GPS for Digital Marketing Campaigns

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GPS for Digital Marketing Campaigns

Sean Blog

By Sean Dowdall, LCI General Manager

Professional communicators usually have lots of stories to tell – I know I do.  The trick is getting the right people to listen and getting them to act.  One way to think of it is moving the audience from the story to the store.
Often with digital marketing, the story gets bad, or worse, no reviews – the main idea gets buried or lost.  Or, the main message finds an interested audience, but nobody can find the store – the call-to-action’s pathway isn’t clear or is just too strenuous to follow.
To solve for that I use a process I call Great Pathway Setting.  GPS builds an integrated and seamless user experience that helps boost results for communications efforts.  Here are the steps:

  1. Set goals – always the starting point – what does the desired end result look like? What happens in the store?
  2. Define messages – outline what is compelling, different, what need is met.
  3. Tell a story – it’s like cooking, add the messages, news, some examples, interesting anecdotes, some spice and you have a good story.
  4. Map the experience – start at the beginning where people will get exposed to the story. Where do they go from there?  How do they get to the end goal point?
  5. Keep it simple – this is critical in digital marketing. The top line of a paid search ad has to be easy to understand and compelling with only split-second viewing.  Flowery marketing copy can come later and be used in other places, but GPS recommends another route to keep the audience on track and not get lost.
  6. Place markers – landing pages can be effective stepping stones from the story to the store. Jumping from a paid search ad to a website’s homepage is often simply not enough.
  7. Track, analyze and adjust – observe how effective different points along the path are and where there are places that can be adjusted to get more of your audience to the store.

I’ve seen GPS work with astounding results. So, come on over here – I’ve got a story to tell you. Please share with me your GPS stories by commenting or send me a note at [email protected].
 
 

5 thoughts on “GPS for Digital Marketing Campaigns”

  1. Sean – great tips. It’s a simple thing, but business pros often forget to start at the very beginning, which is always, “What’s your goal?” And “Test and Learn” is a great way to describe the process. There is no silver bullet, but with the goal in mind and a strategic plan in place, you’ll be successful. Cheers, David

  2. I also find it helpful to revisit the goals between each of the consecutive steps as it’s easy to get off track with big ideas flying around the board room. Thanks for the post, Sean!

  4. Sean, thank you for the helpful post. I especially appreciate your point in #5 – “Keep it simple.” Consumers are inundated with more marketing messages than ever before, and I’ve always found that the most effective online ads are the ones that are straightforward.

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