A digital marketing audit essentially takes a look at the different online strategies you have put into place to see what is working and what needs to be optimized.
We can often end up in a situation where we have either:
- Come up with one plan of action a while ago and put something up and forgotten about it because our digital marketing is “done”.
- Come up with a number of different ideas and put them all out there! Which can fragment our marketing message and clutter the message we are trying to get across.
What we should be doing with all of our marketing efforts is to come up with a strategy, implement it on the different channels that we choose to use, audit the efforts so we can understand how it has done, adjust what we need to from the audit, and repeat the process.
Often what we see in a digital audit is that businesses are not using a combination of the different options available to them. They may have a website and some social media presence, but that’s the extent of their efforts. It’s important to remember that each digital marketing channel has a different role in your marketing plan, and they work best when they are integrated.
For example, your website acts as a brochure about your business and drives action to contact you. Your social media provides brand awareness and engagement. Google Ads is a direct sales funnel and so is your newsletter.
This is just one example of a digital marketing mix that is used by businesses effectively.
So where should you start with your digital audit?
- Set some goals. Without goals, you cannot measure the efforts that you have made. Make sure that these are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-Bound) goals, so that you have specific criteria to measure against.
- Based on your goals, you need to make sure you are tracking the right things. For example, you want to increase traffic to your website as you have an e-commerce store. You can monitor your efforts in Google Analytics by keeping an eye on the increase in traffic.
- Review all of the channels you are currently using to make sure your brand consistency is good. It can be easy to start heading off on a different path after a while, especially on social media where we need to create a steady stream of content.
- Create product simplicity and consistency. Go back to your 8 Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Positioning, People, Process and Purpose) and clarify them so that your message is strong and clear for potential customers.
- Create checklists for your content creation. The most important questions you should answer with any content you create is “Does this add value to my customers?” and “Why should the reader care about this?”
- How stunning are your visuals? Make sure what you putting out is brand relevant and clear. Nothing detracts from a good marketing message like a pixelated image.
- Do an SEO audit on your website. Search Engine Optimisation is a long term marketing plan, but you can enhance your efforts in the short term by making sure your basics are done well. Start with your website content. Try this free tool from Woorank. There are stronger and better paid tools out there, but this will give you a base to start talking to your SEO specialist/web developer/content provider with.
- Do a conversion check on your website. Go through each page of your website and ask yourself these questions: Is there a call to action on every page above the fold? Does each page offer a lead magnet to convert leads? Is your value proposition clear on every page? What happens after someone converts? Is your page loading quickly? Have you done AB Split Testing of different page titles and calls to action? Is everything functioning the way it should? Is your website user friendly and easy to navigate?
- Do you have a written down digital marketing plan? If not, why not? If yes, are you sticking to it?
It’s important to run a digital marketing audit at least every 6 months, if not more often. Reach out to us if you need help with this, or if you would like to make some changes to your digital marketing plan.
