As the importance of digital marketing grows within the association world, so does the necessity to learn how to evaluate the success of your efforts. A marketing audit is an assessment that is performed to analyze your current marketing strategies. The goal of a marketing audit is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing efforts and help you devise a plan to improve effectiveness and performance.
You’ll want to start by auditing your website. Your website is your most important digital asset; it serves as your content hub and anchors your digital brand. You can begin by evaluating the overall design of your site. Is the navigation easy to use, are the colors balanced, is the imagery appropriate, is there a quick load time, can it be viewed correctly on mobile devices? Then move on to evaluate the content. You’ll want to assess the keywords used and identify contact information or content that needs to be updated. Lastly, you’ll want to take a look at the analytics of your site: see how many people are visiting, what pages are most popular, which pages have the highest bounce, and other user behaviors that Google Analytics will report back to you.
The next item on your audit checklist should be your social media. List out each platform that you use. Next to each one, list how many followers you have, your engagement rate, and how often you post to that platform. It’s important to see where your audience lives and how they engage with you. You should identify what content resonates with your audience whether it's a reminder on testing deadlines for an upcoming certification, pictures from your annual meeting, or a post on a webinar. Take a moment to review your social profiles, too. Ensure your logo and contact information is consistent across all platforms.
The third digital marketing platform to evaluate is email marketing. This involves looking at open rates and click rates. Identify the number of people that open your emails and the number of people who click on your links for more information. A good number to compare yourself to is the industry standard open rate of 22%. If you’re above that, that’s great, and if you’re below that, there may be some work to do. The health of your email list is important too. Unsubscribes, bounced emails or spam reports will negatively affect your sender score.
As a final note, it’s important to keep tabs on how much resource you are investing into each platform. If one of your volunteers is spending hours on social media or a newsletter, and it's not getting many views, it can definitely feel like a waste of time. Make sure there is a balance between the amount of work you invest vs. audience engagement. The more comprehensive your audit is in every aspect of your marketing efforts will only result in better practices, increased engagement, and more return on your investments.
If you need a little extra help, partner with AH to fully audit your marketing assets! To learn more, download our Digital Marketing Toolkit or contact us at inquire@ahint.com.
