6 Online Marketing Resolutions to Make and Keep in 2009
For many people, today is the first day back to a regular work schedule since the winter holidays. And early January is usually a time for goal-setting and idealistic resolutions, so while you’re in that frame of mind, may I make a few suggestions?
Resolve to differentiate.
If you don’t know what makes your business stand out from your competitors, you can’t possibly optimize. Take the time to think about what your customers want from you, and what kind of customers you want. All effective internet marketing starts here. Heck, all effective marketing – online or offline – starts here. Make this the year you really nail this down.
Resolve to invest in measurement.
If your business is online and you don’t have a robust analytics package, you’re handicapping yourself. Running a business is hard enough (especially in this economy) without denying yourself insights that are readily available to your competition.
At a minimum, set up Google Analytics, but when you’re ready to model your business more carefully for better insights, look to a more sophisticated package like Omniture.
Resolve to optimize.
Once you know your positioning and you’ve identified some measurable areas of improvement, start testing. Just be sure to state your hypothesis before you set up a test. It’s too easy to get bogged down in analyzing data if you don’t know what you were actually testing. But don’t let it slow you down too much: it’s also easy to put off testing because it seems too hard or too unfamiliar. Just find something you think could be better, and test it.
Resolve to be consistent about improving.
It’s not enough to implement analytics; you have to develop discipline about investigating the data and putting it to use. It’s not enough to test once; to gain a true advantage you have to refine and re-test, improving your intelligence and honing your skills the whole way.
Resolve to invest freely in what works.
Once you know you’re making back what you’re paying for advertising and overhead, why hold back on budget? Find the services that pay for themselves, and keep investing without arbitrary constraints.
Resolve to ask for help if you need it.
If all this looks daunting, yet you know you need to be doing something about this, talk to us. We’ll work with you at your level and at your pace to make sure you’re on the right track for success in 2009 and beyond.
Filed under: E-Commerce, Marketing Techniques, Web Analytics