As we charge into 2012, here are a few ideas to help your online marketing / business development efforts yield greater results.
- The numbers don’t lie…Take a look through your analytics data at the percentage of individuals who are viewing your website from a mobile device. We are seeing that number range between 7-15% for companies, which means that mobile has become a meaningful contributor to a business’s visitor stream. Are you presenting your site visitors with a mobile-friendly version of your website? If you aren’t, then they are not nearly as likely to engage with your site and take a favorable action step. If you haven’t tackled mobile yet, now is the time to get busy.
- Speaking of analytics, two important questions come to mind:
- Is your site properly coded and are you attributing conversions to the correct traffic sources? The first question is the easier one to answer. The second requires accounting for the fact that someone may visit your site as a result of a paid ad, but come back later by re-searching for your company name and clicking on an organic listing or by simply typing the url and going direct. These are behaviors that occur in combination frequently and without the proper analytics coding can lead to inaccurate data on the effectiveness of your paid search efforts.
- Do you have goals set up within your analytics platform that are fully aligned with your objectives? It’s easy to use analytics to see how many sales a particular campaign generates (not withstanding the challenges described in #1 above). It’s also valuable to capture data on other conversion points that can lead to sales in the future, such as whitepaper downloads, newsletter subscriptions, etc.
- SEO remains the great equalizer. Sure it’s hard to compete through paid search against the largest players, with the deepest pockets in your industry. It’s not easy to compete within SEO either, but it’s a more pragmatic first step for many companies. Invest the time and resources to build and maintain a search engine friendly web and social media presence. The greater the commitment to fresh and relevant content, the more effective you will be.
Have a great New Year!!!
