In Digital Marketing, Start With What You Have

When I work with clients I usually answer one big question: Is my digital marketing working?

Now let me start off by saying this: if you have to ask if your digital marketing is working, then it's not. If it was working, you wouldn't be asking this. You know in your gut, in your mind you have a sense of what this would look like if it did work. So, if you have to ask: then it's not.

However, identifying what it means for your digital marketing "to be working" is a bit harder.

That said, I find most organizations are surprised when they have most of the puzzle pieces to figure out whether their digital efforts are paying off. Start with what you have:

1. Your website analytics. This is extremely revealing as you'll see how many people come to your site, what they do there, where they click and where they drop off. If you're an e-commerce platform, then you also probably have your conversion rate. Bonus!
2. Your social media analytics. Each social media platform has analytics reporting built into it (though LinkedIn leaves much to be desired), so look there! In your social analytics you'll see terms like reach, followers and engaged audience.
3. You also have customers! Ask your customers and clients how they heard about you, why they're interacting with you, or what channels they're connected to you on.
4. Finally, you have your gut instincts. Is social media easy or hard? Are people coming from digital channels? Are consumers emailing you? You have this instinct rooted in what you've seen happen, and what hasn't happened.

The number one thing I recommend to solve this puzzle: put it all together. Documenting everything in some sort of analytics tracker, and benchmarking it against the rest of the business will give you a clear idea of what's happening, what's not and where there's room for improvement.

My final note on this: keep your data simple, and measure what you really want to measure. You want sales? Track sales from each of your digital channels. You want traffic? Measure traffic. Measure what you're after.

About the Author:

Tim Campbell-Smith is so extroverted he puts the social back in social media. Tim’s love language is local restaurants, and Time Magazine describes him as “someone we’ve literally never heard of.” Having a passionate love affair with Pinterest, Tim’s dogs, Monster and Mini describe him as “the world’s greatest social media consultant” and says “he knows a lot about YouTube, and gives us treats.”

Tim also felt obligated to share he’s consulted for hundreds of businesses worldwide, published books in the areas of marketing and small business and completed training with honours in both Adult Education and Digital Marketing Management. He’s also taught business and marketing at Fanshawe and Conestoga College.