So we have all started the new year with the knowledge that it’s going to be a tough one!
The global economic downturn has almost certainly affected us all both personally and professionally in some way.
Last year we got some great reactions to some of our posts on the Analytics Blog like:
Don’t Be Overwhelmed By Data
12 Steps To Effective Online Budget Allocation
7 Biggest Mistakes of Web Analytics
Are You Doing Anything Differently During The Downturn?
On reflection, maybe a lot of the content on how to weather these financially challenging waters is too concentrated on what we shouldn’t be doing, as opposed to what we should.
A new year’s resolution is all about promising yourself to do something differently for the good of yourself or the good of others.
But do any of our commitments include doing something professional in the workplace?
Thinking about how we could work differently, or work smarter, must pay dividends in the long run surely?
Many conversations I’m hearing are about strategies to do more with less.
How much money can we make if we don’t hire any more people? How many leads can we generate with a cut in marketing budget? How many more clicks can I get if I lower my CPCs but tweak my ad copy or landing page?
Ironically, you could call these questions optimization initiatives!
Along with “return on investment”, “optimization” has to be one of the biggest buzz words in the online advertising industry, but it takes a cataclysmic financial storm for companies to start asking some hard questions about how to make more with less and increase those profits.
Luckily we, as marketers, have the tools to help understand the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns. We have the data to help us make better decisions about where we spend our leaner budgets, and we have access to the knowledge that will empower us to get a better ROI.
But it comes down to application!
The gym local to our office in London is offering all sorts of incentives to join up.
“A New Year A New You!”
Well like any new training plan, in order to get fit, lose some of the fat, be more agile, feel better and generally positively re-invent yourself, you need to start off slowly with small steps.
Launching into pumping 100lbs and running a marathon straight off is only going to end in injury and tears.
So this year when it comes to your marketing skills, why not attempt to try something different or learn a little something new every day?
It might be to go into the reporting suite of whatever analytics package you use and try running some alternative data to see what valuable insight that might throw up.
You may want to knock off some of those tedious tasks that have been languishing on your to-do list since last year.
Or you may want to spend 10 minutes watching a product tutorial video or listening to a podcast over your lunch break that might give you an extra edge when you next take a look at your conversion report.
Although this year will be difficult, there’s plenty we all can learn to give us that momentum to get through the next 12 months successfully.
Like going to the gym, we just have to be disciplined!
Cheers
Mel