Is your digital presence working for you and your practice?

Have you just invested in a new website or rebuild? Are you consistently investing in ads across social and online? Do you send out a regular newsletter via email?

All of this activity is fantastic for increasing your online presence but it’s not as simple as just plug and play when it comes to your digital marketing. When was the last time you reviewed all of these channels, the individual performance of them, and how they are helping new prospects find you?

It might be time to conduct a digital marketing audit. A digital marketing audit is a comprehensive review of your practice’s marketing efforts and can be used to analyse your current outputs to see what is working and what might be better invested elsewhere.

An audit would usually review your website, social media, email marketing, paid advertising and content marketing such as blogs. It is beneficial to conduct an audit regularly. Monthly is optimal especially for social media, emails and ads but website and content marketing can be done quarterly if you are short on time. Doing so will allow you to notice trends and find the best ‘marketing stack’ that works for your practice.

When you are conducting a digital marketing audit, here are some of the things you could review for each channel:

Website

• Performance and usability: Website speed, uptime and technical performance, user experience, layout, navigation bars;
• Accessibility: Compliance with accessibility standards and privacy standards, and its usability for visitors with disabilities;
• Bios: Review of all staff titles, images and biographies to ensure they are updated and consistent with current organisational chart;
• Title tags and meta descriptions: Keywords, URL structure, external and internal linking and headings;
• Security: Security measures, such as SSL certificates and password protection;
• Content: Content quality, relevance, and formatting of the website’s content, mobile friendliness; and
• Search engine optimization (SEO): Metadata, keywords, and other elements that can impact its visibility and ranking in search engine results.

Social Media

• Social media accounts: overall presence, quality and frequency of posts, engagement with followers, and use of advertising;
• Access and security: Who in the organisation has access to your social media accounts and their level of access, password and two-factor authentication security, Anyone who should no longer have access as they are no longer with the practice;
• Brand consistency: Branding elements, such as logos and tone of voice, across a business’s social media accounts to ensure consistency;
• Community management: Engagement with followers, including likes, comments, and shares; and
• Content strategy: Content strategy, including the types of content a business is sharing, the frequency of posting, and the performance of different types of content.

Email Marketing

• Email list: Size and segmentation of the email list, as well as the methods used to acquire email addresses, email bounces and unsubscribes;
• Email design: Design and formatting, including the use of images, layout, and branding elements;
• Email content: Quality, readability and skim-ability, relevance, and value of the content included in emails;
• Subject lines: Effectiveness of the subject lines used in terms of open rates and engagement;
• Call to action (CTA): Effectiveness of the CTAs used in terms of driving conversions;
• Email automation: Use of email automation, such as welcome emails and abandoned cart emails, and their effectiveness; and
• Email analytics: open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, to identify trends and areas for improvement.

Paid Advertising

• Copy: how clear the messaging is, its conciseness and a relevant call to action;
• Audience targeting: who are the ads targeting, how are they engaging with the ads and what segment/s of the audience are most engaged;
• Budget: allocation of budget across ads and campaigns;
• Visual: Is the ad visually attractive, is it consistent with the brands look and feel and tone of voice; and
• Ad analytics: click-through rates, conversion, heat maps, trends and areas of improvement.

Content Marketing

• Readability: length of the content, image, layout, acronyms or technical language and white space;
• Content: Content quality, relevance, and formatting of the website’s content;
• Search engine optimization (SEO): Metadata, keywords, and other elements that can impact its visibility and ranking in search engine results;
• Mobile friendliness: Design and performance on mobile devices; and
• Keywords: to support SEO and brand voice.

Understanding how your current digital marketing is performing will allow you to optimise, refine your strategy and remain at the forefront of the profession, potentially even setting you apart from your competitors. It may also even save you money.

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If you are interested in discussing your current business practices with an expert, our Practice Advisory Service or by referral, our Business Advisory Service may be a great place to start! You can either submit an expression of interest or enquire at ethics@qls.colm.au today.