How to Ensure a ROI on Your Digital Strategy

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1 How to Ensure a ROI on Your Digital Strategy There are many misconceptions about digital and its return on investment. Many business owners worry that the money they invest in digital will be lost, but this isn t typically the case - so how can you ensure a ROI on digital?

2 02 About Statement Statement is an award-winning digital agency based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. We are experts in digital marketing, working across a variety of industries - from retail and ecommerce to education and professional services. We are a commercially-focused team specialising in retail and ecommerce businesses; finding creative ways to achieve our client s goals and working in partnership with our clients for long term success. If you want to learn more about how we can help your business grow in an everchanging digital world, visit our website at statementagency.com or get in touch by calling us on

3 03 Your ecommerce Business When it comes to implementing a new digital strategy, thorough planning is of the utmost importance. It can be easy to get carried away with ideas about what you can do, and just dive in head-first with no real direction, but doing so will only cause you to see a loss on your investment. Revisit Your Brand Before developing any marketing strategy or planning, be sure to revisit your brand and determine exactly what you want to communicate to your audience, and who that audience will be. Competitor Research During the planning stage (as well as on an ongoing basis), it can also be beneficial to take a look at what your competitors are doing. Take note of what seems to be working for them, and what you maybe don t like about their strategies, and learn from both. Planning Calendar Having a calendar of key dates in your industry, as well as things that people are thinking about at different points in the year, can also prove useful when writing content as this will help keep your content relevant and ensure you don t miss any important events that you really should be talking about. Identify Your Audience If you notice that your content seems to lack direction, or that you re sometimes unsure of what you need to be writing about and how to promote your business, you may need to revisit who your audience is. Having a target audience in mind is vital, but brands often forget to create a group of brand cameos. By doing this, you can be clear who the different groups within your audience are, what they value and what they re interested in. You will be able to cater different posts to different people, and really hone in on what matters to them, which will greatly increase your chances of connecting with your audience and converting them into customers - subsequently increasing your sales.

4 04 Be Active in the Right Places As well as knowing who your audience is, it s crucial that you know which social platforms they gravitate to. Your social activity should be consistent and include all the right kinds of content, but if you re not using the same platforms as your customers, you won t be getting back what you put in. Facebook and Twitter, as two of the most commonly used social media platforms, are often a safe choice for businesses; however, if you work in a B2B company, then using Facebook might not see the ROI that you re aiming for, whereas LinkedIn may work wonders. Likewise, if your business is mostly visual (e.g. if you re a photographer, interior designer, or fashion retailer), then using visual platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest can be highly beneficial for your business, as you can use them to inspire your customers. Making sure that you are actually in the right place for your customers is a simple (yet often overlooked) way to ensure a ROI on your social presence. Analyse the Performance If you do try a new marketing campaign and it doesn t seem to be bringing in conversions, this can always be reviewed before it ends to identify which aspects might not be performing as well as hoped, and how they can be amended to improve the campaign. Furthermore, when beginning a new marketing strategy using digital, it is usually difficult to get any real insight into its performance before the end of at least a three month time period (or possibly six months depending on your industry). This means that you shouldn t be too quick to discard your digital strategy as you could see a much stronger return on investment after a few more months. Attribute Accurately In an integrated digital strategy, one aspect of your marketing might not appear to be increasing conversions - but it might be doing more than you think. Social media, for example, is a platform that a lot of business owners don t believe increases conversions because the results aren t instant and can be difficult to measure;however, it should be taken into consideration that customers may engage with your brand on social, and then convert after clicking through on an . This would mean that, when using the last interaction model, the would be given credit for the conversion, when social media did also contribute to earning the customer s trust.

5 05 The final action being given full credit for influencing a conversion is why the last interaction model is not always the most effective, and the first interaction model (which gives full credit to the first brand touchpoint in the conversion journey) is also often ineffective for the same reason. Time decay (where the touchpoints closest to the time the conversion happens are given the most credit) and position based (the first and final touchpoints both receive 40% of the credit, and the remaining 20% is awarded to the touchpoints in between) models are often seen as more appropriate as all platforms are taken into consideration. Read this helpful overview from Google if you would like to learn more about different attribution models. Hire Experts Another thing to consider when implementing any new marketing efforts is whether the person producing your content and managing your marketing activity is an expert. If the person in charge of your digital strategy has knowledge and experience of digital marketing, then this can really increase the likelihood of having a strong ROI on investing in digital. If there isn t anyone in your internal team with expertise in this field, then your business may benefit from hiring an agency as they will have expert knowledge of digital, and will have an understanding of the metrics you should be measuring (as well as industry averages in these) so will be able to effectively analyse your data. Keep Activity Consistent How consistent your activity on digital is can significantly affect the success of your campaign, and therefore affect your ROI. If you don t post on social on a regular basis, your blog is updated infrequently, or you don t have a clear strategy and calendar for digital marketing then this can paint a negative picture of your brand and can impact conversions. If you are consistent with how much content you post, and how often you are active on digital, then this will keep you front of mind with your customers and help to increase brand awareness and sentiment. To learn more about how to stay front of mind with your customers, take a look at one of our previous blog posts.

6 06 Reporting and Analysis It can be difficult to really determine if you re seeing a return on investment without proper reporting and analysis, and digital offers a range of tools that aren t available to you if you use traditional marketing such as TV ads or flyers. So what tools can you use for monitoring different aspects of your digital marketing? Social Media Many social media platforms have their own reporting and analytical tools for businesses. Facebook tells you: The reach of each post, allowing you to gain insight into how many people viewed it How many photo clicks your posts received How many link clicks your posts gained How many page likes you received as a result of each post Twitter tells you: How many impressions your Tweets had How many profile visits you have received over a set period of time How many followers you have, and how this has changed Your most popular Tweets so you can learn which types of content are most successful with your audience. Website Using a tool such as Google Analytics is an easy way to monitor the success of your website. Google Analytics allows you to track a wide variety of key metrics, including: The number of sessions The number of users How many page views you have received, and the number of pages viewed per session The average session duration Your site s bounce rate The percentage of new sessions Call Tracking If you find that the majority of your business customers and clients call you, it can be difficult to know how they found you, so setting up call tracking on your website is an efficient way to find out if an enquiry or lead came via your website. This will keep a log of the number of calls made so you can find out exactly how many people have found you online, and then made contact offline.

7 07 Content If your company creates content, this can be monitored through the same tool you use to monitor your website. Being able to see how many views each post has received, how many times your ebooks were downloaded, or how many views your videos have, as well as how long visitors have stayed on your pages can be clear indicators of success. It s also useful to know if any of your pages have high bounce rates, as the content of these pages could be improved. If you use a platform such as Campaign Monitor or MailChimp for your marketing campaigns, these provide a range of insights. The information the platform will provide you with can include: Open rates Bounce rates Click through rates The number of unsubscribes Google AdWords If you set up a Google AdWords campaign to advertise your business, this comes with a variety of different reporting tools so you can measure the performance of your ads. They will provide information on metrics such as: New user acquisition User engagement Conversions The effectiveness of the keywords targeted The best time of day to display your ads For more information on AdWords reports, take a look at Google s Adwords reporting support. Ensuring ROI When using digital to market your business, it can be easy to assume it doesn t work and give up too quickly, but ensuring that you take steps to build an effective strategy and review this on a regular basis can help you to reach a wider audience and grow your business. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you use digital to advertise your business and see a strong return on investment, get in touch.