Tools Marketing Tools for Marketing in a Down Economy
While economic downturns and even the dreaded "R" word (recession) are a natural part of long-term businesses cycles, we are extemely fortunate that today's marketer has a significant number of tools that can help them successful market their business through downturns. These marketing tools can be divided into four primary segments.
Know Thyself - Metric Measurement Tools
First, the most important part of marketing in a downturn is having a solid base of analytics that every marketer in the company can review and analyze. In the past, web analytics were oftentimes segregated to the IT department which would disseminate information that they deemed to be important to the marketing department. Those days are long gone for the average marketer in large part thanks to Google Analytics.
While there are a large number of great tools available to compete with Google Analtyics, it is hard for the average marketer to beat their price (FREE). However, now that we all have access to the data that is only the beginning. The key is understanding what those numbers mean, how they compare against other sites, and finally what specific action items can help you produce a better result.
At Zephoria we have a number of clients that engage us just to review their analytic data and provide some perspective and strategies for ways of improving the user experience. Regardless of the size of the organization, there can be huge benefits to be found in having an outside set of eyes provide their perspective on your data.
Maximized Exposure - Site Promotion Tools
While search engine optimization and marketing is discussed in greater detail at our consulting site, there are two tools that ever marketer must make sure is properly being used by their organization. These are those low-hanging fruit items that you just can't ignore.
Google Webmaster Tools - The most vital part of this excellent set of tools is the Sitemap tool. This allows you to provide Google with updates on your website content.
- Sitemap Creation Tool - XML-Sitemaps.com (a free service)
Other search engines now also similiar tools. Let us know if you like to learn more about how to maximize your online exposure.
Competitive Marketing Tools
Three, you have tools that can help you better understand your competition. A strategic use of these tools can provide you some amazing insights on ways that you can develop a strategic advantage or also to explore new marketing opportunities.
Compete - This valuable tool not only helps you analyze your competition, but also to understand what are the most important components in their marketing strategies. In other words, what keywords are producing the best results. Essentially, you can learn where the competition is strong and also where there are strategic opportunities.
Alexa - This well established online benchmarking tool can provide you with some significant insights to the popularity of a website, where they are getting their links, and also what are other sites that people view after going to the site.
Quantcast - Besides also providing insights to the data discussion above, Quantcast also can help to create a demographic picture
Change Tracking Tools - Trace a Website's Evolution
Four, one of the most underutilized tools availabe on the web is a service call the the Internet Archive or the WayBackMachine which can provide you a glimpse of how a site has changed over time. We strategically use this tool to help web development clients trace how the competition has changed over time. In many cases, you can see a specific strategy that has consistently worked and others that have been quickly discarded.
While it may seem counter-intuitive to spend time reviewing the past, it can oftentimes lead to better and more effective future decisions.
Also there are tools that can help you track whenever a website has been updated. To learn more about these software applications just let us know.