Being submerged in this industry, it’s easy to make assumptions about what people know and don’t know about digital marketing. Some recent conversations with clients and prospects have reminded me that while pretty much everyone has a website and knows how to use email, most are still just trying to figure out search and blogs, let alone Facebook and Twitter…
With that in mind, I thought it was a good time to step back and offer up 5 things that can be completed before 5 PM today. These are smaller parts of much bigger design and strategic picture, but they will at least get you started and pointed in the right direction; setting the stage for when it’s time to expand your digital marketing initiatives.
Let’s assume it’s 11AM…OK, go.
1. Set up a Google Adwords account and campaign- It’s free to set up (keywords are budget dependent), takes about an hour total: 15 minute setup and 45 minutes to enter keywords and tweak and ad or two. The best part, is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. You can track, measure and edit on the fly. In fact, Google will even help you do that with their Campaign Optimizer tool. Lunchtime…
2. Send a newsletter to your clients- There are lots of ways to do this. You may already have an in-house tool or subscribe to one. I like www.campaignmonitor.com, it’s simple to set up, and they have templates that you can use right now (not the prettiest, but they work). The only thing you need to do is set up the account, upload the permission-based list (sorry spammers) and insert the content. Don’t forget to include a call to action to track your efforts. Takes about 90 minutes, but there are also a ton of tools and robust features that allow for pretty deep customization/integration. We can talk about that later. But it’s already 2:30 PM, better get moving…
3. Set up a blog- Once again, lot’s of options here. But, if you are a beginner and have $5 per month, go with www.typepad.com – You can be up and running in 30 minutes. If you have something to say you can probably publish your first blog post in 15 minutes. Go back to add bells and whistles over the weekend…So, let’s say 45 minutes total. 3:15 PM…
4. Find out what RSS is- Don’t you hate it when someone throws out an acronym and you have no idea what it means? I do. Spend 15 minutes reading about RSS here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS – 3:30 PM
5. Keep up on what’s happening – Here are two sites that I use to keep me up to date on what’s happening in digital. Spend the last 90 minutes of your day delving into: Click Z – Internet Marketing Solutions for Marketers http://www.clickz.com/ and Emily Chang’s eHub http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub/ . Click Z is primarily focused on the business side of things; whereas eHub is geared toward new apps, web 2.0, and what the cool kids are doing…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: adwords, blogs, campaign optimizer, clickz, Digital marketing tools, ehub, email marketing, emily chang, Google, newsletters, rss, search
Hey, John.
Good stuff: thanks for the suggestions. I have a follow-up question and a comment for you:
(1) Why do you prefer Typepad to Blogger/Blogspot? The latter is free (or was when I signed up, anyway), and is pretty intuitive to use, I think.
(2) For getting up to speed and staying current, the place to start is a book called “Groundswell” by Bernoff and Li at Forrester Research. It’s one of the best-written and most relevant books about the digital space I’ve ever seen (and I used to sell books for a living).
Even though — given the lag time that’s built into the publishing process — “relevant book” is almost an oxymoron when it comes to all things digital, this one seems to have anticipated events that are percolating through the trade press today. And their spin-off blog (http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/) is full of great up-to-the-minute info, too….
Cheers,
Ken