Nothing stays the same in the world of business. If you don’t adapt to the changing times your company dies.
And that concept has been here for decades. Businesses from the 1930s often closed because they struggled with adapting to customer, marketplace, and economic changes in the 1950s. The same is true for companies from the 2010s.
Stagnancy equals disaster for companies.
So, with the strong grip of the digital world, what exactly does that look like now?
Well, it is largely the same. The difference is that now companies risk becoming outdated within a few years instead of in a couple decades. The pace is faster, but the idea rings true: businesses must stay relevant and competitive if they have any hope of succeeding.
Another difference is where these changes occur. In the past, there weren’t websites. There weren’t social media channels, video channels, or any media channels online. Companies didn’t have to worry about updating these areas because they weren’t there.
Well, they have to now.
All digital content belongs to its own group now known as digital marketing. And digital marketing is not something businesses can afford to ignore.
Keep reading to discover some of the signs that your business needs a digital overhaul:
Your Website Hasn’t Changed in a Few Years
Effective digital marketing begins with your website. When you need to get your digital marketing strategy working effectively, that’s the first place you look.
Outdated sites that load slowly, are not mobile-friendly, and lack common features (such as calls to action) do not attract customers. In fact, they do the opposite. Conversions decrease after just one second of page delay and a lot of users won’t recommend companies with poorly-designed mobile sites to others.
On top of that, an old website hurts your search visibility due to poor user experience, technical issues, or outdated content. That means your SEO is less effective just because you haven’t updated your website in a while.
Increasing the amount of content you have on an old website doesn’t do as much as you might think. Especially when that content is hyper-focused on including keywords and keyphrases instead of answering your customer’s questions.
It may seem minor, but your website needs to evolve with the times, same as your business. Otherwise, you risk turning potential customers away with your poorly-maintained website.
Your Site Gets Traffic, But Not Conversions
Your website is in good operation. It brings in traffic, functions on mobile, and appears great. But the people on your site aren’t converting into sales for your business. So your return on investment (ROI) for your website is not worth it. You are spending plenty on website management and are not seeing anything from it.
So, what’s going on?
Well, one of the most common issues is that your SEO is not designed for you.
Whatever SEO plan you are following, it brings in views. But that’s only part of the story. You want SEO that brings in views and converts those views into sales. This comes from employing an SEO strategy that is highly targeted. The people a targeted SEO approach brings are interested in your products, your newsletters, and your company as a whole.
Your Social Media Doesn’t Support Growth
Social media brings a powerful tool to your marketing arsenal. It aids with building both your customer base and your brand via routine posts that garner a strong amount of engagement.
But posting regularly doesn’t mean automatic growth. Whatever you post needs to target your audience and be designed to resonate with your existing customers. That is how you get the engagement you want.
Sporadic activity does cause harm, and I’m not discounting that. Each social media platform has its own algorithm and when you are not consistently active, maintaining visibility and engagement on these platforms is challenging. If the algorithm doesn’t show your content much, you are reaching less and less of your target audience. Considering how many business recommendations result from positive social media interactions with customers, this decrease can have notable effects.
If you notice that your regular posts are still not getting the engagement you expect, consider changing your strategy. Try incorporating videos on your social media accounts, or employ a more targeted strategy for constructing posts that resonate with your target audience.
And remember, a functioning strategy does not mean you get a lot of likes. It means you are getting inquiries and conversions.
Your Paid Ads Aren’t Returning Their Money
With paid ads, there is a return on investment (ROI). If not, there is no point in spending money. Most businesses opt for pay-per-click (PPC) ads, but they are quite expensive. If they aren’t bringing in at least the same amount you spend on them, they aren’t worth their value.
And spending more doesn’t mean your ad efforts improve, by the way. You can increase your advertising budget, but you still aren’t seeing a good ROI that makes such strategies worth it.
When your ads are not bringing in results, they are likely not targeting your audience properly, are full of unclear offerings, or link to poorly-designed landing pages. None of these entice audiences to stick with your company.
Use metrics to figure out where audiences are dropping off in your sales cycle. If they are brought in by an ad, where are they losing interest? Why are they not converting into paying customers? Often, you don’t need to increase your ad spending to bring in better results. You just need more targeted and strategic digital marketing.
Your Current Audience Isn’t Your Target Audience
As you examine your metrics, you may find that everything looks great on the surface. Your website gets plenty of views, your social media efforts garner engagements, and your advertising is reaching people. Yet, despite this, your conversion rates remain low.
One of the main reasons for this is because the audience you are attracting is not your target audience. Your current audience is interested in your company and services/products. They send out inquiries regularly to learn more and further demonstrate their interest. But that is where the line stops.
They aren’t buying because your products and services do not match what they are seeking. They are not your ideal audience, so their interest in your business rarely goes beyond inquiries to become conversions.
When marketing efforts are focused too heavily on just bringing in an audience, instead of targeting the right audience, you get a group that doesn’t convert.
Your Digital Marketing is Disorganized
If you want success with digital marketing, you need a strong brand. And you don’t get a strong brand with disorganization.
When your marketing plan is disorganized, it often results in a range of issues. These include weak brand messaging, disjointed messaging, brand confusion, and low conversion rates. Not every issue results from disorganized digital marketing, but disorganized marketing is the potential cause of all of them.
To address these issues, focus on cohesiveness in your digital operations. Maintain a consistent brand voice across multiple channels of digital communication. This even includes your brand’s colors, believe it or not. Having a slightly different red between your website and social media fosters confusion among visitors. Further, ensure all team members of your digital marketing teams work together and have a shared objective and track the performance of your digital marketing efforts.
Your Competitors Show on Searches and You Don’t
One of the goals of digital marketing is appearing in front of new potential customers whenever they are searching for products, services, or information you provide. This is part of why the whole “content is king” statement rings true: when you have more useful content, your presence appears on search engines more often. But there is a caveat. You don’t want large amounts of content just for the sake of it. Quantity does not mean quality and you want quality.
Anyway, back to the point. When you appear more than your competitors in search results, you have a larger stream of potential customers. When the opposite is true, your digital efforts need an overhaul. A competitor showing up more often than you on search engines means you lose out on leads and don’t build much brand authority. The same is true when your competitors are more active on social media than you.
If you are dealing with this issue, do some research. Identify the gaps you leave that your competitor is filling. Analyze their digital marketing and consider the SEO strategies that they use. On the surface, it might not seem like they are doing anything differently. But their SEO strategy could be different and is bringing them the level of success that you want. Also, look at the social media platforms they are active on and evaluate the content they post that gets a lot of engagements.
You Have No Idea What’s Working and What Isn’t
If you truly cannot figure out where your digital marketing is failing, that alone is a sign that you need a digital overhaul.
Data is how you determine whether your digital marketing strategy works or not. Data tells you about conversion rates, it tells you about the amount of views your website gets or engagements on each social media post, and it tells you about who is viewing your digital efforts. In essence, it provides you with performance information.
Without data, you are blind about your digital marketing efforts. And that is not conducive to actually finding digital success. If you don’t know what is and is not working, start solving that issue first. The other issues can be solved as they appear.
Once you have the data, you may still be confused about what it is suggesting. Not everyone is familiar with the way the online world operates. If you are uncertain about the meaning behind the data, ask someone who understands it. I discussed asking for help as a business owner in this post. There is nothing wrong, or shameful, about admitting that you just don’t know.
The Need for a Digital Overhaul
The digital landscape is no longer a small part of your regular marketing.
It is your marketing.
Just look at how people have impacted brick-and-mortar stores in recent years thanks to their penchant for online shopping. The digital world is something that companies must take seriously if they want to succeed.
If your business is struggling with one or more of the above issues, then you need a digital overhaul. Refine your SEO strategy, pinpoint your target audience, get familiar with digital data, and check your social media activity.
In fact, you should be checking these areas regularly, anyway. As soon as you notice a small issue, address it. Small issues often become large obstacles when ignored. With how important digital operations are for your success, it isn’t worth taking that risk. While you are ignoring a problem, your competitors aren’t. You’ll easily fall behind and closing that digital gap is a challenge in and of itself.
If you need help improving your digital footprint, reach out to me! As a senior SEO writer and strategist, I can help you identify content gaps, improve your search strategy, and create content that audiences actually want to read.