Digital marketing is constantly evolving as consumers drive the latest trends in how they interact with their favourite businesses and brands.
Cloud and 5G, the boom in social media, the rise of automation and the practical application of artificial intelligence to improve the customer experience have all come to the fore in recent years, while the global coronavirus pandemic has changed how we work forever.
If everything that’s gone off in the world over the past two-and-a-half years has taught us anything, it’s to be grateful for the little things, show kindness and compassion to everyone and be thankful for our health. While that holds true for our personal lives, it also applies to business.
There are many things to consider when it comes to ensuring your business is in good shape. Sales, finances, costs, cash flow, productivity and performance are all pretty good indicators of your overall business health.
But what about your marketing efforts? What do they say about how healthy – or otherwise – your business is?
And how do you know if you need a quick tune-up – or a complete overhaul – to set you back on the path to success?
Here, we run through some of the things you need to consider when giving your digital marketing a health check to decide whether it’s serving your business in the best way.
How to give your digital marketing a health check
Your marketing can be split into five key areas:
- Brand
- Customers
- Content
- Digital
- Strategy
These overlap – and interact with each other – in various ways, so ensuring you get the basics right in each one will help keep your marketing activities on the right track and ensure they’re as effective as they can be. Let’s take a closer look at each one…
Brand
Your brand is much more than your logo and visual identity.
It captures the essence of your business and represents the value that your customers attach to it. Once launched into the public domain, your brand no longer belongs to you. It’s your customers – actual or potential – who can make or break it.
So, while you can’t fully control your brand and the way people respond to it once it’s out in the real world, you can influence how your audience perceives it.
You’re still in control of your visuals, content and messaging, business values, culture and behaviours, and the customer experience you offer. So, understanding who you are as a business, what you stand for and what you mean to customers lies at the foundation of an authentic brand.
When it comes to assessing the overall health of your brand, there are a few things you should be able to articulate:
- Can you describe your business, purpose, vision and values?
- What makes you unique and different from your competitors?
- What value do you provide to your customers?
- How do you want to be perceived by your audience?
If you have a strong, genuine and clearly defined brand, everyone in your business should be able to answer these questions. If they can’t, maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper into what makes you tick as a business, to make sure you’ve got things right.
Customers
Getting to grips with your brand is a good start, but for your marketing to be truly effective, you need to really understand your customers, too.
Fortunately, you’ll have a better idea than anyone else of who your customers are, their likes and dislikes, where they hang out and consume content, and what they’re looking for from your business.
It’s very rare for a business to be all things to everyone. So, trying too hard to market your products or services to appeal to the mass market, rather than focusing on your niche or specialism, can often be a fool’s errand.
Think about it, if you go fishing, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to catch every fish in the ocean. You might not even like some of the fish you do catch. But if you cast your hooks in the right pond and use the right bait, chances are you’ll land more of the fish you want, right?
So, building a clearer picture of who your customers are and what they’re looking for is essential. Some of the questions you need to ask yourself here include:
- Who are your ideal customers? The more specific you can be here, the better, in terms of their age, gender, job role, interests and aspirations.
- Where can you find them? For example, do they consume most of their content on Facebook or LinkedIn? Do they prefer direct email or face-to-face networking at events? Do they respond better to YouTube videos, TikToks, or Instagram posts?
- What problems do you solve for them?
- What sort of messaging do they respond to?
With this information, you can start to build your brand and marketing activities around what your customers actually want from you, in a way that they’ll engage with.
Content
Many businesses make the mistake of viewing content as just their written communications – web content, blogs, email marketing or social media posts – but there’s much more to it than that.
Content also covers messaging, language, tone of voice, communication channels and the type of content you push out to your customers. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the written word. Video, animation, images, GIFs and memes can all be effective forms of content for your business if executed correctly.
The last bit of that previous sentence is key – how do you execute your content effectively?
Well, if you have a clearly defined brand and understand who your customers are, what they want and where they go for information, you’re halfway there.
So, ask yourself:
- What platforms are you creating content for?
- Are there any rules or conventions you need to follow?
- Do your visuals, language, writing style and tone of voice (see our blog about ‘What is tone of voice and why is it important?’ for amplification) reflect your brand?
- Does your messaging tell the right story?
- Will it resonate with your audience?
Remember, good content lies at the heart of great marketing. What you say and how you say it is just as important as your logo, branding and visual identity.
Digital
In today’s technology-driven economy, where consumers demand 24/7 instant access to everything, your brand must be present and visible across multiple digital touchpoints.
Attracting new customers into your business and converting them into loyal brand advocates is the key to achieving your growth objectives.
Getting your digital presence right across all your channels – from your website to your social media platforms – will help your brand capture attention, connect and engage with your ideal customers, and nurture them through the buying journey to secure the sale.
So, auditing your digital footprint and ensuring your brand is presented in the right way across all your channels is essential. Some of the things to ask yourself here include:
- Which digital channels do you use to reach your target audience?
- Why do you use them?
- How successful are they?
- Do your digital activities align with or support your offline ones?
- Are there any new or emerging digital channels you need to try?
- Do you have a lead generation plan?
- If so, is it delivering the results you want?
Getting digital right is a tricky balance because what works for one business might not be right for another. So, focusing your efforts on the channels which deliver the best results and doing things well is a far better strategy than thinly spreading your activities across every channel in the hope that they might all work. They very rarely do.
Strategy
While brand, customers, content and digital are the building blocks of effective marketing, strategy is the cement that binds them together.
While strategy alone won’t bring you success, it will set the objectives for all your marketing activities, steer the direction and ensure the more creative elements of your campaigns are executed correctly. It ensures your marketing is relevant, consistent, joined-up and supports your goals.
An effective marketing strategy always starts with objectives.
Once you know what these are – whether it’s to reach more customers, achieve more sales or raise awareness of your brand – you can start to plan the activities you need to achieve them and the targets you need to hit.
When it comes to marketing, return on investment is everything, so it’s vital to put meaningful KPIs in place to track progress and see which campaigns or activities are bearing fruit.
It’s also important to ensure that your marketing strategy is aligned with your business’s vision and supports your overall objectives. Some of the key things to think about include:
- What are your marketing goals and overarching mission?
- How are you working towards them?
- How do your marketing activities relate to your corporate objectives?
- What are your targets or objectives?
- Are they specific, tangible and measurable?
- What are your timeframes, deadlines or milestones?
- How are you measuring progress, performance and ROI?
To reach your goals, your marketing activities need to align with your business, brand, message, and objectives. That’s only possible with the right strategy in place to support your aims.
How can QBD help?
With an ever-changing digital landscape, it’s crucial for your brand to stay on top of the latest trends to appeal to your audience and achieve the best results.
So, it pays to regularly give your digital marketing a health check to ensure your business stays fighting fit and ready to adapt to the challenges ahead.
If you’re not sure where to start, QBD can help.
As your partner in digital growth, our approach is simple. We listen. We create. You grow.
Whether you’re looking to sell more, generate more leads, reach more people or raise awareness of your brand, the right digital partner in your corner can help you reach more, attract more and achieve more.
From websites and SEO to strategic marketing, lead generation, branding & design and creative content, we’ve assembled an in-house team of creative and digital experts who love what they do and are passionate about solving our clients’ marketing challenges.
Give us a call for a free consultation to see how we can help your business grow.