During the pandemic, many organizations put digital marketing initiatives on hold as they focused on day-to-day challenges. With the world's resurgence, it's time to reevaluate your marketing to ensure it engages your target audiences. But where do you start? We put together this series of guided questions to help you evaluate and refresh your current marketing efforts. These questions ask:
- Does your branding identity make a good first impression?
- How is your audience engaging with your digital marketing?
- Where are you connecting with your audience?
Your answers will keep your digital marketing objectives fresh and engaging.
Evaluate Your Brand Identity
Your brand identity is your first point of contact, so it should make a solid first impression. Brand identity is more than just a logo and brand colors, it encompasses everything from the fonts your organization uses to your tone of voice in social media. Your brand should be consistent everywhere, both online and in the physical space.
Some questions to ask when auditing your brand identity are:
1. When was the last time you updated your brand?
Reevaluate your branding every 5 years to keep it engaging and effective.
2. What does your organization offer that similar organizations do not?
Your branding and messaging should convey these differences through things like taglines and logo design.
Resource: Brand Style Guide
A brand style guide regulates your brand identity so it remains consistent. Members of your marketing and communications teams should understand the importance of adhering to your brand standards and use the style guide as a reference when crafting communications and outreach. Your brand style guide should include:
- master logo and approved variations
- brand colors, primary and secondary
- brand fonts and how they're used
- tone of voice
- any design elements and how they should appear on graphics
Next, Audit Your Website
Your organization's website is a key resource in reaching your audiences. That means it is one of your most important marketing tools available. It's the place new users go to answer any questions they have about your services, and it should offer a way for them to get in contact with your organization. Ask yourself:
3. What do you want visitors to do on your website?
Identify the website's main goals and whether they’re being accomplished. Tools such as Google Analytics 4 can help determine what your audience does when they visit and whether you need to make some changes.
4. How is the user experience for those visiting your site?
Your website should have easy-to-follow navigation and answer visitor questions. It should also be a seamless experience for both desktop and mobile browsing, with fast-loading pages and an impactful design. If your website isn't mobile-friendly, your ranking on search engines will suffer.
5. Does your site have SSL security encryption and is the certificate up to date?
Making your website a safe place to browse is a crucial step in ensuring your audience's digital safety. This is the one step you don't want to skip!
6. Is your website accessible to everyone?
This is especially important if you want your website to be welcoming for all demographics, or if your organization caters to a demographic that needs special accommodations such as screen readers.
7. What are you doing to ensure search engines can find your website?
Effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will greatly improve your site ranking, giving users better access to your organization and key offerings. Optimization with title tags, meta descriptions and keywords are vital for good SEO.
Finally, Determine Audience Connections
You can get a better sense of your organization's audience by interacting with them through social media and email newsletters. These interactions build brand loyalty and brand awareness, which helps to grow your audience through word-of-mouth and referrals. You can target audience growth by asking:
8. Who is your audience?
When you know who you are talking to, you can speak directly to your audience through your website content and communications outreach.
9. How is your audience informed of organizational updates?
Regular updates via email newsletters, social media, direct mail, pay-per-click campaigns and other channels keeps you at the forefront of your audience's mind.
10. Where are you reaching out to meet new people?
Social media and email newsletters aren't just for your existing audience. Use them to also talk to new users and provide guidance to someone who might be unfamiliar with your organization's work.
Now that you've reviewed your digital marketing, it's time to consider how to implement changes to your strategy for the coming year. Some new ideas might be things your current staff can implement, but others might require guidance and additional resources. In those cases, Greenleaf Media is happy to help! Reach us at 608.240.9611 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.