Why I Joined Surefire Local

Over my 20 years in digital marketing, I’ve seen the industry evolve in ways that no one could have predicted. Search, social and mobile continue to reshape the digital landscape. Now a new wave of change has prompted me to take pause and rethink the strategies that best serve brands.

Working with executives and marketers of multi-unit organizations (franchises, dealer networks, manufacturers) for many years, I started recognizing new patterns impeding the growth and scalability of their businesses. I realized most executives have accounting systems that show the financial health of the business and CRM systems for sales metrics. But they needed similar tools to monitor and assess their digital marketing efforts. As it is, they have no clear visibility into leads, attribution, and ultimately ROI. And the challenge deepens when you add the need to see this from a national to local perspective.

Executives have always faced a challenge when assessing the value of their marketing efforts at the local level. Which spends will create the biggest impact? Why are some efforts maximizing ROI while other efforts fall short?

Inevitably, challenge invites innovation, and I found a company that has taken up the need for a single solution with intelligent, metrics-based reporting and management. That company is Surefire Local, and it’s setting a new standard for how digital marketers manage their most important assets – their consumer-facing marketing and lead generation tools.

You may ask, “Why has the need for these new tools become so vitally important? What has changed in digital marketing?”

Here are 7 trends that are dramatically changing the digital landscape:

1.  The Marketing Mix is Changing

Tectonic size shifts are in motion in digital marketing forcing brands to be more nimble. Which channels are you using most effectively? How do you allocate your marketing budget across search, paid, directories, social, voice? Have you analyzed whether each of these channels is carrying its weight? Where do you get the most ROI? Your marketing mix will be called into question in the next year and you will need to be ready to change.

2.   Natural Voice Search is Here

Just as the focus moved from desktop to mobile, voice search will evolve to become the third wave of the Internet. The prominence of Natural Voice Queries will grow exponentially. Is your brand prepared to own this new name space? Is your team prepared to connect directly with consumers through spontaneous and interactive voice experiences?

3. Websites Are Endangered

Your website(s) will become less important as other channels mature and more data is consumed by the knowledge graph and social media. Your website(s) will still be a part of the mix, but structured data and search interactions will make it less necessary to visit your website as consumers increasingly interface with your brand in other ways.

4. Just Surviving Is Not An Option

To compete in search you’ll need to dominate, with multiple surfaced results (multiple ‘at bats’) and structured data that’s ‘snackable’. Mere survival is not going to be an option. A proper marketing mix, maximizing your best channels, will be imperative.

5. Analytics Will Go Beyond Vanity Metrics

As cloud marketing becomes more prevalent, executives with access to deeper analytics will be able to see accurate attribution and ROI. As you go beyond just vanity metrics, you’ll be able to compare and contrast against your vertical, other like companies and competitors. These enhanced analytics will allow you to benchmark where your marketing is working best. They will also allow you to predict which strategies will deliver the best results in the future.

6.  Unstructured Data Will Give Way to Structured Data

Unstructured data is dead. Your website is a perfect example, as Google’s adoption of mark up (schema) is proof that crawling the web and parsing data doesn’t work. If you’re not focused on generating structured data, then as your brand is consumed by search engines and surfaced in the knowledge graph, directories, and social media, your brand will be left behind.

7. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI and ML) Are Here

If you’re not working with partners who are leveraging AI, then you’re not working with the right partners. We are all at risk being overwhelmed by mountains of raw data, too vast for even the best marketers to extract actionable insights. Successful companies will engage the power of AI to spotlight their best tactics and engage the right marketing strategies.

We all know digital marketing is an ever evolving landscape, but changes happening today make it more critical than ever to choose the right partners, focused on the right things. It’s time your marketing worked as hard as you do.

All the best,

Jeremy