Audience Touchpoints for Digital Marketers – Learn How To Improve Your Marketing Performance by 50% in Two Steps:
It’s 2014 and most companies have been running online marketing campaigns for some 5 to 15 years, a common range. Over the years, your website probably went through multiple redesigns, platform updates, and content optimizations. So did your marketing strategy. By now, you likely have an email list, you’re well-versed in SEO, and you understand CTR (Click-Thru-Rates) and Conversion Rates. Sound familiar? If yes, that puts you in top 25% of most effective marketers out there! Nevertheless, we all know that there is always room for improvement and growth, but where do you start? In this article, I will explain how you can climb your way from top 25% to the top 1% of most effective online marketers.
The truth is – there is no secret, no magic voodoo, and any marketer can do it. All you need to do is align your messaging across all marketing campaigns and channels! Lets call this process – Cross-Channel Alignment. Here are the two simple steps:
Step 1: Run An All-Inclusive Inventory of Your Existing Audience Touchpoints. Audience Touch Points = all the various ways you are communicating to your audience, both past customers and prospective customers. For example, your main goal might be to acquire leads and then funnel them through a sales process. In this case, your online audience touch points are likely to be: Website on desktop/mobile/tablet, Google and Bing search ads, Organic search listings, Display media Social media ads (Facebook, LinkedIn), Social media community engagement (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, etc.), Email Checklist Icon. It’s worth to note that your offline presence (brochures, flyers, outreach programs, etc) also play a role in how you are perceived by the audience (online and off). If you are up for a bigger challenge, then go ahead and widen the scope of this exercise – add offline marketing efforts to your touchpoint inventory. Once you create this list of all the different ways you are already communicating with your audience, you are well on your way to take control and align your marketing efforts!
Step 2: Align Your Brand Messaging and Positioning Across All Touchpoints Puzzle Icon. Time to put all the puzzle pieces together! Revisit the Touchpoint List that you have just created and make sure you did not forget any other audience touchpoints you may have missed. Identify all the members of your marketing staff who are responsible for the actual posting and updating your touchpoints. If you are a small business, all of your monitored audience touchpoints may be overseen by just one person, a community-manager-of-all-trades, per say. However, it is more likely the case that your marketing team manages many moving parts of this puzzle. For example, the managers associated with each of your various touchpoints, could include: a Tech Team for website updates, Copywriter/Content Producer, SEO Account Manager, Email Campaign Specialist, Media Buying Manager, Graphic Designer (for website banners and ad banners), Social Media Community Manager etc. Believe it or not, when all creative/messaging/campaigns are aligned across all marketing channels, the effect is actually amplified All channels are likely to perform better when working in conjunction with each other, thus making this process worthwhile. It’s also a good idea to put all the players in contact on ongoing basis, touching base at least once per month. Misaligned campaigns is one of the most common problems in today’s ever-expanding digital marketing arena. It’s best to remain consistent and attentive to messaging, seasonal fluctuations, and time sensitive campaigns. I hereby declare you – a Holistic Marketer – top 1% of most effective marketers alive!
