Before the age of digital, marketing was much more out in the open. Engagement with people and companies did not occur through personalized devices like it does now. The Internet has created a world where everybody uses their phone, computer, tablet or other device to experience an individualized view of the world.
These unique and individualized perspectives have completely turned marketing upside down and brought us to the new age of digital marketing. There are real costs to ignoring this new world and continuing to work and live in old school marketing tactics.
The New Reach of Digital Marketing
Marketers must now reach out to an infinite audience of one person, rather than trying to reach out to as many people as possible.
An example of old school marketing is how France recently won the World Cup in soccer, as millions of people watched from all over the world. Everybody would be watching the same thing, at the same time. This is now a very rare occurrence and it takes a World Cup to bring people together on this level.
For businesses today, this is not how it works. It’s nearly impossible to stand out in the eyes of consumers in the same way the World Cup stands out.
Because of this big change in marketing, many people are stuck in the past and often ignore the data and insights coming from digital marketing. This data is not blatant, like the World Cup. Theses stats are subtle and you have to look for it in order to find it. For example, many business leaders still do not review their Google Analytics data on a regular basis!
There are consequences arising for businesses whom ignore their digital marketing data. For instance, if your business ignores data your competitors are paying close attention to, then your competitors will get the value of this data. Your company could be losing market share without even knowing it! Tracking data is absolutely critical when it comes to optimizing and bringing visitors to your company’s brand.
The Important Stuff
You need to know how many people are visiting your website every month, every quarter, and every year. If you don’t know that, if you don’t know whether or not it’s increasing or decreasing, your competitors could be stealing market share. You need to know the percentages of online visitors that actually represent your customer base. Then you’ll need to ask: “What percentage of this customer base interacts with my business, contacts us, and actually becomes customers?”
If you don’t know what pages are being visited and you don’t know what’s most popular then you’re missing a lot of information about your services, products, and your company in general. You need to know how people engage with your website. Website engagement means you have a stronger brand. Website engagement can be measured by figuring out how long people stay on pages, and looking at how many pages people visit when they visit your website.
You must review data and stats from Google Analytics. It’s important to see the search words people are using to find you, and it’s also good to note where your site is not showing up in search results. More importantly, you’ve got to figure out the search terms that are most essential to your company. Every company has a series of search terms that they need to be found for, and your website and social media need to be on these listings and search results!
A Worthy Investment
It is also necessary to know what the ROI is for your website development, website maintenance, and marketing. You should get some of the best ROI from any of your business investments in website and digital marketing.
If you are going to invest money into digital marketing, you’ve got to have a plan for getting a return from that investment! If you’re not watching the data on Google Analytics and other resources, then you might as well throw money away because you need data in order to see, or measure, your return.
What do you not know about your website, and how can you start closing that gap immediately? Get this done to avoid the costs of inaction.
Intuitive Websites are experts in digital marketing. Our team gives you peace of mind by handling all that for you so you can focus on your core business. After all, your time is precious and your team is busy – so let us give your digital marketing the attention it deserves. It’s what we do. Contact us today!
