Me, I’m resolving to stretch more and eat less sugar. As for my company website and blog, here are my top resolutions. Don’t know if these resolutions will be easier or harder to live up to, but they’re equally important if you’re a marketer.
- Update your website more often and according to a schedule. We all get busy and somehow, website updates take a back seat to other things. I have clients who would never NOT publish their monthly magazine, but they routinely get “too busy” to update their website. But your website is arguably more valuable as an information resource to your members, customers and prospects, has a wider reach, accessible to search engines and available 24/7/365 to the whole world (but you already know all this!). Get posting!
- If you don’t already have one, create an editorial calendar that maps out topics by platform and week/month. For example, in December, my design team usually blogs about trends for the coming year. Even though we don’t know in January what trends we’ll be blogging about in December, we know that we’ll have at least a couple of posts on the topic. So that topic goes into the calendar and we assign appropriate staff.
- Add video to your toolbox. Video continues to rock the web. Pages with video get more views and visitors will spend more time on your site, etc., etc. So what’s stopping you? You don’t need a gigantic budget (although budget always helps!). Create screencast that shows people how to navigate your members-only site or interview senior staff and members about challenges facing your organization, industry or profession. Video adds authenticity to your website more deeply than text and images.
- Take your analytics to the next level. I was talking to a client yesterday about a much anticipated microsite they had just launched. He was happily reporting on the usage that the new site was generating, including referrals from their blast email. If you’re not already doing it, you should be checking your usage reports regularly and this data should be guiding your marketing decisions. This year, resolve to integrate your analytics with your CRM so that you know *who* is visiting your website. What percentage of your traffic is coming from members? Primary contacts? New members? What are members interested in doing on?
- Get serious about mobile. If your website isn’t responsive, if you’re not thinking about a mobile app, and/or if you’re not looking at your mobile traffic, 2015 is the time to get serious about mobile. Making your website mobile-friendly will generate an explosion of mobile traffic — promise! While you’re at it, make sure your emails are responsive as well since more email is read on a phone than a desktop these days.
Well there you have it— my top 5 resolutions. Stuff you already know. So just do it.
What are your resolutions?
