The summer months are a little bit slower in meetings. The spring and fall are generally swamped with meeting opportunities, but the summer has only a handful to choose from.
However, it’s the end of June. Where is the summer going? I feel like I blinked, and it was over. So, I think it’s a good time to remind all you vendors about an article that I wrote in last month’s Experienced Exhibitor newsletter. It’s simply a helpful reminder of how you can maximize the slow summer months while we’re a little bit of a meeting standstill.
If you’ve taken a recent gander at our website’s Calendar of Events – or even your own meeting schedule – you’re probably not as bogged down with travel in the summer than the Spring and Fall.
I don’t know about your time management habits, but if you’re anything like me, you do best under pressure and a HARD deadline. With summer meetings taking a little bit of a siesta, you may find yourself casually staring at the ceiling for a solid hour before you feel the drool sliding down your chin.
Often when we have more time to plan, we end up just letting it slip by. So, make a pact along with me to maximize the “slow” summer months by reviewing and revamping your digital marketing strategy.
Here are some aspects of your digital marketing program you may want to put under a microscope or experiment with…
A/B TEST YOUR CURRENT TACTICS
What’s yielding results, and what’s not? Sometimes it’s hard to tell because a strong marketing program utilizes a solid mix of channels that reach your target audience. A conversion typically doesn’t have just one point of attribution.
What you can determine (and this is the glory of digital marketing), is which ads are really popular. If you’re running ads in PM News (for example), make sure you give each ad the same amount of run time so you can compare apples to apples. Which ad is getting more clicks than the others? Once you know that, determine why. Is it the offer? Is it the amazing design/copy of the ad?
Same thing goes for email marketing. Run the same email blast to two separate, but similar groups (i.e., don’t send one email to DPMs and the other to practice managers; split your DPM list in half and send the same email to both). BUT change your subject line. See which one has stronger open rates and then determine why. Again, is it the offer? Is it the verbiage?
Figure out what’s working so you know what kind of offer or content you should continue to embrace.
TRY SOMETHING NEW
Last week Ann and I spent some quality time watching an advertising/marketing online conference and some of the new ideas we got made us really excited… and excited to share!
One of the more interesting strategies I clung on to is called, “A Dollar a Day.” The concept is that you take one of your old Facebook posts (or create a few new ones) and then spend $1/day on each of them for 30 days (be sure to target your audience). When the 30 days is up, review your ad report and see who came out ahead with the most clicks.
When you have your winner, invest more media dollars on that post, running it more times and, possibly, in more geographic areas.
STEP THROUGH YOUR OWN PROCESS
Many times we can’t understand why certain advertising/marketing programs aren’t creating conversions. Well, when was the last time you stepped through your own process as a prospective client?
Every time you put something out there, step outside of yourself and look at it as if you were a DPM and just saw it for the first time. Let’s go through an example….
Take your next PM News ad and ask yourself, “If I were a DPM, would this ad intrigue me enough TO CLICK.” Why did I capitalize “to click”? Because that’s the first goal. So many times we think we the ad isn’t good enough because it didn’t create a sales conversion. That’s not the case. This is a process. So… is it good enough to make them click – step one.
Then, where are they clicking to? Did you lead them to the homepage of your website that has nothing to do with the focused product/service on the ad? Did you take them to a PDF that has so much copy on it, they don’t know where to look? Did you just link it to an email address of a sales rep?
Know where they are going to click, and then ask yourself, “If I were a DPM, would this intrigue me enough to want to learn more?” Once they are at this point, it’s going to differ greatly depending on your product, service and how they actually purchase. The point here, though, is if your ad is leading them to a landing area that is not using a specific strategy on copy (verbiage) and functional design that allows them to easily contact you, request a sample, or click to purchase – a new strategy needs to be thought out.