Just ‘doing’ social media and marketing works

ANICCA DIGITAL

Challenge Anicca

Often when it comes to marketing, people focus on visuals – the pictures, the videos, the presentation – but without understanding the analytics, it will probably fail. Ann Stanley, CEO of Anicca Digital, tells us why measurement is vital to improving your marketing’s performance, and why now is the time to prepare for a big change that’s coming next year.

Myth #1: If I post a lot on social media, I’ll get loads of sales and website traffic

“Sadly, that’s not true,” Ann tells us. “Some businesses have had success through social media, but most potential customers will find you through your website.

“If you think about the way we look for products and services, we normally go straight to Google, so you need to use marketing techniques like search engine optimisation (SEO), to help prospects find your site.

“Optimising content for topics and key phrases that your target audience will be using will also help. Adding regular, relevant blog content and a fast, well-designed website will have a substantial impact.

“Social channels can only take you so far – especially if you’re only doing free ‘organic’ posts, that won’t reach beyond your existing network.”

Quality posts are better than many posts – write less, research more. “Think about the Skyscraper Philosophy. Everyone can remember the tallest building in the world, but hardly anyone can remember the second tallest. You’ve got to produce something better than the next best for people to engage with it.”

Myth #2: My marketing looks great, so it must be working

“You can’t run marketing without data and measurement,” says Ann. “Google Analytics is really important, but there are several big changes coming next year that we want to get people ready for.”

The biggest change is the retirement of Google’s Universal Analytics, set to be replaced by GA4 (Google Analytics 4) in response to new European court rulings over GDPR.

“Google sends European data back to American servers, which can be accessed by the US Federal Government. Therefore, Google Analytics was ruled to be in breach of GDPR. Retiring Universal Analytics is their solution, with GA4 offering better privacy.”

GA4 will become the new normal by July 2023. As a result, marketers are set to lose years’ worth of analytics data, unless they back it up. Anicca helps companies make the switch sooner, beginning a longer period of

Add depth to what you’re sharing; be a thought leader, rather than a trend chaser

overlapping data. It’s not perfect, but there are solutions.

“To be honest, GA4’s reports are not as good as Universal Analytics; we’re recommending a free reporting tool called Google Data Studio. This takes the information collected in GA4 and turns it into something useable that allows us to blend the historical data with the overlap.”

According to Ann, there are currently three types of people when it comes to analytics. The people who: 1 Don’t know about marketing measurement, so don’t know why they’re succeeding, or – more likely – why they’re failing. 2 Are aware of marketing measurement but unaware of the coming change or that they’re set to lose data history. 3 Are aware and are preparing for it.

“Marketing measurement matters because we need to know what’s working,” Ann concludes. You need data to measure what marketing channels ‘convert’ and make you money. ie did a prospect call you, complete a form on your site, or buy from your shopping cart? Find more help at anicca.co.uk/resources-webinars.