If you do not already have this facility or one with similar features then setting up Google Analytics on your website can give you valuable information about the traffic to your site. Simple to set up and then add the code to each page of your website or ask your web company to do this for you. If you do have analytics then:
- Set some goals to reflect the goals you have set in your On-line Marketing Plan so you can see if you are achieving these goals
- Create custom reports to see how specific on-line activities are performing i.e shopping cart, pay per click, social media
- Always review these reports and compare and adjust your on-line plan if needed
4. Organise your data
Whether you have a dedicated CRM solution or just a simple spreadsheet ensure that all the valuable data your business is using is organised in one place
- Contact Details- customers, prospects, suppliers
- Customer /Prospects – proposals, sales enquiries, visits
- Social media followers and friends
- Campaigns – who responded
- Referrals – who has been referred and referring others
- Results – where have these come from
- Costs – how much did it cost to make a sale
- Email marketing mailing list
With each of the above steps you will have a plan to execute, a professional and trackable website for people to visit and all the data at your finger tips to run any number of targeted, successful campaigns.
As with all marketing, particularly on-line if there are any elements of the technology or the marketing process that you are not sure about then get some advice.
