Evolution of Digital has been a see and ad, go to store and buy in a traditional way.
The new maze has many touch points and the journey does not end even when you buy an item, so its important for brands to connect with the buyers more often than not. Consumer experience is the key for multiple sales and recurring buying behavior. One negative influence can mean business lost at a larger scale.
A journey to Digital Nirvana:
- Acquisition process (to acquire)
- Engagement (with content and experience)
- Conversion (for ecomm company it may be in $, for others donations, downloads etc.)
- Evangelism (Think about brand perception)
Am I delivering my salary’s worth?
Hard to answer such question without sufficient data.
The 6 Commandments
1. SEO – The often Biggest “Lost Opportunity”
Not really tapping in the power of SEO is common with a lot of companies worldwide. You can only eat, what you are served is the closest synergy for SEO. Technology requires the search marketer to stick to ethical SEO (white hat) and its the foolproof way of the future updates from search engines (including Google).
Content is king. Fresh, relevant, unique and natural flow
Invest in top-notch SEO talent – internal or agency or consultant.
Cavalry (on page) and Infantry (offpage) must to winning online battles.
2. Web Analytics
Do you know your customers well?
It provides data points of visitor footprint leading to enhanced customer experience and improved conversion. Enabled framework helps to cut the GIGO (Garbage in Garbage Out) stage.
Extensive segmentation will help in draw meaningful insights and realize the most valuable segment. Analyst applies his art with the web analytics tools for available data.
3. Open minded Testing Culture
From survive to thrive.
You can optimize with incremental changes based on wsdom, intuition and expert advice. To embrace/shun the variations let the concept of A/B testing to evolve. and Then the MVT (Multi Variate Testing) comes into picture. Big Bang (take the highest bounce rate page and make radical change) v/s Ting Bang approach. Consider the consumer behavior as “Testers”. A small change can be worth millions if tested and investigated properly. The avg conv rate for multichannel retailers is 2.9 % while amazon has 17.2 % achieved with hundreds of tests daily on the website.
4. Paid Campaigns
Venues – PPC, Display (CPM), Email / Affiliate (CPA)
Investment in paid search can also help in organic growth is a proven fact.
Good – Data analysis and direct corrrelations ( PPC to Organic). Real time campaign reporting can help lowering the losses.
The Bad – Overbidding
The Ugly – Display advertising death wish
5. The Social Ecosystem
You don’t know what you Dont know, understanding the social ecosystem is extremely important. Think above fans, likes and comments, look for applause rate, amplification rates for a realistic view of your social conversion rate. Social has a qualitative significance on brand visibility and sentiments. Sentiment is viral make sure you are on the positive side of it.
6. Competitive Intelligence
Beg, Borrow or Steal > Your choice.
There are lot of data sources to get competitive intelligence, the point is what will you do with it? The start place is search with backlinks, keywords ad content. Social strategy – what competitors are doing? Investing in people to purely look at your competition and provide you insights, then a team of experts can provide actionable recommendations.
The 6 commandments fall in the growth story of acquisition, engagement, conversion and evangelism and need to do them ALL.
