Digital marketing is constantly changing. Algorithms, new technology, savvy customers — there’s always something new to keep us on our toes. But by updating your digital marketing strategy regularly, your digital growth can continue to stay in line with best practices and continue to grow.

The new year is an excellent time to reflect on your digital marketing strategy and make it as current as possible, but many businesses don’t know where to start.

Here’s how we recommend updating your digital marketing strategy for 2022:

 

Analyse your performance from the past year

Content platforms provide a lot of information about who is interacting with your brand and buying your product. But when was the last time you took a deep dive into your analytics across all platforms?

Gather data from your website, social media, CRM, digital marketing campaigns, and email sends to discover:

• What devices or platforms your audience likes to use best
• Their session times and how long they spend on your site
• Which website pages are your most popular
• Which areas of each page get the most conversions
• Which products or services web visitors engage with most
• What the average customer’s purchase history looks like
• What the average customer’s shopping cart activity looks like
• What time your audience is most active on each platform
• How your audience have responded to your marketing campaigns
• What a successful interaction with your customer service team looks like
• What the average cart abandonment rate is
• Which campaigns performed the worst
• Which posts get the best social media interactions
• What content get the most comments and shares

By answering these questions, you will develop a solid understanding of your audience, what kind of content they prefer, what campaigns work the best and which approaches you should avoid.

You can also use this information to create buyer personas. Buyer personas reflect some of the traits commonly found in a large segment of your audience. They ensure your marketing is targeting your ideal customer.

 

Use Reliable Analytics Tools

Many businesses either don’t know how to collect data effectively or don’t know how to interpret that data once they’ve collected it. Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered!

Using reliable tools for collecting and analysing data is crucial as you want your insights to be accurate.

• Google Analytics is a fantastic tracking tool for measuring and analysing data from your website, blogs, and PPC ads. Learn more about it here.

• Google Search Console is a powerful tool that tells you how Google sees your website. This tool is excellent for measuring the success of your SEO on your website. Learn more about it here.

• Google Tag Manager allows you to track events and conversions — like how many phone calls or downloads you’re getting — and pull that data through to other platforms like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Google Ads and much more. Learn more about it here.

• Google Dashboard is a powerful platform that can pull data from many platforms (including those listed above). We recommend pulling in data from your Website, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Organic Search and Google Ads so that all your insights are in one place. Learn more about it here.

These platforms will help you analyse your performance over the past year with accurate and current data.

 

Upgrade Your Profiles, Google My Business, About Us Pages

Your social media profiles, About page, and Google My Business profile all include vital information about your business, but how often do you keep them updated?

Make a habit of updating these pages once a year (and more for your Google My Business profile). Update your About page to include any current awards or achievements from the past year. You may also want to add business reviews to your website and logos to show how many more clients you have helped.

An up-to-date profile shows that your company pays attention to details, while About Us pages can help your website rank well on Google. Keeping your Google My Business profile up to date is especially helpful so that customers and clients can find your opening hours, location, reviews and more information on their phones.

 

Create a Budget

There’s no shortage of areas you can spend money on for your digital marketing strategy. Here are some ways to make your digital marketing budget go further:

• Create a monthly, quarterly, and yearly budget to keep you on track.
• Analyse past campaigns and redirect spending to campaigns away from low-performing ads.
• Include all expenses in your marketing budget, including potential fees for using contractors or freelancers
• Allocate funds for PPC ads on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter and Search. Include a budget for boosted posts or featured content. PPC spending can be hard to control if you are not vigilant.
• Read the fine print of any inclusive campaigns you sign up for before making any decisions. Some can be more costly than you realise.

 

Set Goals For Your Campaigns

Campaigns need goals to keep them on track. Set targets for each month, quarter and year to help you keep sight of your purpose. These goals will ensure your team always have the end in mind.

Some practical goals can be:

1. Increasing your follower count by 50% by the end of the year. Choose a platform that aligns well with your industry and that you have experienced some success on.
2. Grow your monthly revenue by a certain percentage each month. 20% is an excellent place to start. More income means you have more money to funnel back into acquiring new customers and spending on campaigns.
3. Post x number of times on social media each week. Keeping to a regular social media schedule is much more important than posting a lot but not often. This will help build your follower count and aligns nicely with goal #1. Posting two-three times per week is plenty for some businesses.

Make sure all the goals you develop are attainable for your brand and are specific and easy to track.

 

Make A Plan for the Year Ahead

Successful digital marketing campaigns are planned digital marketing campaigns. If you can, plan for a year ahead and mark out any significant milestones you may know are coming up. These include:

• Holidays: Mark all the holidays relevant to your business on the calendar. Don’t forget public holidays and long weekends. You may want to run sales or campaigns that encourage people to make the most of their time off by visiting your store or using your services.
• Unofficial Holidays: International taco day, doughnut day or hummus day might not seem that relevant until you’re in the business of selling those foods! Do some research into international days and take note of any that are relevant to your industry.
• Minor Holidays: Mother’s Day/Father’s Day’s, Valentines, St Patrick’s Day – don’t forget these as they might coincide with people wanting to use your services or are just fun to include in your organic social media.
• Business Promo Days: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day are all big shopping days worth including in your digital advertising. For B2B clients, the end of the tax year may be an appropriate time to advertise.
• Seasonal pushes: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter clearance or promo sales. People are often looking to buy products as the season’s change.
• School Terms: It’s worth noting the school terms and school holidays if you work in an industry that sees more uptick in the school holidays.
• Business Events: These can be things like Open Days, Scholarships, Conferences, and expos.

Planning for these events ensures you’re not caught off-guard by upcoming holidays or promotions and keeps your team on the same page.

 

Planning for the year ahead doesn’t need to be stressful. At Blitz Digital, we can help you develop digital marketing campaigns that perform well all year around. Send us an email at hi@blitzdigital.co.nz to get started.