Digital marketing isn't about making a one-time splash. Instead you focus on building a structure for creating quality content for lead generation on a regular basis. And it takes time, especially when you may have other marketing activities that require your attention. The good news is, if you set your sights on what you want your marketing to look like in 12 months, you can whittle away at those digital marketing goals until you have that structure in place.
Every organization's goals will be somewhat different, but the general idea is the same: Create valuable content. And the more content you have, the more personalized the experience can become for website visitors.
So here are five scalable goals any organization can focus on in order to add more structure to its digital marketing efforts:
- Find New Content Creators Every Month: Are you the only person who blogs for your company? Is it you and just one other person? Set a goal to add one or more content creators to your team every month. Just remember: Think outside the marketing box: sales, product managers and support team members can be some of the most valuable content contributors. If you can, it's even a good idea to discuss adding content creation to job descriptions, just to make it an organizational change.
- Increase Blog Post Output: Once you start adding new content contributors, you can increase the number of blog posts your company produces. While quality will always trump quantity these days, having lots of quality content is even better. If you're blogging once a week, get to three times per week by the end of 2013. If you're blogging three times a week, try to get to daily publishing.
- Increase Lead Generating Content Offers: With more blog posts available, you can start to compile the best posts or expand them for new lead generating offers. If you only have brochures and other product-centric pieces on your website, give some time to creating two new educational offers like an eBook or a white paper this year. If you’re already creating those top of the funnel offers, then plan to do it quarterly or even monthly.
- Develop New Segmented Contact Lists: The more offers you have on your website, the easier it will be to ask visitors new questions for creating segmented lists. Determine which questions are commonly used by sales to qualify leads and add them to forms required to access the new offers you create. This will allow you to create new segmented lists for a more targeted and personalized web experience.
- Regularly Launch and Adjust Lead Nurturing Programs: As you create new offers and new segmented lists, you can launch targeted lead nurturing programs to keep leads who are not ready to buy engaged. New content can be woven into existing lead nurturing programs where adjustments need to be made. And if you grow your segmented lists, you can develop programs that are more personalized in nature, creating more effective marketing for smaller but more qualified groups.
Once you've set your goal for where you want to be with content creation and lead nurturing by 2014, you can set small monthly goals to keep moving. The key will always be to monitor your progress on a regular basis so that if you see improvements you need to make, you can make them quickly. Now get started. You only have 12 months to go.
photo credit: *Sally M*
Dan Stasiewski is an Enterprise Data Consultant at Kuno. When he's not talking about marketing data and trends, he's probably in a movie theater... or randomly breaking into song. You can connect with Dan via Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Plus.
