Inventory Your E-Assets

As you kick-off 2010 and look for ways to grow your business and extend your customer and prospect relationships, review the role of your electronic assets. Which online marketing tactics are the most effective for your business? How will you determine each one’s success?

1. Website Content Audit

Do you have current company and product information on your website? Do you have outdated seminars listed or old promotional offers? Check any references to employees to ensure the names are correct. How about phone numbers and addresses? Are these accurate?

2. Website Usage Audit

Review your website logs or reports from the last year. Look for trends in the data. Are you giving your customers what they are looking for? What sections are your website visitors reading most? Which products are visitors reading about? Are there disconnects between key product lines and low website readership? If yes, you may need to improve the information you offer or identify that the market has shifted and is looking for different information. This information also can help drive strategic business decisions.

3. Customer Lists & Email Marketing

Where are your customer lists? Do your sales people have lists saved on their computers? Do you have one spot to go to find all customers? Do you have your customers’ email addresses? Are you delivering the right messages to the right people at the right time? As you plan for 2010, make it a strategic objective to update your customer lists and their contact information. Updated customer lists and effective email tactics are key assets for your business and your future sales.

4. Search Engine Rankings & Online Business Listings

If major search engines don’t know you, your customers can’t find you. Where is your website listed on the search engines? When people search for solutions and products that your business offers, does your company website appear? Does your business appear in the various business listings or local listing sites online? If yes, this is a tremendous online asset. How do you plan to protect this positioning for 2010? If no, what do you plan to do to make your company website “found” when people search?

5. Social Media

Are your customers or prospects using social media? If yes, which one? Are they on LinkedIn? Facebook? Twitter? As you inventory the possible online places to market, it is important to understand all of the places your customers “hang out.” You then need to evaluate which ones are priorities for your business, how they can be tailored to your company’s needs and capabilities and how their success can be measured.

As a general rule, you need to start with a website as a solid foundation, add email marketing for regular ongoing communications to customers and then build out from there with things like online advertising, webinars, social media and more.