Digital Marketing is all about progression – finding ways to gain website visitors, turn them into leads, and then convince them to be customers. Without forward momentum, you’ll have a stagnant sales funnel that’s little more than an online billboard.

The number of moving parts required to manage a digital campaign can be staggering. When you consider your website, the emails you need to send, your Social Media presence, and all the other various elements you have to deal with, it’s all too easy to let some essentials fall through the cracks.

To help you make sure your digital marketing has the underpinning it needs to succeed, we’ve put together a short list of some often overlooked elements of online campaigns.

1. Buyer Personas

Knowing who you’re marketing to and what their pain points are is the essential first step to any campaign, but you’d be surprised how many businesses skip it. To be fair, it’s a time-consuming step, but the ROI for not skipping out on could be significant.

Here’s why:

A built out persona will include a detailed profile of your target audience’s challenges, background, income range, and other specifics that give insight into their lives. All of this information will help your marketing team create content meant to resonate with your potential customers. The success of all of your marketing efforts will rise and fall on the accuracy of your personas, so taking the time to get it right is essential.

Work with your current customers, your marketing team, and the sales savvy individuals in your organization to pinpoint your organization’s buyer personas. Don’t be afraid to spend time on this part of your campaign.

2. Optimized Meta Data

Meta data is one of those pieces of a marketing campaign that sounds scary but is very simple.

When you see a search engine results page, you’ll notice linked titles, URLs, and a small bit of copy underneath. That is meta data. It’s a batch of information that gives Search Engines and their users a brief overview of that page of your website. The better your data is, the better you’ll rank.

In general, meta data is broken down into the title, a description, your URL, and alt text for any images on the page.

Your meta title should be an accurate explanation of the content on your page, usually 50-60 characters in length. Meta descriptions give a more in-depth but still concise look at the material that you cover, like a preview or overview of your page. While they don’t have a direct correlation to SEO, they do help you get more clicks. You also want to make sure your URL contains your focus keyword(s) and is easy to share.

You don’t have to be an SEO expert to start laying the groundwork for optimization. Simple techniques like the ones here will set you up for success.

3. A Lead Management Strategy

Leads are a landmark of digital marketing, but it’s not your ultimate objective. You need to make sales. Do you have a strategy in place that helps guide your leads further into your sales funnel?

If not, it’s worth taking some time to consider. The Buyer’s Journey through the awareness, consideration, and decision phases takes time, but it won’t happen on your timeline if you’re not actively trying to push leads through it.

To that end, start thinking of creative ways to push leads through the Buyer’s Journey. Simple steps like powerful CTAs, valuable offers, and a sincere “thank you” can you stand out to a new lead. Simplified forms that capture pertinent information will help reduce clutter and sharpen your messaging. Keep personas in mind as you consider what your audience needs to see to take the next step.

Spend time documenting ways to move leads through your sales funnel. They’ll convert much more quickly and have a higher value to you if you do.

If you’re worried about the state of your digital marketing, we’re always happy to help point you in the right direction. Download our Ultimate Marketing Guide and see how your efforts are stacking up!