What questions do you have about digital marketing?

OK, I’ve been gone a while.  I apologize.  I had a very large client with a very large budget and I needed to focus on them completely.  But now that the major presentation is done, I can go back to all the other things I was doing along with my job as a digital strategist at MediaSauce.

I get a lot of questions about what I would do with this or that on the web.  Does Twitter work? How should I be using Facebook or Linkedin?  What is the best way to get my site seen by Google? (This one is near and dear because if Google can’t see you, then you don’t exist.)  All good questions but there’s a lot that I don’t know about your company before I start recommending how you should be using technology.

So when I ran into an old college friend who needed some help, I thought this would be a great way to showcase what it is that I do and how I would do it.  The kind of marketing that I would do for her company most likely isn’t exactly what I would recommend for yours.  But the basic principles behind it would be there and you may learn something new.  I always do.

Some people call me an expert and I will tell you that I don’t think of it that way.  What I am is someone who learns all the time and I’ve probably got more experience at doing digital than most people (I’ve been in the field since 1997 – professionally since 1999).  Maybe that is what makes an expert in your mind.  But I don’t like the term “expert” out here on the web.  It changes too fast and too much for anyone to really get it down to an established formula.

That being said, let’s get back to Digital Marketing 101.

There’s a few questions that I need to know from you about your company.  I have a 44 question document that I usually run down when meeting a company for the first time.  But I also have a shorten version that we’ll use here.  These questions are a summary of the 44.

1. What are your business goals?  This can be a lot of different answers but to me I really try and get them to tell me the obvious. It’s funny how many people talk about branding and awareness and all of that – which is important but more important is “I want to sell my product or service this many times.”  You should know that number.  It will drive everything that you do.  Write it down in big letters.

2. What is your current marketing strategy and how is it doing?  What are your tactics to complete that strategy. You should have a record of what you are spending and how you are spending it and what it is bringing in.  ROI is very important for each individual piece but don’t kill something just because it’s not performing as an individual (you should know how it is integrated with all of your marketing efforts).

3. Who is your competition both online and offline?  Knowing your competition well will help you position yourself differently and craft your message.  You should know their market share as well.  If you can’t find out on your own, buy the research.  It is marketing dollars well spent and can save you from making a bad decision.

4. Who is your target audience?  Get as much information on these people as possible because it will influence all of your marketing decisions from messaging to channels.  Demographics, Male/Female, Age, Education, Income, Ehtnicity, Regions, Psychographics, etc…

Now, come on Don, that’s it.  Nope, that isn’t it.  There’s a lot more but to do a full blown evaluation (which this is not).  This is more for the Do-It-Yourselfers and the one-person marketing teams that many, many businesses have right now.

I don’t have the answers to my friend’s business right now, but since she has already given me FTP access to the site, I’m going to do what I always do first.

Set up Google Analytics to figure out what’s going on on their site.

How do you set up Google Analytics and then be able to read it?  I’ll tell you next week.