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We all know what blind spots are. They are the areas around us that we can’t easily see while we’re cruising down the street — the spots that inconsiderate drivers tend to occupy just as we’re trying to change lanes.
It’s a dangerous phenomenon because even reasonably cautious drivers can be taken by surprise by another vehicle in the wrong place at the wrong time. You may have done everything right — checked the mirrors, turned on the blinker, etc. — yet suddenly you hear an angrily blaring horn from a car in the adjacent lane.
Does the concept of blind spots apply to us in marketing as well? Yes, indeed. We, too, are vulnerable to nasty surprises coming from areas just outside our field of vision.
The good news is that just as drivers can cope with blind spots by being aware of them, marketers can avoid financial disaster by making sure to peek into those zones that are only too easy to overlook. What follows are a few suggestions for staying safe in your lane as you enter the new decade.
Checking The Neighboring Lane: Assessing The Competition
What are those other guys on the road doing? As a marketer, you need to go beyond just taking a glance on occasion. You need to perform research. How many employees does your top competitor have? What is their annual revenue? What kinds of ad campaigns are they running?
There are analytical tools available that can provide key insights into your competitors, like their website traffic volume, but you should also make a personal visit to their online home. What are they doing that you aren’t? More to the point, what are they doing that you should be doing? For instance, if they have a blog filled with useful information and up-to-date news, you may want to consider launching the same kind of feature on your website.
Checking The Rearview Mirror: Assessing Performance Indicators
Naturally, you have to worry about what’s happening in your own lane as well. A big part of that effort involves tracking your key performance indicators (KPIs), which you probably are doing already. But remember, KPIs go beyond just revenues, marketing ROI and conversion rates, although those are certainly important.
If you wanted to do a deep dive into the world of KPIs, you could find literally hundreds of indicators to analyze. You don’t have to go that far, but it’s a good idea to explore some KPIs that many companies tend to ignore or downplay, such as:
• Bounce rates
• Shopping cart abandonment rates
• Open rates for marketing newsletters (how many people actually read them?)
• Video watch times
• Pages per site visit
• Average time on page
• Social media share rate
• Percentage of returning and new visitors
• Customer churn rate (how many people are abandoning your business?)
Some of these relatively underappreciated KPIs can point to serious problems that should be addressed.
Time For A Tune-Up: Next-Level User Experience
Websites, like cars, require tune-ups on a periodic basis. This is certainly an area where your KPIs can offer valuable insight, but be sure to check all facets of your site, not just those you can attach a number to. Analyze your conversion funnels, your keywords, your mobile-first design and everything else, so you can correct any deficiencies.
Here are a few specific suggestions:
As we enter the era of 5G networks, you can expect consumers to become increasingly impatient with slow-loading pages. Tweak your site images so they load promptly — or people will go elsewhere.
Another factor that is growing in importance is web accessibility. Your website should be configured to accommodate persons with visual disabilities and other impairments that may interfere with their ability to use your site. Otherwise, you’re leaving money on the table by alienating a significant portion of the public, and you could even expose yourself to legal liability. To avoid these headaches, you should familiarize yourself with the current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Getting Fully Loaded: Going Omnichannel
“Omnichannel marketing” may sound like buzzy corporate-speak, but it’s really an important trend you need to know about. You could conceive of it as the further evolution of multi-channel marketing, with which it is often confused. But while multi-channel marketing entails outreach on different platforms — social media, mobile devices, laptops, etc. — omnichannel marketing demands a coordinated approach where all these efforts are designed to augment one another, rather than merely operate independently at the same time.
This is a topic that calls for a more detailed discussion than we have room for here. The fact is, the “silo” approach to marketing — where every platform has a dedicated, autonomous department — may not work well with your omnichannel strategy. These departments should be able to share ideas and findings.
Adding Horsepower: Attributing Success
It’s not enough to succeed; you should know why you have succeeded. In other words, you must attribute your conversions properly. This may seem to be a simple matter, as Google Analytics tracks this metric for you by default. However, Google Analytics attributes conversions to the last action of the visitor who makes the conversion. As we all know, generating conversions is a multi-stage process. That’s why attributing conversions can be tricky, and why tools like marketing mix modeling (MMM) remain relevant.
Fortunately, you don’t even have to go outside Google Analytics for a solution. Analytics’ Multi-Channel Funnels reports give you a broader look at the steps your customers took before making that precious conversion.
Avoiding those annoying blind spots is an ongoing process that demands your continual attention. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, though, and with proper diligence, you should safely arrive at your destination in no time.
