How often should you post on social media? Or blog? Or send out email messages?
The answer is different for every business because every business is different. Each one has different goals, customer needs, message content and unique resources, so the online marketing strategy is going to be unique for each business.
To answer the question, “How often should I…”, for your business, here are 5 things to consider:
- What is your goal? What do you want to achieve? Do you want to drive brand recognition or traffic to a webpage? Are you advertising an event or publishing content?
- What do you have to say? If you have a lot to say – if developing content is easy – then a strategy that includes regular and frequent content creation and publishing may make sense for you. If creating content is a challenge, then you might need to scale back on the schedule a bit. In either case, aim for publishing one piece of content in multiple ways so that the same message goes out in many different directions.
- What resources are available? Is it just you or do you have a team in place? How much time do you have and, perhaps more importantly, how much energy do you have?
- What is sustainable? This is probably one of the most important questions, and definitely the one that is most overlooked. Your online marketing strategy isn’t about this week or this month. If you want to make a lasting impression, you’ll need to keep your strategy in play for a good length of time, so what schedule can you create for yourself that you will then be able to maintain for six months or longer.
- Periodically ask yourself, “Is this working?” Online Marketing is always a work in progress so, on a monthly or quarterly basis, check your progress and modify the program until it works for you.
Here are some key analytics to consider:
- Look at the available measurements to see if you’re making an impact: Review your email open & click rates, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics, etc.
- How well are you sustaining the plan you’ve put in place? Is it manageable, or is it getting in the way of doing business?
- How do you feel about the strategy? Is it empowering or is it draining you? How you feel about it will show up in your marketing, so whether you feel positive or negative about it matters!
In the end, your strategy should feel both doable and sustainable without getting in the way of you doing business. In addition to enabling you to reach out and touch customers and prospects, your marketing should be empowering and invigorating to you and your readers! If it isn’t, go back and reanalyze, making changes until it is.
