Every New Year people make resolutions to lose weight, save more money, etc. We asked digital marketers for their 2015 digital marketing resolutions. Unlike the plans to be skinny with a fat bank account, digital marketers should look to do more of these things in the coming year.
It’s time to step away from making marketing decisions based solely on opinions. Make decisions based on data with pre-agreed upon metrics, not gut instinct.
A great way to do this is to schedule regular web page and tagging audits. This will find old pages to 301 for a better website experience and search results. They’ll be less clutter in analytics. Life will be easier.
Clients often don’t understand how SEO has evolved to encompass so much more than just keyword rankings. In many ways, SEO has become a touch point between PR, UX and often has a commanding role in a brand’s overall content marketing strategy. Communicating this more effectively in 2015 will be important for enriching the relationship SEOs can foster with their clients and improve the impact they have.
Marketers may be missing out on extra conversions because they fail to consider (and optimize) their checkout process. Many sales are lost simply due to poor checkout and shopping cart experiences. Make sure you don’t have a leaky bucket and lose the customers who have already agreed to buy your product.
Content has always been important to online brands and the recent popularity of content marketing has lead many to simply create without thinking about the value to customers. Does anyone really want another article in their newsfeed about the “X things” only people in “subgroup Y” will understand? Let’s strive to build content that’s unique, valuable and easy for the user to digest.
In 2015 mobile traffic will officially usurp desktop and not just for search. If Mobile isn’t at the forefront when thinking about your marketing efforts for 2015 – it probably should be. Look for opportunities within paid mobile marketing and always consider mobile experience when developing web content.
Dashboards and simplified KPI’s for firms that use balanced scorecards will help users make business decisions. Get rid of the noise and information that doesn’t help leaders make decisions. Try Google Tag Manager or another tag management solution that will reduce time demands on IT and speed up implementation.
Online research plays a huge role in consumer decisions and a key role in how well you rank within key local search engines. Brands need to take serious stock of what is being said about their brand online, both in social media and important review sites like Yelp. Learn how to respond with negative reviews because all it takes is one review of a horrible experience to seriously damage a brand and business.
Just like traditional resolutions of losing weight and spending less digital marketers will need to work at some or all of these areas in the coming year. Be one of the elite who executes on these goals and you’ll be skinny with a fat bank account for 2015 and beyond!