Four Little-Known Steps to Improving Your Digital Marketing

Without increasing costs, effective execution can dramatically improve and deliver greater results from all marketing elements.

Some easily made changes can produce more results and a better use of your digital marketing efforts.

In many organizations, one person may have responsibility for email marketing, another for events*, another for social media and yet another for website content. When any member of this group ‘’does their own thing” marketing investments deliver less than optimum results.

Even when “independent” efforts do not conflict with, or undermine the work of others, the lack of coordination means you settle for less impact than possible. The secret to getting optimum marketing impact from your people, money and time is simple: make certain your organization includes coordinated execution of all elements. Good results can be quickly shown and become the norm within a few campaigns.

Here’s how to start to improve your digital marketing:

1. Identify the specific people on your team with responsibility for each element of your digital marketing. Get everyone to attend one meeting. The meeting can be face-to-face or virtual, just be sure to get everyone there.
2. At the meeting, have each person tell the group of their responsibility and role. Each must explain their role in a manner all others can clearly understand. Each then highlights all the marketing campaigns and activities used or undertaken during the last year. Finally, they report and comment on both the successes and failures.
3. As a group, discuss the purpose and contribution of each member and their role.  Also discuss what worked well and what failed. This lets everyone to see they have a role on one team. It allows them to understand what that means. Each team member will start to see collaboration opportunities with other members. For example, the event-focused marketer can readily see the value in cooperating with others. Early messaging about events can appear on the website, be included in email newsletters, and talked about in social media. Each other player can also see how they can help boost or ensure the success of the event.
4. Discuss and document how each player can better interact and help one another. Let all members suggest how that can best happen. Don’t avoid discussing conflicts or problems. Some limited complaining by a team member can open eyes to issues others have avoided. Deal with them. Documenting the discussion provides a straightforward way of ensuring that real action begins to happen. Share each draft among all members. A simple table can be used to outline how each marketing element relates to the others. See the simple “email marketing” example at the end of this post. If helpful, use it as a sample to begin.

Start slow

In the email marketing example previously mentioned, the person responsible might just start by including the events messaging into the email communications. Once the first integration happens, ask team members to coordinate their efforts with a second other marketing element. Ask each to pick the alternative marketing element that could make them most effective. Get the players responsible for both the elements to discuss, cooperate and coordinate.

Such an approach will need to be continually run through the process. It will need to be finely tuned and continually evolve. To make your digital marketing work best – use coordinated execution. Maximum impact means bringing all existing marking elements and team members together. Actively coordinating and collaborating all existing elements produces maximum marketing returns without increasing costs.

Example of improving digital marketing

ABC company’s marketing elements: email marketing, events, website, social media.

Name of one marketing element:
Email marketing

How can email marketing help the events team?
By adding “highlights from” and “coming soon” sections to the email communications where appropriate (based on segmentation of messages)

How can email marketing help the web content team?
By sharing the questions (and answers provided back to the customers) that constantly come in as a result of the mailings to the opted-in list. Suggest they be added to the company’s FAQ page on the website.

How can email marketing  help the social media team?
By adding social sharing links to the email newsletter and by asking the email reader to join us on the social networks we’re on.

To make it happen well, remember, go slow. Try this idea and let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

*events can be online such as webinars, seminars, live Q&A sessions with an industry expert, streaming of an “in-person” conference or workshop etc.

[This post was originally published on the Smartt Canada blog.]