We love this time of year - it's time for new goals and planning sessions to focus on renewed growth!
As we wind down the year, it’s time to plan for the upcoming year! Looking ahead into 2017, planning for the new year means looking into what key projects will need to be completed, and, if you’re in marketing, sales, or website management, it’s time to look into your online needs. To develop new goals and plans, you'll need to be thinking of the marketing checklist items that will need to be done.
As we’re sure you know, the internet doesn’t stand still. It advances quickly, trends fading in and out. As it continues to march on, it’s important to take a step back and learn about new tools and features that are available to you. By keeping up, you’re giving yourself a competitive edge and ensuring you’re not falling behind into the internet dark ages. Your online presence needs to be a good representation of who you are today.
If you’re ready to get started, we’ve compiled a checklist of items to look into, which will help you think through goals and action items for 2017, keeping your business's online presence fresh.
Start with your website
You’ve probably heard the phrase, don’t build your house on borrowed ground. If your online presence is limited to Facebook or social media, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You need your own online space that is your owned by you! This comes in the form of a website. If you already have a website, congrats! You officially own your own piece of “online real estate.” If not, you’ll want to get one.
A good website will have a number of things. First and foremost, it has to be mobile-friendly. More people use their mobile devices than desktop, so it’s very important to make sure no matter what device your visitors may be using, they can easily use your site. A mobile-friendly website will “snap down” in size, fitting many different screen sizes and ensuring the website is usable whether on a desktop or an iPhone. This is called a responsive website and responsive websites are required by Google, Yahoo, and Bing in their new Search Engine requirements. Why? Because it offers the best user experience.
Once you ensure your site is user-friendly, then you need to ensure they can find you! Then means you need to make sure your website is friendly to search engines. This includes making sure your whole website is search engine optimized, or that it speaks the same language as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
As your own online real estate, your website is your home base. Through your website, you can build followers and grow an email base. The number one precursor to this is creating evolving, quality content. Without fresh content, people won’t have a reason to want to follow you. Aim for new content once a week. Content can be in the form of written blogs, informative videos, beautiful images, and more.
Quality content will be resource rich and can include collaboration with others. If you can’t do it yourself, you can contract it out. Regardless of who is writing or creating content, plan all content out on a monthly basis with a content calendar. Once you have blogs or other kinds of content, share it out to your social media. Use creative images, videos, and create white-papers. Great content is content your audience will find valuable.
Regardless of where your website is or will be, it’s important to note that you’ll never be officially done. Growth occurs in stages, and you should always be evolving. Using Google Analytics, you can see where your website stands, which pages are popular or not being seen and give you some insight into how you could improve.
Audit your social media and strategize
The first thing you’ll want to do is to review your platforms and see what is working and what isn’t working. If a certain platform isn’t working for you, then consider dropping it or strategize ways to improve your engagement. Focus on what’s working for you! Try other types of posts, like text, image-based, videos and live stream, real-time posts, etc. What is getting seen, liked, and shared?
Vary posting times. If you mainly post in the morning, try scheduling some at night. People often wind down at night with social media. Does changing posting times increase your engagement? Take advantage of social media insights, which can give you what you need to know to improve your game.
Once you know what is working for your business, you need to come up with an overall strategy. This includes reviewing and setting goals for the new year. What is your goal for your social media platforms and what will get you there?
One of the best ways to get you to your goals is to focus on sharing quality content on a consistent basis. Once you’re creating content for your website, you can begin to share it on all your platforms. You can also find other sources of content and share that as well.
Just remember, social media needs to be fun! But posts need to be educational too. Mix the two things and give your audience some edutainment!
Ensure you have an Ad Budget. Learn more about that here.
Begin to incorporate a lead capture funnel
The most important thing about lead capture is incorporating a strategic approach. You’ll want to start the funnel with blogs or something similar - something free and readily available on your website or social media. Then your funnel should move into bigger and better pieces of content. These pieces of content should be valuable! People need to be willing to give up something in trade of your content. In this case, you will know who is interested in your campaign and service.
The first things you’ll want to trade them for is an email. This builds your email list and ensures they stay in your funnel. You can send them periodic emails that can deepen your dive. You’ll begin to offer them more valuable content for another piece of information - a phone number, business information, or whatever you need to build your business.
All of this is driven towards building a relationship. You’re giving them something of value, and they will appreciate that.
As a part of your lead capture, you’ll need some form of attention grabbing element on your website or interesting call-to-action on your social media. As far as website go, sidebars were once incredibly popular. However, this should not be your only means of call-to-action. Pop-ups are a good way of grabbing attention, but pay attention to current trends on this. Google may be changing the rules, so ensure you are aware of specific rules. The number one thing you should know is that you should never totally block content.
Call-to-actions have to be all about user experience. Think like your customer. What do they want to see? With that in mind, make it easy for them.
Top 3 things to focus on in 2017
With all of that said, there are three things we think you should focus on in the new year new:
- Creating a better user experience for your audience online.
- Collaboration with others in creating valuable content.
- Strategy is the name of the game to reach your goals. Plan a path to get to your goals.
Once you have reviewed your online presence, audited your social media, and set up some form of lead capture, focus on these things to ensure you continue to grow. Always think about your visitor's experience, begin to collaborate with others, and continue to come up with new strategies for your growth.
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