Tuesday Tip: Improve your marketing with 3 steps that'll change your 2017

I'm sure you can relate to the following: With the New Year ahead I set a resolution to improve my digital marketing strategy. But what steps have actually been taken towards making improvements a reality? To get us all in gear, I mapped out three actions we can schedule out now, to hold ourselves accountable and evolve our digital marketing strategy for 2017.

Why schedule these changes out? Chances are, if you set up a weekly or monthly reminder on your digital calendar / app of choice, you're more likely to hold yourself accountable for your actions. If you need this reminder find your the best reminder tool for you in this review by The Gaurdian »

1. Check into your Analytics weekly

Many of us are guilty of not taking time to check into our site's analytics, let alone having these metrics guide our marketing decisions. But trust the experts, it's hugely important:

"Measurement and data are the only way for marketers to get control of a situation they have completely lost control of. They have to understand what part of the mix is truly working and that takes measurement." – Brigitte Majewski, an analyst at Forrester Research (source)

Where can you start? At the beginning of the week, set aside 15-30 minutes to go into Analytics and check the following. 

• Channels: Where did you most of your traffic come from last week? How much time did you invest in the most successful channel and should you invest more into that channel this week?

Not sure which channel you should be targeting? Find the best one for your audience »

• Landing pages: Which content is bringing in the most traffic? Better yet, is this content drawing in subscribers or leads? If it is the content that is drawing in business and high conversions, keep promoting it and producing more content like it. If it's not, optimize other content that drives these conversions.

If you struggle to navigate Google Analytics, set up a custom dashboard to have your favorite stats show up right when you open your account.

• Goals: Are your goal completions up or down from last week or last month? If you aren't seeing the numbers you want, revisit the pages on which those goals occur, and a/b test one factor at a time to see if you can make incremental improvements.

If you haven't set up goals, do so now » 

Need help? ArcStone can set your Google Analytics Dashboards & weekly reports up for you. Learn more »

2. Create at least one creative piece of content per month

Visual and audio content are continually on the rise. Search "2017 content marketing trends" and you'll see one of the biggest contenders is more creative content. Data from Search Engine Journal's recent study shows that in order to see higher engagement rates, marketers should "use original graphics [and] more charts, data visualizations, videos, and presentations whenever possible."

It's easy to say you'll invest some time into an infographic or allocate budget into a video, but imagine if you produced one creative piece of content per month. That's 12 awesome pieces of content per year!

Where can you start? Create a reminder on your calendar at the start of the month to assign a task to a team member. See when your designer or videographer have time in the next 3 months or leave for room in your budget to outsource.

Get ArcStone's advice for interactive/creative content marketing advice »

3. Build a relationship with influencers or experts in your field

There are countless benefits to taking time to reach out to influencers and other such people in your field. What if you took one hour, one afternoon per week to send out a few emails? The benefits include receiving:

• A possible share of your content by an influencer who has 10k followers – At ArcStone we've seen huge spikes in traffic each time our content is shared by an influencer. Get a step by step guide from Social Media Examiner for this process »
• A new blogger for your site – Think about how long it takes for you to research, write and promote a blog. If you build a relationship with an expert and emphasize the mutual benefit they could receive in writing for your site, you'll save yourself that time. What's more, if they share the blog with their network, you reach readers you never would have before.
• A new fan of your company – There's a difference between seeing an ad or social media post from your company vs. receiving a personal email from you. These personalized emails are what will help your company be remembered or possibly recommended in the future.

Where can you start? Start with an initial project of creating a list of contacts. Search LinkedIn, Twitter, influencer lists etc. Seek out their email as it's likely the best way to reach them. Set yourself up with a template or system of how you'd email them – the video on this page offers some best practices. Then set your reminder up so you reach out to five or so contacts once per week. 

If you don't have time for all of these initiatives, pick one. Reach out to us to let us know how they go for you or if you need help pursuing any of them! Cheers to a fresh start and improved marketing!