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July 1st, 2020
10 Signs Your Digital Marketing Strategy May Not Be Working
You’ve invested your company’s time and money to develop a digital marketing strategy. But how do you know it’s working? Do you know what metrics to track? What if you aren’t getting the results you expected? Here are 10 indicators your digital marketing strategy may not be working as well as you hoped.
To read more about these 10 indicators that your digital marketing campaign is not working, click here. And if your digital marketing campaign is not working for you, Paladin Worldwide Management can help! Visit here to see how we can improve your return on your digital marketing strategy investment.
- What is your cost per acquisition (CPA)? This is how much money you spend on average to acquire one new customer. Are you maximizing that investment?
- Do you know your social media analytics? When you post something new to your social media channels, are your customers engaging with the content through likes, shares and comments? If not, it may be time to rethink the content you share to align more closely with what your target audience wants to see.
- Are you converting website visitors? Maybe you are getting many website visitors, but how many are actually making purchases? If customers aren’t making those purchases, it will affect your return on investment (ROI) of your digital marketing strategy.
- You have little to no website traffic at all. It’s hard to make sales if customers are not visiting your website. Maybe you need to rethink your SEO strategy or rethink which marketing channels you advertise on.
- Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are not generating the returns expected. You need to make sure you are targeting the right audience with the right content to maximize your ROI.
- Are you failing to properly plan your marketing campaign? Marketing plans need to be well thought out and researched. Without the proper research, how do you know you are reaching the audience you want in a way they will embrace?
- You are at the bottom of search results. You need to invest in your SEO strategy so your potential customers can find you and your company doesn’t get buried at the bottom of search results.
- Do you know what analytics you should be tracking on each platform? Knowing your analytics on each platform you use will help you determine if your marketing strategy is even working.
- Are you putting all your eggs in one basket? Having a multichannel, unified marketing strategy will allow you to reach more ideal customers.
- How is your revenue compared to your expectations? If you are not bringing in the revenue you expected, that is probably a very good indicator that your digital marketing strategy needs a revamp.
To read more about these 10 indicators that your digital marketing campaign is not working, click here. And if your digital marketing campaign is not working for you, Paladin Worldwide Management can help! Visit here to see how we can improve your return on your digital marketing strategy investment.
July 2nd, 2020
How to Use Lead Scoring to Identify New Customers
Generating new leads is crucial for any business success. Finding interested customers is different than finding the right customers, those who are not only interested in your product but are also ready to buy. Lead scoring can help you wade through the leads generated on your website so you can concentrate your time and investment on those customers ready to purchase.
To start your own lead scoring system, you need to first know what makes a lead a good potential customer for your business and why. Are there any criteria that would disqualify a customer? Maybe they are overseas and you only work within the continental United States. Next, you need to know your customer behavior. How do they eventually become a customer? Do they visit and get on the email list and then convert? Or is it a longer process involving emails and webinars? Knowing the steps your customers take will help you decide how many points to assign to each one. As a step gets closer to an actual purchase, it should be assigned a higher point value.
Once you have your customer action point values, you should decide what the minimum score is to qualify your lead. You can base this minimum off the point totals for the customer behavior you determined earlier. For example, if your customers typically visit your website (1 point), sign up for your email list (3 points), and then attend a webinar (7 points) before they make a purchase, you would assign your minimum to be 11 points. You can then manually track the points or use an online lead scoring tool to make it more automatic. Using a lead scoring system will help you to easily qualify customers so you can concentrate your efforts on the customers most likely to convert to loyal customers.
If you want to read more about how to set up your own lead scoring system, click here.
To start your own lead scoring system, you need to first know what makes a lead a good potential customer for your business and why. Are there any criteria that would disqualify a customer? Maybe they are overseas and you only work within the continental United States. Next, you need to know your customer behavior. How do they eventually become a customer? Do they visit and get on the email list and then convert? Or is it a longer process involving emails and webinars? Knowing the steps your customers take will help you decide how many points to assign to each one. As a step gets closer to an actual purchase, it should be assigned a higher point value.
Once you have your customer action point values, you should decide what the minimum score is to qualify your lead. You can base this minimum off the point totals for the customer behavior you determined earlier. For example, if your customers typically visit your website (1 point), sign up for your email list (3 points), and then attend a webinar (7 points) before they make a purchase, you would assign your minimum to be 11 points. You can then manually track the points or use an online lead scoring tool to make it more automatic. Using a lead scoring system will help you to easily qualify customers so you can concentrate your efforts on the customers most likely to convert to loyal customers.
If you want to read more about how to set up your own lead scoring system, click here.
July 3rd, 2020
How to Use Analytics to Increase Your Social Media Marketing Effectiveness
Social media is here to stay. If you are not using it to effectively market your product, though, you could be losing out on potential customers. But how do you know if your social media marketing strategy is working? Analytics can help you develop and understand how well your marketing strategy is working.
Analytics are very important when developing your social media marketing strategy. They help you to understand your target market better, such as their age, interests, and buying behaviors. Analytics from social media platforms can also help you understand what kind of content your target market interacts with best, whether it is a photo post or video or live feed. They also help you understand the best time to post new content. If your customers usually interact with social media in the evenings but you are posting new content in the mornings, your posts may get buried by evening in your customers’ feeds and go unseen.
So what else can analytics do for your company? There are third-party analytic tools that help you keep track of your competition and better analyze their successes to learn from them. Analytics also help you choose the right social media platform for your target market. If platform A only generates 5% of your website hits, while platform B generates 75%, you may want to reevaluate if platform A is still a good fit for your marketing campaign. Finally, analytics can help you find social media influencers to collaborate with as well as help you understand how your customers react to and feel about your marketing campaign.
Analytics are an important component of any social media marketing campaign. To read more about how analytics can help your social media marketing campaign, click here.
Analytics are very important when developing your social media marketing strategy. They help you to understand your target market better, such as their age, interests, and buying behaviors. Analytics from social media platforms can also help you understand what kind of content your target market interacts with best, whether it is a photo post or video or live feed. They also help you understand the best time to post new content. If your customers usually interact with social media in the evenings but you are posting new content in the mornings, your posts may get buried by evening in your customers’ feeds and go unseen.
So what else can analytics do for your company? There are third-party analytic tools that help you keep track of your competition and better analyze their successes to learn from them. Analytics also help you choose the right social media platform for your target market. If platform A only generates 5% of your website hits, while platform B generates 75%, you may want to reevaluate if platform A is still a good fit for your marketing campaign. Finally, analytics can help you find social media influencers to collaborate with as well as help you understand how your customers react to and feel about your marketing campaign.
Analytics are an important component of any social media marketing campaign. To read more about how analytics can help your social media marketing campaign, click here.
July 4th, 2020
Changes to Google Search Make It Harder for Customers to Find You
Companies invest time and money to improve their search engine optimization (SEO) so they will improve in rankings and move up the list of Google results. But winning website traffic has become harder and harder to do because of some changes Google has made in recent years.
In 2015 Google started testing adding in a fourth ad at the top of most search page results, making it harder and harder for customers to find the free web listings below them. In many cases, the bottom ads are not even as good a fit for the search results as the first free links below the ads. Google has also begun offering pre-packaged information on the search results page, reducing the number of people clicking on ads or on the free web links below it. Companies that have relied on Google to send customers to their websites are seeing noticeable decreases in their website clicks.
On smartphones, the change is even more noticeable than other platforms. On many searches, potential customers have to scroll down to even find the free web links as the paid ads take up the entire first screen. From June 2016 to June 2019, mobile phone searches leading to clicks on free web links dropped from 40% to 27%, according to Jumpshot data, while clicks on ads tripled and no-click searches increased from 56% to 62%. Companies are having to spend more in Google ads now to retain the same website traffic. And that increased ad spending then eats into profits for small businesses already operating on small profit margins.
But a change could be coming. Goggle controls an estimated 85% of the US search market, which has caught the attention of US regulators who are preparing an antitrust case against the company. Companies having to pay more to rise to the top of search results is a focus of the regulators. It’s a tough situation for Google to balance the needs of users, shareholders, and web developers/businesses. How it will play out remains to be seen. But companies that rely on clicks from Google searches to drive traffic to their websites are hoping the playing field will be evened out in their favor.
To read more about Google’s practices and the potential antitrust lawsuit, please click here.
In 2015 Google started testing adding in a fourth ad at the top of most search page results, making it harder and harder for customers to find the free web listings below them. In many cases, the bottom ads are not even as good a fit for the search results as the first free links below the ads. Google has also begun offering pre-packaged information on the search results page, reducing the number of people clicking on ads or on the free web links below it. Companies that have relied on Google to send customers to their websites are seeing noticeable decreases in their website clicks.
On smartphones, the change is even more noticeable than other platforms. On many searches, potential customers have to scroll down to even find the free web links as the paid ads take up the entire first screen. From June 2016 to June 2019, mobile phone searches leading to clicks on free web links dropped from 40% to 27%, according to Jumpshot data, while clicks on ads tripled and no-click searches increased from 56% to 62%. Companies are having to spend more in Google ads now to retain the same website traffic. And that increased ad spending then eats into profits for small businesses already operating on small profit margins.
But a change could be coming. Goggle controls an estimated 85% of the US search market, which has caught the attention of US regulators who are preparing an antitrust case against the company. Companies having to pay more to rise to the top of search results is a focus of the regulators. It’s a tough situation for Google to balance the needs of users, shareholders, and web developers/businesses. How it will play out remains to be seen. But companies that rely on clicks from Google searches to drive traffic to their websites are hoping the playing field will be evened out in their favor.
To read more about Google’s practices and the potential antitrust lawsuit, please click here.
Check out last month's blogs here!