Measure and review results
Unfortunately, web marketing comes with few guarantees. The principal reason for this is that search engine companies like Google can (and do) change their business model from time to time. In an effort to improve results for their user group (people searching, not web site owners), they alter their search algorithm, and each time the result shuffles the deck chairs on the Titanic – i.e., your website gets reshuffled in the pack. Google did this twice in 2011: once to deliver personalised results to people logged into a Google property and once to favour “freshness” i.e. changed content.
Similarly, an email newsletter may have low deliverability (despite our best efforts efforts to avoid blacklisting by e-mail providers), and that would be out of our control. Also, a breach of the terms and conditions of a social network site like Facebook can cause your content to be removed without recourse.
KPIs
But wait… what we can commit to are KPIs.
We will define key performance indicators (KPIs), just as you would for any of your employees, to allow you to monitor our progress and measure ROI.
In the first year these may include indicators such as…
- Add 25 people to the email mailing list each month
- Find 5 new Twitter followers each month
- Add 5 inbound links each month
- Create 2 new blog posts each month
…. here we are building up your digital presence and audience, and setting the scene.
In the second year, the results will start to be more concrete, and so too the KPIs.
Second year indicators may include…
- increase in monthly sales by an average 2% each month, or 24% compounded per annum
- increase average dollar sales by 10%
Because the needs of, and results for, a website will change over time, we will negotiate KPIs in advance for each twelve month period.
