Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators

by | Apr 6, 2023 | Analytics Reporting, Digital Advertising, Digital Marketing

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial aspects of any marketing strategy and play a vital role in tracking the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing campaigns. They are quantitative values that help you measure your progress towards your marketing goals and provide valuable insights into areas for improvement. In this blog, we will dive into what KPIs are, how to create them, and how to measure them to drive results.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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What Are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)??

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How to Create KPIs for Your Marketing Strategy

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How to Measure KPIs

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Tips For Creating And Measuring KPIs

What are key performance indicators (KPIs)?

KPIs are metrics that help to measure the success of your marketing efforts. They are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) values that are used to track the performance of your marketing activities. KPIs can help you identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions about your marketing strategy.

Examples of KPIs in marketing include website traffic, conversion rate, customer acquisition cost, email open rates, and social media engagement. They can be used to measure the success of specific campaigns, as well as the overall performance of your marketing activities.

How to Create KPIs for Your Marketing Strategy

  1. Determine your marketing goals.
    Examples include increasing website traffic, improving customer engagement, or boosting sales.
  2. Choose the right metrics.
    Your KPIs should align with your goals and help you track progress towards them For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, you might choose to track website visits, page views, and bounce rates.
  3. Select relevant KPIs.
    When selecting KPIs, it’s important to choose metrics that are relevant and meaningful to your marketing goals. Choose KPIs that directly correlate with your goals and can easily track the progress of your marketing efforts.
  4. Set target values.
    Set target values for each of your KPI’s. This will help you measure progress and determine if you are on track to achieve your marketing goals.

How to Measure KPIs

  1. Monitor regularly:
    To effectively measure your KPIs, you need to monitor them on a regular basis. This could be daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the KPI and the frequency of your marketing activities.
  2. Use analytics tools:
    There are various analytics tools available to help you measure your KPIs. Google Analytics is a popular tool that can help you track website traffic, conversion rates, and other metrics. Other tools, such as email marketing software and social media management tools, can also be used to track KPIs specific to those channels.
  3. Review and adjust:
    Regularly reviewing your KPIs is important to ensure you are on track to meet your marketing goals. If you are not seeing the results you want, adjust your marketing strategy, and continue monitoring your KPIs to see if there is improvement.

Tips for Creating and Measuring KPIs

  1. Keep KPIs simple.
    It’s important to keep your KPIs simple and easy to understand. Complex metrics can be difficult to measure and interpret, which can hinder your ability to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy.
  2. Focus on relevant metrics:
    When selecting KPIs, focus on metrics that are relevant to your marketing goals and provide valuable insights into the success of your marketing campaigns.
  3. Automate data collection:
    Automating data collection can help to streamline the process of measuring your KPIs and save time. There are a variety of tools available to help you automate data collection, including Google Analytics and marketing automation software.
  4. Interpret data correctly:
    It’s important to interpret your KPI data correctly to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy. Take the time to understand the data and what it means for your marketing efforts. Don’t rely on one KPI to make decisions; instead, look at a variety of KPIs to get a comprehensive view of your marketing performance.
  5. Collaborate with other teams:
    Marketing KPIs often impact other teams, such as sales and customer service. Collaborating with these teams can provide valuable insights into how your marketing efforts are impacting other areas of the business.
  6. Update KPIs regularly:
    As your marketing goals and strategies evolve, it’s important to update your KPIs to ensure they are still relevant and aligned with your marketing efforts. Regularly reviewing and updating your KPIs can help to ensure they continue to provide valuable insights into your marketing performance.

By creating SMART KPIs, regularly monitoring and interpreting data, and collaborating with other teams, you can drive results and make informed decisions about your marketing strategy.

By using KPIs, you can also measure the impact of your marketing efforts, track progress towards your goals, and identify areas for improvement. This information can help you to adjust your marketing strategy to ensure you are getting the best results possible. So, take the time to create and measure KPIs to help you drive results and achieve your marketing goals.

If you need any help creating or analyzing your company’s KPIs, feel free to contact us at hello@rootandroam!

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Choosing a Graphic Designer

Choosing a Graphic Designer

by | Dec 6, 2021 | Digital Advertising, Digital Marketing, Graphic Design, Publications

Choosing a Graphic Designer – Quality graphic design is a vital element of your business. A quality graphic designer can help your company’s visibility, sophistication, efficiency, and desirability over the competition. It is essential to stand out effectively with your products and services in the marketplace, so it is essential to choose a quality graphic designer who can meet your needs.

5 factors to consider when choosing a graphic designer

1. Skills

It is important that the graphic designer is on top of the latest design, marketing, and Web trends. Knowledge is power, and a quality graphic designer will be able to apply their knowledge to help your company succeed. Another element in their skill set should be efficiency in the latest design software. The more efficient and knowledgeable they are in these programs, the more confident you can be, knowing they are using the best software to create great designs.

2. Experience

No matter if you are choosing a freelancer or design firm, industry experience is also important. A reputable graphic designer will always be up to speed on the latest strategies and best practices. A quality graphic designer or firm should be able to present their work experience to you. This can come in the form of a presentation of their portfolio or customer testimonials.

3. Portfolio

A strong portfolio can give you an idea of the designer’s sense of style, capabilities, and whether they are a good fit for the projects you need. Look for work that shows freshness, creativity, and attention to detail.

4. References

If a designer is able to provide you with references or testimonials from clients they have worked with successfully, this is a good indicator of a positive attitude and dedication to presenting quality, professional design to your business.

5. Personality/Professionalism

A quality graphic designer will take pride in the relationships they form with a client. They should be responsive, knowledgeable, and active listeners. You should get a good sense that they are on your team, consistent, and are understandable to your company’s vision.

Not all designers are created equal. With these five factors, choosing a quality graphic designer can be a long, but worthwhile, process. Adding a quality graphic designer to your design and marketing efforts will not only improve your brand identity but will also help you stand out against the competition.

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    What are hashtags? Why should you use them?

    What are hashtags? Why should you use them?

    by | Sep 24, 2021 | Digital Advertising, Digital Marketing, Root & Roam Blog, Social Media

    When putting together your social media strategy, you should always consider the tools available to help you meet your goals. A popular tool for over a decade has been the famous hashtag. Hashtags are powerful tools that can help your target audience find you organically across all social media platforms. Hashtags are valuable for every brand in every niche when used correctly. 

    The pound symbol (originally intended to represent numbers) is now a piece of your social media marketing strategy. In 2007, Chris Messina, Product Designer, Product Therapist, and Public Speaker, came up with the idea to group tweets using the symbol. That is when the hashtag was born. Now, more than fourteen years later, social media marketers, influencers, and business owners obsess over choosing the perfect set of hashtags for every social media post. Our team at Root & Roam has created this hashtag guide to help you decipher through the thousands of hashtags in existence and choose the right ones for your brand.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

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    What are hashtags and why you should use them

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    How to choose hashtags

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    How to use hashtags

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    Key Takeaways

    THE BASICS OF HASHTAGS

    We now know the history of hashtags, but what is a hashtag exactly? A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the pound symbol. They don’t contain spaces or special characters such as the asterisk or dollar symbol. Hashtags may contain numbers and or emojis. 

    (Example: #howtousehashtags, #hastagguide2021laughing)

    Hashtags are a piece of the pie that help make your social media account(s) successful. Hashtags can help you use the algorithm to your advantage by getting your content to more news feeds of current and potential followers, ultimately increasing your reach.

    How To Choose Hashtags

    Choosing the correct hashtag for your post is the key to a successful hashtag strategy. The hashtags you use should be relevant to your brand and the content of each post.

    Your social media budget also plays a part in selecting hashtags. Hashtags that already have thousands of posts are going to have a higher competition level. You will need to post multiple times per week or even per day to stay at the top of the hashtags news feed. Just like any other newsfeed, a hashtags newsfeed features the latest post first. If you are working with a small social media budget, it is best to use hashtags with lower posting rates to be competitive. However, be cautious of hashtags with low posting rates. Hashtags with less than a few hundred posts total are likely new or dead hashtags with very few followers. Using such small hashtags would not be effective for reaching your goals. 

    The process of choosing hashtags should commence when you begin creating the content for your post. Use this list as a guide of things to consider, before settling on a hashtag:

    Branding in hashtags

    You want the hashtags you choose to reflect your specific niche. For example, it does not make sense to use #shoetrends when you are trying to market massage services. Spamming hashtags is a sure way to get your account flagged. A flagged account could result in your page getting banned temporarily or permanently.

    Hashtags to help you reach your social media goals

    You will need to consider what the post is intended to do before selecting the hashtags. Ask yourself these questions:

    • Am I trying to sell a product or service?
    • Am I trying to entertain viewers with fun content?
    • Am I trying to get viewers to sign up for something?
    • What would I like to gain from this post?

    Relevant content in hashtags

    A social media post includes the caption and the visual element (photo, video, or graphic). If the post is about your latest summer coffee flavor, you might want to use a hashtag like #summercoffeeflavor to maintain relevance to the content or to be found by people searching for new summer coffee flavors.

    Holidays or Special Events Hashtags

    If the social media post is about your upcoming holiday sale, include hashtags for the specific holiday. Pay attention, as some hashtags contain a date. i.e. #christmas2010

    A rule of thumb is to begin using holiday hashtags between 60 and 90 days prior to the holiday. For larger holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, you will want to begin using the hashtags sooner. Major holiday hashtags will be heavily used by many platform users within the month of the holiday.

    Once you have answered all of the above statements, you will begin searching for the hashtags. There are many tools available to help you search for hashtags. One that we like to use at Root & Roam is the Key Words Everywhere plugin. This tool has free and paid features. It downloads directly to your browser and gives clean instructions for set up. Once you have completed the setup, you will find the hashtag symbol in the upper right corner of your screen when you log into Instagram on your desktop or laptop computer. Click the symbol and begin researching a term or phrase to find all of the available hashtags with their statistics.

    The most straightforward method is to log in to the desired platform that you will be using the hashtags on, go to the search bar, type “#” followed by a word or phrase relevant to your post or brand. The platform will direct you to a list of hashtags related to your search. From here, you will need to search through each hashtag until you find the right one(s). Continue this process until you are satisfied with the hashtags that you have chosen. Note: some social media platforms limit the number of hashtags used in a single post. Others have character limits per post as well. Always do your research on each social media platform you choose to work with before posting any content. 

    Hashtags best practices to start with are:

    • 1 – 2 hashtags on Facebook
    • 3 – 4 hashtags on Instagram posts
    • 0 – 2 hashtags on Linkedin
    • 3 – 4 hashtags on Pinterest
    • 2 – 3 hashtags on TikTok
    • 2 hashtags on Twitter

    There are many different recommendations regarding the use of hashtags on different platforms. Ultimately it all depends on your social media goals and budget. It is always okay to push the boundaries and find what works best for your brand.

    How To Use Hashtags

    Now that you have chosen your hashtags, there are a few ways you can include them in your post. The most common method of using hashtags is to drop them at the end of the caption. Another way is to add the #hashtag in the body of your caption, as we did here. Instagram allows you to include all of your hashtags in the first comment. We recommend using this method if you are using a lot of hashtags to keep the caption reader-friendly. 

    You will want to use hashtags heavily for some social media platforms and selectively for other platforms depending on your social media budget. Hashtags, when used correctly, will put your brand in front of new viewers by targeting a specific interest relevant to your brand. This leads to new followers on your social media account and potentially new customers for your business. All without the use of paid advertising.

    Remember to continuously engage with and nurture your newly obtained audience to prevent losing them in the future. Your social media goals and objectives will continue to change over time as your brand grows. Hashtag research along with many other audience obtaining factors are a continuous revolving door. Starting your hashtag journey and maintaining it properly will serve your brand well indefinitely.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    A few key takeaways to remember when using hashtags:

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    Only use relevant hashtags

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    Do your hashtag research

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    When used correctly, hashtags are great tools to help you reach your target audience organically

    Are you ready to increase your organic reach on social media? Our team is here to help take your brand to the next level. Click to start using hashtags in your social media strategy.

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    What Are Heading Tags and Why You Should Use Them?

    What Are Heading Tags and Why You Should Use Them?

    by | Jun 29, 2021 | Analytics Reporting, Audit, Creative Services, Digital Advertising, Digital Marketing, Local SEO, SEO, SEO Strategy, Social Media, Traditional SEO, Website

    It’s hard to believe at times, but the internet has rules. There are protocols and conventions that, when followed, tend to make things easier on all of us. They also make the content we create more accessible to more people! One of the foremost jobs of a digital marketer is knowing these rules and knowing how to use them to do better work for their clients. Heading tags fall under this category. This post aims to explain what heading tags are, why they’re important, as well as how they function.

    What are HTML heading tags?

    Heading tags serve several different purposes.

    Let’s start with the content creator or the web designer, the person writing and determining each heading tag. Here, heading tags act similarly to an outline of the content being created. They establish how the information and the content surrounding that information are to be structured. 

    To search engines such as Google or Bing, heading tags act like labels or signs. They help point search engines to the specific places within web pages to quickly locate the content that people are searching for. Heading tags inform the search engine robots about the hierarchy of the information that they’re processing – a heading tag helps delineate what is the most important content and where it is located. 

    Finally, to someone visiting a website to read the information or content, heading tags are topic signifiers and points of interest – by reading the “What are HTML heading tags?” above the previous paragraph, a reader can easily determine what the overall topic being presented will be and can deduct what to expect in the post. Heading tags are also an important accessibility feature that helps accessibility software like screen readers parse and categorize the most important information on a page. 

    heading tags are also an important accessibility feature

    How are heading tags structured? How many heading tags are there?

    Heading tags are numerical, starting with H1 to denote the most important section heading. This is the heading that a search engine gives the most weight. Most HTML (the markup that most pages are built with) supports six levels of headings, with H6 denoting the heading with the least importance. Within that markup language they look like this:
    heading tags are also an important accessibility feature
    But what about the page’s title? The title tag is used to denote what your page is titled, and it’s what displays as the preview for your page in search engine results and social media snippets. The page title tag is not the same as a heading tag, but a page title tag and the H1 tag are often mirrored. This is largely because best practices have shown that Google typically gives more authority to pages that are formatted in this way because it views those pages as being more accurate.

    Prevent inaccurate article titles

    We use our crawler to scan your article pages and determine the correct headlines for your content. Follow our best practices to help us display the correct title from your content:

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    Place the title of your article in a prominent spot above the article body, such as in an <h1> tag.
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    Match the title of your article page (in the HTML <title> tag) to the title of your article (in <h1> or equivalent).

    Google HTML Rules

    Heading tags and SEO best practices

    Although using heading tags alone may not have a substantial impact on overall SEO from the standpoint of a search engine (the keywords used on each page take precedence), it does have a substantial impact on the readability of your content. When utilized properly, this impacts the time that is spent on a page and the overall webpage traffic. Both have a substantial impact on your search rankings. When correctly utilized alongside your page title, meta-description, and target keywords, your heading tags play a key role in improving search rankings for those specific keywords. A few best practices directly from Google:
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    Match the anchor text that points to your article in your section pages to your article/page title.

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    Avoid using the article title, or a substring of the title, as an active hyperlink on your article page.

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    Do not include a date or time in your article title.

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    Article titles should be at least 10 characters and between 2 and 22 words.

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    Do not include a leading number in the anchor text of the title to make sure your article title displays properly on mobile devices.

    A few more SEO specific best practices include:
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    Use only one H1 tag per page.

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    Keywords should be aligned by the rank of importance corresponding to your tag hierarchy.

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    Keep your heading tags concise and keyword specific.

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    H1 headings should be approximately twice as large as your body text.

    Why should you use heading tags?

    There’s plenty of reasons to use heading tags, and it mainly comes down to structuring your content in a way that makes it coherent and legible for every interaction with them. They are also an important part of your overall on-page SEO efforts, especially when you consider how it impacts your entire audience’s ability to find and digest the information you put out there. A quick summary of why using heading tags is important:

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    Heading tags structure your content

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    They help make your content more accessible

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    They are an important part of SEO best practices

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    They enhance readability and improve accessibility

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    They play a part in enhancing the overall user experience

    Here at Root & Roam, we have a team of passionate people with decades of experience utilizing all aspects of available technology to help communicate value to customers. Our company has experience working with all forms of media through all available channels, platforms, and mediums. Our mission is to help businesses connect with customers, and we take pride in our ability to do just that. We know we can help you grow your business, so schedule a free marketing consultation to see what we can do for you today.
    Determining how to structure your page and its headers to best benefit your business and its goals can be tricky. Root and Roam has a passionate team with experience in Content Creation and Web development to help.
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    Owned Earned and Paid Media

    Owned Earned and Paid Media

    by | May 11, 2021 | Analytics Reporting, Digital Advertising, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, SEO Strategy, Social Media, Traditional Marketing

    Owned, Earned, And Paid Media: The Digital Marketing Trifecta

     

    You may have heard the terms “Owned, Earned, and Paid Media” tossed around in the past and could be concerned that they are new types of media that you must have to optimize and create a well-rounded online presence for your business. However, there’s a strong likelihood that you already have developed and are using at least a few of these types of media already!

    Owned, earned, and paid media all play a strong role in your company’s SEO, and all work together to provide a clear overview of your company to a customer. Let’s dive into the differences between earned, owned, and paid media.

    Owned Media

     

    Your owned media is just that – any content or platforms your brand owns. If you have complete control over the media, you “own” it. Owned media is great because you control the entirety of the messaging and branding. The more places your brand can be found online, and the more engaged on these platforms your audience is, the better your website will rank on a search engine results page (SERP).

    Examples of your owned media include:

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    Website

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    Ebooks

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    Blogs

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    Podcasts

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    Apps

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    Social media accounts

    Owned media allows your brand to shine. If you have a branding kit, make sure that you’re referring to it consistently to so your messaging, brand personality, color scheme, and fonts are all on-brand. It’s important to show consistency across all of your owned platforms to increase your brand awareness.

    Whether you’re working to develop all your owned media platforms or you’re continuing to grow them, now is the time to do an audit.  Make a list of all of the owned media your company has, and make sure that you’re utilizing them all to their fullest potential. This is a prime way to get seen by current and potential customers, so make sure you are putting your best foot forward and providing up-to-date and engaging for your audience. Create a plan to monitor and engage with your social media accounts. If you have a social media account you’re not currently using, consider whether or not you have the bandwidth to re-engage with this platform.

    Root and Roam Tip: There are many types of owned media, but you do not have to use them all. Focus on the owned media platforms that resonate with your audience.

    Earned Media

     

    Earned media is any mention your brand has earned through work of your own. You’ve heard before that “nothing good comes easy,” and your earned media is a prime example. Over time, your earned media grows exponentially. Putting in the hard work to develop customer relationships, loyalty, and provide excellent customer service pay off for you with earned media.

    Examples of earned media include:

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    Blog posts about your product or service others have written

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    Press mentions

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    Online reviews

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    Social mentions

    It may feel uncomfortable, but the fastest way to gain earned media is by asking. Check in with your most loyal customers and ask them to write a review on your Google My Business page, an online business review site, or even your social media platforms. You can do this in person or through an email.

    Root and Roam Tip: It may feel easier to ask a customer to leave a review in exchange for a discount or small token of appreciation. Resist this temptation. Doing so can inadvertently be considered to be bribery. Your company is great and your organic reviews will show this!

    Paid Media

     

    Your paid media is any content or brand mention you’ve paid to have. They may fall anywhere on the cost spectrum, from just a few dollars to the largest paid campaign that you could dream up.

    Example of Paid Media Include:

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    Google search ads

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    Streaming ads

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    Google display ads

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    Banner ads on a website

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    Network display ads

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    Paid articles or advertorials

    Your paid media is an important part of your overall marketing strategy because it expands your reach.  Paid media allows you to get your company seen by potential new customers. Targeting options allow for you to hand-select who your audience is, and there are multiple ways for you to do so. You can target your search and display paid media in many different ways, including geographic location, specific keywords or searches, demographics. You even have the option to do a retargeting ad to follow up with those who have already visited your website or Facebook page.

    Your paid media also includes any ad buys that you make on any online industry publication and streaming TV or radio ad.

    Root and Roam Tip: There are many places you can use paid media. The opportunities are endless. Start off simple with platforms that you know your current audience or target audience are utilizing, and do some A/B testing to see what resonates best and provides you the most conversions.

    How do I combine earned, owned, and paid media?

     

    As we talked about the differences between earned, owned, and paid media, you may be thinking “How do these all work together to give me a well-rounded digital marketing strategy?” The combinations of earned, owned, and paid media is the key. All types of media play a pivotal role in your SEO strategy but also in your overall brand strategy.

    Owned and Paid Media

     

    Some examples of owned and paid media combinations include:

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    Sponsored social media advertising

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    Boosted social media posts

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    Influencer partnerships

    Owned and Earned

     

    Some examples of owned and earned media include:

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    Testimonials on website

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    “As seen on..” Sections of the website

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    More branded searches for your business

    Owned and Paid

     

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    Engagement on your owned media from influencers or social ads

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    Website conversions through paid advertising efforts

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    Increased web traffic on a dedicated landing page to capture leads through an ad

    Each option of the type of media you choose, if leveraged alone, can achieve a company goal. However, when combined with another type or better yet, when all three are utilized, you’ll see much better results regardless of if you’re targeting brand awareness, lead generation, lead nurturing, or transactional opportunities. Interested in learning more about how these three types of media can improve your business, get in touch with a marketing strategist at Root & Roam!