Every time agencies think they’ve figured out the best online marketing approach, the landscape changes. No longer can you just learn and implement a strategic recipe; search engine and social media algorithms are now ever-evolving, driven mostly by increasingly better AI. In such a restlessly changing industry, it’s imperative to stay a step ahead of things and keep an open mind. Here are some tips to keep your marketing fresh.
SEO: Sizzle vs. Steak
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the cornerstone of your online presence—how easy you are to find, and what people see when they do find you. Today’s environment requires agile, crisp content, which has supplanted the 2000s strategy of keyword saturation. No longer does stuffing each page with your optimized terms help boost your ranking; the strategy is sorely outdated, and it comes across as clumsy to those who find your pages. You can also get rid of pages that exhaustively list every community in your region or metropolitan area—they’re no longer providing much value either.
Stop Blasting
Email was the first electronic messaging service to be made widely available, and perhaps for that reason, outdated strategies dominate the medium. Too many companies bombard their subscribers with promotional content that ends up being counterproductive, purely because of the excessive frequency. Consumers like interesting updates, but they hate getting spammed. Email clients have gotten smarter and more optimized along with their users, so your blasts are often ending up as spam or junk. Remember, once someone hits unsubscribe it’s very hard to get them back. Make sure your emails focus on quality rather than quantity.
Don’t Text While Marketing
Excessive text marketing can land you in the same doghouse, perhaps even more intensely. Texting is more intimate; people tend to use it as their daily means to communicate with family and friends. It’s unlikely that they’ll want their smartphone screen invaded by your latest call to action, so have a very clear opt-in for text alerts, and very easy opt-out. If you’re running both text and email alerts, be smart about which announcements you assign to which medium. Because text alerts are more likely to be seen sooner, reserve the most actionable content for them.
