The theme of the month of June here at PCG is “evaluate,” and we’ve been curating content all month long to help you do just that: evaluate, and improve, your digital marketing strategy. While it can be overwhelming to take a look at each of your digital investments and come up with a plan of attack, it doesn’t have to be as challenging as you may think.

Making small adjustments to your campaigns could impact your results in a big way. That’s why I rounded up our team of experts to give you one simple tip for evaluating your Social Media Advertising, SEO, Content, SEM, and Email Marketing strategies that you can implement today!

Denise’s Social Media Advertising Tip

“Are you looking deeply at the text you are using as your headlines on your social media ads? Think about it. What makes you click on an ad? What makes you stop scrolling through your news feed? The text in the headline is just as important as the graphic or video that you’re displaying along with it.

Take some time today to go through and evaluate the text in the headlines of your ads and ask yourself, “would I click on this?” If you take this extra time, you won’t be sorry, because even by making slight changes to your headlines you could potentially see an increase in reach, frequency, and/or clicks to your website!”

Jamie’s SEO Tip

“Take the time to periodically evaluate the keywords in your SEO strategy. When thinking about the keywords you hope to rank for, ask yourself, are my goals too broad? If you are a local business, there is no reason to rank for national terms. Conversely, are they too narrow? Your website is going to rank just fine for your business name, don’t pour all of your SEO efforts into branding. Does my set of keywords match how customer are actually searching for my products and services? There are plenty of free online tools to help you determine what search phrases and keywords should matter most to you based on search volume and competitiveness. These tools can also be used to discover new keyword ideas, which is helpful when you’re ready to expand your SEO strategy.” 

Laura’s Content Tip

“Look at your website’s content through the eyes of a potential customer who has never heard of your business. Start with a key page like your homepage or “about us” page. If someone were to ask you to describe your business, would your answer align with the content that’s there? Do you highlight what makes your business different from your competitors, whether it’s being family owned and operated since 1964; the many awards you have won; the special perks you offer, like lifetime oil changes or an extended warranty; your years of commitment to the local food bank; or the local areas that you serve. Don’t assume customers already know who you are or why they should choose you over the competition. You need to actually communicate it where it matters.”

Kristin’s SEM Tip

“If you’re looking to evaluate the efficiency of your SEM strategy, you cannot achieve this by monitoring a single metric, because this won’t give you the full picture.

Instead of only focusing on one aspect, like whether or not the number of your website visits increased, you need to consider how these visits improved your business. For example, how many of these visits turned into leads? You can learn this information by properly setting up conversion tracking. Examples of conversion tracking can be seen by way of lead form submissions, phone calls, and chat/text interactions. Properly evaluating how and what you are tracking should be an important part of your overall SEM strategy.”

Gina’s Email Marketing Tip

“Are you noticing your bounce rate increasing and open rate decreasing on your marketing emails? This might mean that your database is becoming out-of-date. This could be caused by a number of different reasons, such as: prospects have opted out or unsubscribed from your lists, prospects never confirmed opt-in status in the first place, prospects are no longer mailable to the address on file, or prospects have become disengaged with your emails.

To help clean up your data, try performing a permission pass. A permission pass is a one-time email you send to prospects on an out-of-date list, asking them if they would still like to receive emails from you. From this, you will be able to segment that list into three: highly engaged prospects, prospects who would not like to receive your emails any longer, and prospects who are no longer mailable. From there you can come up with a strategy on how to handle each of those lists.”

I hope these tips helped you identify one, or more, areas that you can work on to start seeing better results from your marketing!

Want more of a deep-dive into your individual strategy? Ask about a Digital Audit! We’ll provide a 50+ page PDF compiled by our team of experts showcasing specific examples, analysis, and suggestions—along with 30- and 90- day action plans so that you can immediately start implementing changes to drive better results!