Where to Start with Digital Marketing? Do These 10 Things First

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It’s the one question I hear most often. It has various forms:

Ok, but where should I start?

What are the 2-3 things I should do now?

What’s the first thing we should be thinking about?

It’s often asked at the end of meetings about SEO, content strategy, analytics, web design, or really any topic in digital marketing. 

Regardless of the industry, the audience, or the maturity of the business, our recommendation is often the same…

Start at the end of the lead generation process.

Go to the very end of the process, to the bottom of the funnel, to calls to action and the conversion pages. Fix those first. 

Then go backward, up through the funnel, making improvements to each previous step in the experience of your audience. 

Improvements to these final steps are website improvements, which are durable, permanent upgrades. They make all future traffic more valuable because they affect conversion rates. Consider…

Should you add more water to the bucket? Or fix the leaks first?

No amount of water can fill a bucket with holes in the bottom.

Should you add more cheese? Or build a better mousetrap first?

You can attract a million mice, but if the trap stinks, you’ll catch nothing.

Let’s mix in one more metaphor: lead generation is a chain. Every link must be strong for it to work properly. If there is a weak link at the end of the experience of your audience, every previous effort will be wasted. 

That’s the case for beginning at the end, at the bottom of the funnel: focus on the most valuable audience (current visitors and prospects) in the most valuable moment (on the money pages).

Here’s that same diagram in a sitemap format. It’s a structure for lead generation websites, but you could easily adapt it for ecommerce, non-profits or any other business. 

Next, our detailed recommendations for each step.

1. Improve your contact page

Right now, as you read this, there may be visitors on your contact page. Improving the experience of these visitors, the people who have already expressed their intent to contact you is your first priority.

If this page doesn’t work, nothing else matters. 

Sadly, contact pages often lack the little things that make a difference. Make sure you’ve got the basics (phone, fax, mailing address), and then spruce it up.

• Could the page do more to build credibility?
• It’s never too late in the process to remind visitors that you’re legit. Show a picture of your building, a sales rep, another testimonial, awards, certifications, client logos, etc. Finally, let them know how quickly you’ll respond.
• Could the form be easier or shorter?
• If the visitor thinks they’re asked to give too much info, they may go elsewhere. Don’t ask for more than you need to qualify and respond. Get the rest during sales.
• Does the form work?
• Test it. Look good on laptops and phones? Is there a thank you page? Is it tracking in Analytics? Populating your CRM? Who gets the leads? How do they follow up? 

Every day leads are lost because of broken forms or no prompt response.

Improvements to the page can be measure in the before and after in the Goals > Funnel Visualization report in Google Analytics.

2. Improve your calls to action

The next link in our reverse-order chain is an actual link. They are the calls to action (CTAs) that bring visitors to the contact form. If these don’t get clicked, nothing else matters. 

Here’s a helpful tip for writing CTAs: 

No one clicks anything until they’ve done a split-second cost-benefit calculation and decided that the benefits exceed the cost. 

So you can improve CTA’s CTRs (call to action click-through rates) by making the cost seem smaller or the benefit seem bigger.

Consider how calls to action work with (or against) the psychology of visitors in these examples:

Do this easy thing. 

Do this valuable thing. 

Either way, your service pages should have calls to action that maximize the click-through rates. Don’t know the click-through rates for your CTAs? Just check the navigation summary for that page in Google Analytics. 

RELATED: Scan these 7 specific tips for designing buttons that get clicked

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