Is your digital marketing platform today-proof?

There's a lot of talk right now about making sure your digital marketing platform is 'future proof'.

We see a lot of New Zealand companies agonising over tenders & capital funding submissions to future-proof their digital marketing investment, all the while the clock is ticking & opportunities for today are lost. The opinion here is that with the current exponential rate of change, is ‘future-proofing’ even a viable goal in this day and age?

So, our advice is forget about the future for just a moment and look at what you’ve got right now.  Is your digital platform today-proof? The digital consumer waits for no-one.

Here’s our pick of 5 things your digital marketing platform should be delivering for your business today. If it's not, forget about the future - get these done, right now.

1. Insight:  Relevant data about your digital customers

Check your current digital marketing platform reporting - is it giving you the right information to support business decisions? How are customers interacting with you? Where are they dropping off? Do you have accurate benchmarks to measure this against?

2.  Visibility: SEO performance

If Google can’t find you, no-one can.  There is no excuse for poorly optimised web presence today – and Google’s new algorithms mean that it is an ongoing job. If you’re in a highly competitive product/service category (one would ask, who isn’t?) then your number one advertising investment must be Google Adwords, which goes hand-in-hand with a good content creation strategy.

3.  Mobile usability: Optimal cross-device user experiences

Not only has the world gone digital, it's gone mobile.  Customers are interacting with you on multiple devices, whether you’re optimised for them or not. Companies who have responsive interface designs and who’ve designed user experiences with the mobile customer in mind, will win in this landscape.

4.  Social monitoring: Social media listening, presence and conversation

Social media is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean every company needs a Facebook page. Different social media channels are right for different purposes, but paying attention to social media is necessary for every business. Just because you’re not an active participant in social media, doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about you. There are many different social media monitoring tools on the market now that can give you insight into the conversations people are having about your business.

5.  Active brand engagement: Rich content creation and disbursement

Back in the day, everyone touted on about ‘Content is King’.  To be honest, I don’t think anyone really understood this at the time, and barrelled on creating meaningless content that no-one ever really read.  BUT, the funny thing is, that meaningless content is now so well-indexed by Google, anyone who has been through a new site launch can see that ditching old content can be sacrificial in the eyes of Google. Today, developing, placing, and connecting relevant, rich content across all digital channels – not just the ones you own - is key to reaching audiences and providing brand engagement. And Google is on to it as well – the more content you have across the web that is connected and relevant, the more your rankings will improve.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in 2019 and has been revamped and updated for accurate relevancy.