When creating an online presence, one of the initial steps is to explore various digital marketing channels available in order to maximize the reach of the products or services being offered. Given the nature of the online world, which is constantly evolving and expanding, several new channels are developing with greater frequency, and audiences are continuously exploring new sources of online content. The digital marketers must regularly assess and reassess digital marketing channels for their effectiveness.
To identify the most effective marketing channels for an organization’s products or services, marketers spend a considerable amount of time and effort identifying and understanding the dynamics of all available digital marketing channels and evaluating these channels relative to their company’s overall organizational goals and objectives.
As part of this process, the team identifies target customers in the digital space, their likes and dislikes, their perceptions of the company’s brand and its major competitors, their digital needs related to the brand, and how the brand may fulfill these needs. All of this information, along with an understanding of current trends in the digital marketing space, should be recorded for future reference.
Web analytics are used to evaluate and better understand the available digital channels. Web analytics involve the collection, measurement, analysis, and reporting of web data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.
Analyzing such data helps a company to assess and improve the effectiveness of its website. This information also helps the digital marketing team better understand consumer behavior and identify the strengths and weakness of the company’s current online offerings.
This may include understanding how many people are visiting a website, which pages are most popular, which paths are most popular, where people are coming from, where they drop off, how long they stay, and other similar factors.
All such factors provide the digital marketing team with a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of current digital marketing initiatives and enable the team to identify possible new channels and digital marketing opportunities. Examining the social media investments of competitors can also help companies evaluate where they should be allocating resources.
Any business with a strong Internet presence that recognizes a decline in its website traffic should explore possible sources of the decline. Based on the web analytics data, the company may explore several options, including revising the current website in order to keep it fresh and relevant to its target market or making adjustments to site navigation to improve usability. Other Digital Marketing channels, such as mobile devices or social media might also be explored as potential aids in improving reach and strengthening relationships with existing customers.
