Building a Digital Marketing Playbook

It’s the time of year when goal setting is top of mind for most people.  Unfortunately, it’s more common than not for people to make resolutions and quickly disregard them or revert back to bad habits.  Last year we posted about the importance of setting a plan. Obviously a goal needs a plan to achieve it.  But as Mike Tyson famously put it, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” It’s not enough to just have a plan, it needs to be broken down into actionable behaviors.

One common strategy is to build a content calendar and use that as a plan.  There are three problems with using a calendar as a plan:

The best way to set behaviors designed to meet your goals is to build a playbook.  Just like a football playbook, these are the predesigned activities that you are going to run to meet a set goal.  That playbook will be derived from your marketing plans which should be set from your goals.

Here’s an example:

A training firm wants to generate 20% more leads to meet a set revenue goal from marketing.  The 20% increase would be determined from past metrics on closing/conversion percentage on leads and average revenue per deal.

The firm has established that they want 5% of the additional leads to come from social media.  Using the past conversion ratio of social media user to lead, they find that they need to pull 10% more activity from the social accounts.

To meet that 10% increase, the playbook for that particular channel includes two extra posts a week for CTA’s and a monthly video post that has historically converted at a higher percentage. 

This example shows how working backwards from the goal leads to a plan, like which channels will be in your digital marketing matrix.  Then the plan needs to be broken down into a playbook to assign specific behaviors to meet stated goals.  Of course, a full playbook would include behaviors for every channel that would add up to the stated goal.

It’s important to verify most of your playbook with historical data to avoid assigning unrealistic results to intended behaviors.  As you move into the year, a playbook is easier to review than a plan or calendar because it can be benchmarked against expected results.  If you find that the playbook is not generating the expected results or priorities change through the year, it’s easier to adjust the specific activities to meet those new realities.

A digital marketing plan is good but runs a high risk of becoming irrelevant as the year goes on.  Setting a playbook will give you a set list of activities to execute on the plan.  It will also provide flexibility when changes and problems inevitably impact the pre-set strategies.

Rushing Communications Leading Up to the Holidays

There is typically a rush leading up to Christmas to checkoff all the last work related tasks before taking a holiday break.  Completing the tasks is admirable but when those tasks are communications, it’s worth reviewing your motivations. 

It’s no secret that mid to late December is not a great time for B-to-B communications, so rushing to get them out this time of year is often counter-productive. After all, if a fair amount of your audience won’t receive the communication, what’s the point in the first place?

Carefully review any communications going out toward the end of December.  Does it make sense to send them now or are you just checking off a box to say it’s done? Rather than rushing through the task list, adjust any suitable communications into early January after the holidays where it’s likely to convert better.

Intermixing Email Segmentation and Drip Marketing

We had several questions to our last post making inquiries along the lines of, “What’s an example of intermixing email segmentation and drip marketing?” This typically happens as trainers, consultants, and professional coaches strive to evolve their marketing into more sophisticated communications.  Keeping the two separate will simplify processes and help ensure that they are technically simple enough to operate properly.

Here’s an example of the processes remaining separated:

An email message is sent to a segment, a list of sales managers that are not clients. The email offers a Managing Your Team Through Change whitepaper that is customized for sales managers. This whole process falls under list segmentation.

The whitepaper landing page has three follow up emails after someone completes the form.  The first email delivers the whitepaper document, the second email follows up with an offer to buy a book that relates to the whitepaper, and the third email offers the submitter a chance to attend a sales leadership class as a guest.  This entire process would be drip marketing because it triggers for anyone that completes the form, whether they arrived there from the email or not.

 The email pointing to the landing page does not actually intermix.  It’s more of a hand off with clear definitions on what segmentation is doing and what drip is doing.

This process can also work in reverse.  A person that takes an action that triggers a drip marketing sequence could then be added into a particular email segment for future communications.

Here’s an example of problems arising when the two processes start overlapping:

A marketer wants to run this same campaign but wants to change the second or third email in the drip campaign based on whether a recipient had already bought the book or attended a training session as a guest.  This level of complexity would require a database tracking past visitor interactions. That database would need to be queried by the drip campaign and also reference the email segments to match the recipients to their data. There’s a complex process going back and forth between the two campaigns to deliver accurate customization.

It gets more complex when we consider people that are outside the segment.  If we restrict the offer only to those on the email list to ensure our customizations are accurate, then we limit the audience for the offer.  If we open it up to a wider audience then we are forced to assign people to a customized process that may or may not be suitable for them.

Only the most sophisticated marketing platforms will even offer such fine tuning and even in those cases it’s worth questioning whether it will improve effectiveness enough to warrant that level of sophistication.  Even if such detailed customization is suitable, it’s often better to segment the list into categories before sending the initial email and linking to a custom landing page that will deliver the appropriate drip campaign rather than having them cross reference one another.

Many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches over complicate segmentation and drip campaigns. This wastes a lot of time and energy before realizing that level of complexity is cumbersome and not necessarily more effective.

Rather than wasting resources trying to execute a needlessly complex process, clearly map out how the two processes will work with a hand off from one to another.

Image courtesy of  pakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Digital Marketing Width is Expanding, but is Skill Set Breadth?

Being a jack of all trades can be advantageous especially in a digital marketing role for a small or medium sized company.  But that also means that the versatile digital marketer is master of none, so it’s important to analyze suitability and skill-sets before undertaking a digital marketing activity outside typical competencies.

A past client recently asked me for input on a replacement hire for a departed marketing coordinator.  They liked their previous marketing coordinator but had identified a few areas where they would prefer greater technical competency.  I was shocked to see an extensive skill set list.  It included basic skills like Microsoft Office but then went into a laundry list of programs and platforms like Photoshop, Premiere, WordPress (or related CMS), Google AdWords, Google Analytics, InDesign, Acrobat Forms, SharePoint (Workflows), UX Design, Web development (JavaScript and PHP), eight social media platforms, and content creator (writer).  The programs weren’t just listed, they had requirements for years of experience for all of them.

In short, they wanted their marketing coordinator to be a seasoned graphic designer, web developer, video editor, photo editor, advertiser, desktop publisher, data analyst, social media marketer, application/workflow developer, and writer.

Best of all, they had a candidate that seemed to meet all the needs and was in the ballpark of their compensation package.  In the interview they had asked the candidate to rank his skill level on a scale of 0 – 10 with each program/skill set.  The candidate had placed an 8, 9, or 10 next to each line item.  In all honesty, I wouldn’t feel comfortable placing a rating that high for myself for all of those items across the board, so I was skeptical that a perfect candidate just so happened to be available for hire.  Furthermore, the candidate’s online presence didn’t seem to reflect the advanced proficiencies that his resume stated.

My suggestion was to have the candidate do a small test project that utilized as many of the skills as possible without being an extensive time commitment.  The candidate agreed and, unsurprisingly, the result of the project didn’t rate any higher than a 4 on any of our rating scales. Some of the elements showed a skill level of 1 or 2.

The surprising take away for me was not that a job candidate was exaggerating their abilities but that all of the skill sets listed could be considered digital marketing in some form or fashion.   The width of digital marketing seems to keep expanding and the skills to execute it professionally grow with it.  However, it’s almost impossible for a single individual to have sufficient breadth in all of these disciplines to consistently execute a professional product.

As the width of digital marketing grows it’s important that digital marketers have a realistic view of what they can and cannot execute.  Sometimes a basic skill level is sufficient but some initiatives require a polished professional campaign and “basic” just doesn’t cut the mustard. Partnering with a colleague or external provider with true expertise is sometimes necessary.  When hiring an employee or going through day-to-day marketing initiatives, analyze whether the resulting campaigns are sufficient.  It’s not uncommon to find a deficiency.  Rather than settling for a sub-par result, find a partner with suitable skill set breadth to create the professional product you are looking to achieve.

Calls to Action in an On Demand World

“Immediately” has become the expected time frame for online inquiries and requests.  Calls to action are no exception.  If a user submits their payment and/or personal information then they expect to promptly receive what was offered.  And, for the most part, digital marketers and the tools they use have evolved to meet this timeline.  Auto responders and customized fulfillment pages are now commonly at the ready to fulfill online requests.  So does that mean that calls to action now HAVE to be available immediately?

To some extent the answer is yes.  But that doesn’t mean that CTA’s that can’t be delivered immediately have to be abandoned.

For example, free physical events or briefings used to be a mainstay offer for many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches.  These events gave a sample of training so that prospects can get a taste of what training is like. However, the inconvenience of actually going to an event and needing to wait for the content is a legitimate detriment to some users and has made filling a room more difficult than it was in the past.

So in person events are no longer an effective call to action?  Not necessarily, but the offer likely needs to be modified.

One obvious option is to deliver a webinar rather than an in-person event.  While the prospect still needs to wait to get the content, they can do so from the convenience of their home or office. If the session is recorded, it has the added benefit of being an on demand offer after the webinar takes place.

For many trainers, however, a webinar is often a pale imitation of delivering their content in person. So another option would be to expand what’s included in the event.  If prospects need to physically come to a location and wait for the content, make sure the event is worth the inconvenience.  Offer robust topics so that prospects feel more like clients than just getting a sample. In many cases, this becomes a fee based event but the added value can be emphasized in the marketing materials.

If smaller in-person events are still an effective offer to your marketing campaign, there’s no reason to stop doing them just to offer more immediacy.  However, you might offer some immediacy in how the event is delivered.  An immediate registration confirmation is a given.  But how about reminders?  Use the slower delivery time to your advantage by offering reminders with content associated to the event so that anticipation builds rather than the added steps feeling like a chore.

There’s no doubt that online users default to expecting on demand delivery.  While catering to that expectation is necessary for many CTA’s, it’s simply not possible in all cases.  For CTA’s that can’t be delivered immediately, make sure to have some intermediate steps to bridge the gap from opt in to delivery.

Be Suspicious of Your CMS’s Publishing

Are you taking your Content Management System’s word for it that content has been published?  Sooner or later it’s likely you’ll find that you’ve been lied to.  It’s always a good idea to check the actual page to ensure that the CMS has actually pushed the content, rather than relying on the CMS’s confirmation.

Publishing new or updated content on your website or social pages can often happen in a rush or on the fly.  In those instances, it’s tempting to hit publish and move on to the next task, especially when the CMS has marked the content as live.  Those situations are inevitably when your CMS will lie to you and you’ll have to circle back to correct content that has not published.

This problem can happen on any CMS platform because any platform can fail to move the new content through to the server or service that it’s hosted on. It can often be a delay or time out issue that prevents an update from publishing correctly. Obviously, more robust website CMS platforms run more of a risk of publishing failures because they have more functions that might fail. This risk is even higher on modular CMS templates where pages, segments, components, assets, or widgets all need to be published separately to make a unified whole.

The good news is that there is a simple solution that works on all platforms.  Check the page or post on your live site.  If you find that updates are not appearing, be sure to get the newest version of your page or post by holding down the shift key and refreshing your page (this makes sure you’re not loading an old version from your browser cache). Checking the live site rather than trusting the CMS’s confirmation, verifies the publishing process and the timing of the published content before using it in your digital marketing.

Systematic Digital Marketing Platform Migration

The need to move digital marketing platforms for social media, email, and/or your website is becoming more common as tools evolve and develop.  The change might be necessitated by external factors, like one platform acquiring another. Or it could be internal factors driving  change like finding more appropriate platform pricing or services.  Many trainers, consultants, or professional coaches procrastinate on making these changes for fear that it will be an arduous undertaking. If you focus on the principles of the digital marketing platform rather than the individual tool, it helps to simplify the requirements and make a migration much less daunting.

There are five basic components that can make up a digital marketing platform:

1. Audience

Contact lists can be time consuming for a system to export if they are large but it doesn’t need to be cumbersome for the digital marketer. If you export all your data to a spreadsheet file, it’s typically a simple process to set up matching categories on the new platform and import it so that you have a direct conversion.

2. Communications

Email/Communication templates can be challenging to migrate if you are relying on system generated layouts. However, most platforms offer a large variety of formats so matching up the new platform to something similar as the old platform is typically not hard.  If you happen to use custom layouts then the code can typically be copied over to a new platform and appear exactly the same.

3. Tracking / Analytics

It’s best to download or archive your tracking data from your digital marketing platform because it’s rare to have that migrate. If you archive your analytics as saved charts or in a spreadsheet then you can continue your standard analysis without pause until you have sufficient data on the new platform.

4. Call to Action

System generated calls to action like forms or tracked links often function on a template system. It’s best to analyze which of these calls to action are active so that you can create a duplicate on the new system and relink to that across your marketing channels. If calls to action are old and inactive then it’s a good time to let them expire.

5. Social Media

This is typically a simple setup to set and link up your social media accounts. As long as you have the login information for those accounts readily available, you can quickly integrate social media on the new platform

Of course making a migration will take some time and effort so it’s not something to undertake habitually.  However, if you need to migrate because your current digital marketing platform is no longer available or is no longer meeting your needs, it doesn’t need to be fretted over.  Rather than focusing on all the details that might be different, set a plan for the five elements above.  If you successfully get those five items migrated, you won’t lose any critical component and figuring out the nuances of the new platform becomes a minor task.

Keep a Record of Your Digital Marketing Resources

Digital marketing is often a complicated mix of communication, technology, marketing, and administration in a rapidly shifting landscape. Add changing personnel and a wide variety of tools and it can become chaotic. As digital marketing initiatives evolve and change course, it’s important that the professional(s) driving that initiative can quickly and accurately execute on the new plan. Nothing slows that process down as quickly as being disorganized about who owns a particular resource.

Most trainers, consultants, and professional coaches rely on external providers for some or all of their digital marketing needs. It’s important to have a well-organized list of all those resources and who to contact for each element.

We recently encountered a situation where an SSL certificate needed to be added to a client’s website for a new application. The digital digital marketing campaign was poised for launch but acquiring the SSL certificate proved to be a hold up. Contacting the website host was the natural assumption but it turned out that the host was not the site registrar. No one at the client office seemed to know where the site was registered. After some wild goose chases, the administrator at the client office discovered that the original site creator, who had moved on to a different job, had registered the site. Thankfully we were able to contact the original site creator who hunted down the registrar information so that we could purchase the SSL certificate.

Unfortunately, the delay caused the digital marketing campaign to launch about two weeks later than anticipated. That shortened schedule reduced pre-launch registration lead times and results were not as high as they otherwise could have been.

This was not a disaster but serves well as a cautionary tale on how missing information on even an infrequently used resource can cause a noticeable setback. Had there been an accurate list of digital marketing resources then the registrar records would have been on file which would have eliminated the need to contact the original creator. Even having the original creator listed as the contact for the site could have trimmed down the delay.

It’s important to be organized and up to date with your digital marketing resources, both people and tools. If you don’t currently have an accurate record, it’s best to create one now when there isn’t an urgent need rather than waiting until that need arises and suffering delays because of it.

Digital Marketing Help Through Volun-telling

Digital marketing can be an arduous task for trainers, consultants, and professional coaches that have a small staff. In these cases, the task list often gets assigned as an administrative chore to someone that struggles to keep up with the workload and/or has no interest in the role. Digital marketing serves as the first point of contact to your target market and having an amateurish apathetic approach to it will bleed into the messaging.

It’s important to look for volunteers that are knowledgeable and/or excited to take on digital marketing.  Volun-telling a staff member often results in frustration because the person has not bought in to managing the process. Since they haven’t committed to the role, they often won’t work to become proficient at it. As a result, frustration sets in easily and only the bare minimum is completed to check items off as complete.

Discuss the goals and processes of your digital marketing campaign to gauge a staff member’s aptitude and willingness to fulfill the role.  It’s important to get their feedback and input so that they can engage in the process rather than having it assigned as a list of to dos.

If you find that they aren’t well-suited or uninterested, then it’s advisable to inquire with another staff member, scale back the digital marketing scope, personally handle some of the responsibilities, or contract the work out.

Image Courtesy of wiki.commons

Making a Good Digital First Impression

Our last post prompted an obvious question from a few readers, “So what makes a good digital first impression?” It’s a good question as external factors dictate how you can present yourself. From a technical perspective there are three areas that drive most previews.   The page title serves as the primary text, the URL is displayed below that, and the page description drives the short depiction of what’s on the page. Good digital first impressions are a result of properly focusing on these elements and customizing them for maximum impact.

There are a few categories that help make a good digital first impression:

Concise

Just like interpersonal interaction, the clock is ticking on a first impression as soon as someone encounters your digital presence. Space is also at a premium for your first impression so it’s critical get to the point.  The page title on your website or social profile is typically only viewable for about the first 60 characters.  Descriptions cut off around 250 – 300.  So you have to concisely convey why someone should want to engage further.  Search engine company profiles offer limited text as well, so make sure to include a professional image and accurate information.

Legible

It’s not uncommon for Search Engine Optimization tactics to negatively impact your digital first impression.  Many times trainers, consultants, and professional coaches want to load their titles and descriptions full of keywords for their products and services in an attempt to drive profitable traffic to their website or social media accounts.  That makes for a convoluted first impression because the preview content is illegible to people.  It’s difficult to make a positive first impression when your preview is spitting out gibberish designed to appeal to computers.

On Topic

First impressions are often unique and tailored to the situation in which you meet someone.  A good first impression at a formal business event is very different than a good first impression when casually meeting a friend of a friend socially. Your previews have the same opportunity.  Make sure that the preview is fitting for the unique page or profile that the user has found in their search.  The preview should be a direct representation of what the user will find on the page or profile.

Consistency

Consistently building your previews is an extension of being on topic.  Many times businesses will settle on a “homepage description” as the face they want to present to the world.  That description is then used across all pages and profiles. However, many pages like blog posts have a specific focus that has little or nothing to do with a general value proposition statement.  Keeping the general description on these targeted pages makes all the previews appear to be a meaningless mission statement rather than confidently presenting the content. We can’t control what preview someone might encounter and many will find their way to your content on a channel other than the website homepage.  Make sure that you are consistently completing preview content so that your pages can match their desired search.

Making a good digital first impression is more of an exercise in diligence rather than any sophisticated formula.  Pay attention to the titles and descriptions on your pages and profiles because any one of those could be your next digital first impression.

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