Where to Start in Digital Marketing in 5 Steps

there are so many actions you can take
as a digital marketer that it's actually
a big problem
what to do next what to do first where
to start
after teaching digital for many many
years i've gotten this question dozens
or maybe hundreds of times what should i
do first so
we have finally put together a
prioritized framework
starting at the most important highest
priority actions and i'm gonna go
through that with you now i'm finally
answering the question where
to begin in digital marketing this is
andy from orbit media let's jump in
so the big picture is that our job is to
bring a visitor from a traffic source
through
a digital experience to the thank you
page that's almost always the definition
of success when the visitor makes it to
a thank you page now if you're a search
per if you're a seo then we're talking
about bringing people from google to a
thank you page but what's in that arrow
in that arrow it's actually more like a
chain and there are different links in
the chain
and if there's a weakness in the chain
for example the contact page isn't
working well then nothing else in the
previous links makes any difference at
all
this is how we're going to prioritize
we're going to start with the bottom of
the funnel we're going to start with the
last links in the chain because if
there's a problem there nothing else
makes any difference it doesn't matter
how good we are at search or social or
email or paid it makes no difference if
there's a problem in the bottom of their
experience and the last stage is in the
bottom of the funnel
so my prioritized framework looks kind
of like this
first we're going to make sure that the
contact page is effective then we're
going to work on the calls to action
that bring people to the contact page
step three we're gonna do the service
pages then i'm gonna focus on the home
page let's take a minute to think about
our about page
okay step one in our prioritized
framework is to work on the contact page
the money page the conversion page
because if that's not working well if
that's ineffective if the conversion
rate from that page is low then nothing
else really matters
here's an example of a contact page or
rather a conversion focused page this is
a form sometimes it's like a request
demo form or a contact form or whatever
the form is so let's take a close look
at it
it's got a piece of text at the top and
it's not bad
tens of thousands of people use our
products every day if you're thinking of
moving from the cloud or want more
information we're here to help
right it actually gives you a reason
tells you
what what we're up to here but let's try
an alternate version of that
get a quick demo oh sounds easy then
what does it say you're about to learn
how
lots of people social proof evidence
20 000 cpg professionals manage your
more evidence 10 billion in trade spend
this has got to be legit just share a
little bit about yourself reducing that
psychological threshold right making it
easy removing friction
and we'll be in touch when within 24
hours setting expectations right this
page also has a face it's got logos it's
got reasons to believe
and it is measurable any improvements to
that page will be visible in the before
and after in the conversion rate on the
funnel visualization report i'm looking
at a report here on google analytics uh
universal obviously you could do the
same report if you'd like in in ga4 but
the point is it is measurable you can
conversion optimize the last step in the
process or at least confirm that there's
nothing wrong with it there's no
problems no friction confusion nothing's
broken
next let's improve the calls to action
these are the clicks that bring the
person to the form because if they're
not working it doesn't matter how good
we are and everything else about driving
traffic and we're brilliant marketers at
paid or social or email or search
because if no one's clicking on the
calls to action nothing else really
matters so the second step in our
prioritization is going to be to improve
the calls to action or at least confirm
that these calls to actions are
effective
here's how to think about a cta
we've talked about this in other
articles in other videos but nobody
clicks on anything until in their mind
they've done a split second cost benefit
calculation and concluded that the
benefits exceed the cost is this worth
10 seconds of my time that's what we all
think every day before we click or tap
on anything anywhere so instead of just
saying do this thing we want to be
specific and make it sound valuable do
this valuable thing
make the benefit seem higher or do this
easy thing make the cost seem lower
make sense that's our job is to
manipulate in the visitor's mind the
cost benefit calculation for taking this
action
so contact us is not really a call to
action i'm sorry it's not that's a weak
verb
contact read learn these are not
powerful compelling calls to action
check availability and wait list that's
a call to action gives them a reason to
click what do i get if i click right or
schedule a time to chat with don't
you're not spending money just schedule
time to chat with an associate right and
by the way we can usually find a time
within 24 hours aha
the boring versus sounds relevant and
valuable versus sounds easy
so you can imagine how
the difference and how specificity
correlates with conversion specifically
when it makes the benefits bigger the
cost seems smaller
the next step in our prioritized
framework for where to begin what to do
first in digital marketing is to not
work on the page that contains that call
to action
the job on this page is to basically
answer questions address objections and
give reasons to believe
that's what this page is all about
that's what every service page is about
every go look at your browsing history
the reason you don't take action on
websites because there was some
information gap this is a study done by
the neil sonora group that found that
findability is the main reason people
don't take action
the cure for this problem is to
understand your audience deeply it's
data-driven empathy it's research often
qualitative interviews when you know
what these people need to have what
information they have what are their
information needs and then what are our
best answers for their information needs
now you can take that data that research
because you asked a client what was the
most important option to you when they
give you the answer security followed by
scalability now you can prioritize the
page now you can build the page to speak
to them specifically that's the job
that's what the conversion optimizer
does and that's the job of the page just
to understand the information needs the
visitor and to guide them through a
sales conversation sort of emulating a
conversation with that top rep what was
the problem you're hoping to solve i
wanted insights not just dashboards you
already have dashboards but you're still
not getting insights
what can you do now that you couldn't do
before oh not to run that same damn
report every time stop running the same
report again and again see the page is
like reading their mind
what what and ask the rep right ask for
sales reps what questions do you get out
do you get asked all the time oh people
are always asking me can i cancel
yes
we can cancel but wait did we put that
into our marketing funnel do we put that
on the sales page did we address that
possible objection if not you can make a
better page you can improve your
conversion rate just by adding that
answer to that page
so that's the framework for that there's
an entire video an article and
more content that we've created on this
topic of how to maximize conversion
rates you can find it in our youtube
channel or in the description or article
below
so instead of building a site that is
just a pile of unsupported marketing
claims many sites are just piles of
unsupported marketing claims we want to
build a page that's filled with evidence
that gives reasons to believe maybe half
the pixels on this page are actually
proof points
logos awards
videos of testimonials right social
proof data years in business trust
reviews all those things that's uh
without that
any company that started yesterday could
probably make the same claims you're
making
just scan through and any page and ask
yourself how many unsupported claims
you're making or are there anything that
anything you've added to this page that
other people couldn't say
now step four in our process let's take
a close look at the home page itself
home pages have a job to do which is
partly just to tell the visitor they're
in the right place
uh we call this the backyard barbecue
test the backyard barbecue test is if i
met you i borrowed from a friend ryan uh
this is for you
if you asked a person at a barbecue what
do you do and they responded by reading
to you the headline on their home page
and it sounded like this we proved the
impossible wrong
what i wouldn't know what you're talking
about
we have the agility to plan for all
futures huh
i still can't tell what you do
so if you're
wondering if your if your homepage
headline fails the backyard barbecue
test you can just put it into usability
hub take a screenshot of your homepage
upload that choose a panel of 20 or 50
people and ask the one single question
what does this company do they're gonna
see it for five seconds it's gonna
disappear they're gonna try to answer
the question and you'll know if it's
very confusing
because you say we put our people first
or if it's very explicit clear specific
and and uh you know informative if it's
descriptive and the visitor
and the the mini poll of five second
test shows you that people can tell what
you do
step five in our process is the about
page itself
without doing a deep dive here let me
just say that the about page is almost
always one of the most important pages
on websites it's rare to see an
analytics account where the about page
isn't one of the top five pages
but this is the page where you're
supposed to put your faces and stories
in history this is the page that's
supposed to sort of fail the french test
the french test is uh does your website
talk about yourself too much you know we
do this we love us our tricks this you
know we're number one and you have we we
all over your site and now you're
failing the french test
but the about page is supposed to fail
the french test this is where you get
into the things these are things that
you should likely have on your about
page why does this company exist what is
your origin what's your story why did
you get started what is what do you
believe what is your mission what are
your values and vision for this business
for this industry for the future
and then who are you i think that's one
of the main reasons people click on
about pages is to find out who are you
and a lot of about pages are really
vague it's just sort of a
the mini elevator pitch their thin
content there's no personality
show your people show your team show
your leadership that's also
differentiation you are the only company
with these people why wouldn't you do
that and put faces all over the site but
definitely definitely on the about page
okay andy that was great but what about
marketing this was all about the
platform what about marketing itself
when do we start actually publishing
content or buying ads or networking or
influencer marketing or email or social
or all the blogging stuff all the
content strategy
i have prioritized the site itself the
platform because i know that if we do
that first everything else that we do
will be more effective you know you want
to be a dual threat marketer that
understands both
traffic and conversions because those
are the two key factors in success so
focus first on conversion optimization
these are durable improvements
so i'm definitely going to be
prioritizing these and then i'm ready
for growth then i'm ready for to attract
visitors then i'm going to try to you
know increase my traffic then i'm going
to be focusing on the content marketing
all the organic channels social email
search and influencer marketing and then
i'm also maybe going to go now it makes
more sense to buy traffic if you care
about if you're trying paid you want to
run an ad
ppc or paid social why not fix the
landing pages first
literally like a bounce is lost money
wanna
definitely polish up the the the landing
pages before you go buy visitors
certainly because uh if you haven't done
the conversion before it's like putting
water into a leaky bucket why would you
do that
another metaphor one of my favorites
stolen from barry feldman love you barry
fix the mouse trap before you make more
cheese
because once you have a better mousetrap
you're going to convert a greater
percentage of visitors forever after
every action you take forever after in
in
in marketing in attracting visitors will
be more effective
that's it makes sense right clarity
perfect prioritization now we know where
to begin what to do first steps that we
shouldn't skip and how to prioritize all
these possible millions of different
actions that we can take at digital
really hope that you found this useful
again below in the description or in the
article you'll find links to many more
resources and a detailed breakdown step
by step of how to do everything we
mentioned today
so hope you found this useful if you
know someone else that's struggling with
this question of how to prioritize their
time we'd be grateful if you pass this
along uh and then of course feel free to
to subscribe so you get the next one as
soon as it comes out and uh we'll keep
making these thanks