Just this week on my Facebook Page I asked a question. I asked you to rate your marketing efforts on a scale of 1-10. Each person who responded rated themselves at 5 or below.
If you feel this way, I can understand your frustration and I know it is NOT fun.
I have been there too.
I have spent huge amounts of money marketing my business in ways that did not work.
I know the feeling of spending money, waiting, hoping…. and then – nothing happens.
When I saw how many people felt their efforts were sub-par it caused me to stop and think – “How could I help YOU so that maybe marketing, especially online, could be a bit easier?”
According to Wikipedia, Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
The words that really jump out for me in this definition are processes for creating, communicating, and value for customers.
When you put a process in place to communicate and add value – you should be able to measure the outcome. It worked, or it didn’t, right?
The really cool thing about WordPress is there are so many ways you can use the platform as part of your marketing strategy.
Here are 5 Ways to WordPress Your Marketing that work for me:
- I blog regularly about topics my clients are interested in.
I can measure how effective this is by the number of people who read the post, share the posts and leave comments. If you have Social Media share buttons on your post, you can measure the number of times it was liked, +1’d, tweeted or pinned. - I seed my blog posts with links to my product pages.
For example, I have a WordPress Intensive Training program and I am hosting a one-hour workshop all about WordPress soon (watch for it to be released for purchase in my shop!). My blog allows me to talk about these things, and keep those programs active and alive for people to click on at any time. I can measure in my analytics program how many people clicked, and I know how many buy so I can see a conversion rate. - I seed my blog posts with links to my Social Media networks.
I mention my Facebook Page in most of my Facebook Blog Posts, and my Twitter profile in most of my Twitter blog posts. When I do this, I can tell by the number of followers and new likes whether or not people clicked over because of the blog. Often, we assume people know about our Social Networks, when in fact, they don’t. Invite people to join you regularly and remember – every single person who reads your blog reads it for the first time once. - I share my blog posts on many social networks.
I have what I call a Social Media Stack where I list all of my blog posts, the topic, and the URL and I share my content intentionally via my Social Networks. I can then measure the interaction I get when I share, and the traffic counts back to my blog. - I use the blog platform to create Sales Pages for products and services.
If you look at some of my product pages, you will see that all I have done is created a blog post with all my product info, images, and a link to buy. I don’t go out and create a special sales page all the time because it is easier to just use WordPress. I can once again measure the results of how well the copy and the call to action work by how many people buy.
Marketing to me is about creating systems, processes and structure around how you want to serve your message to your potential client in a way that adds value. Everything you do should be measurable.
If you can’t measure it – you have no feedback to tell you if it worked or not! Next time you plan some marketing, stop and think about how you can do it in a way that allows you to measure your progress.
It is far better to measure and know, than not and continue the cycle of Spray and Pray when it comes to Marketing. You may hit a few people and they may buy, but it has been proven time and again that targeted Marketing works best. By measuring, you are in a much better position to target your ideal audience and to get your message across.
Now – homework for you – what is one thing you will do this week to measure your own marketing? Please leave a comment below and share with me!
And if you don’t have my Social Business Toolkit make sure you get it too!
