Don’t we all like lists, at least a little? So, which digital marketing list is best for you?

Stage 1 organizations are just getting their start with digital marketing.

Stage 2 companies have been realizing digital marketing success and are ready for the next level – check out that list below.

Stage 3 companies are advanced in all things digital marketing and are looking to maintain a leadership position and increase the margin of their wins.

If you represent a ‘Stage 2’ organization ready-for-the-next-growth-level, we invite you to keep reading.

WAY too often organizations focus too much on the tactical and not enough on shaping a winning strategy. Sure, we can be super busy with launching new campaigns, but what if those campaigns aren’t grounded with THE effective strategy? We could be flushing lots of real dollars. To win more, we need to move from ‘Fire, Aim and Ready’ to ‘Ready, Aim and Fire’ so our efforts and our marketing dollars hit the target more often.

How do your marketing efforts stack up with these recommended top 10 ‘Stage 2’ items?

1. Lifetime Value (LTV)

As a key metric to help drive marketing investment decisions, calculating the lifetime dollar value of a customer involves taking the average value of a sale, multiplied by a number of expected repeat transactions, multiplied by the average retention time in months or years of a typical customer. LTV helps determine the amount an organization is willing to pay to acquire a new customer which is the cost per acquisition (CPA) and what to pay for new leads as expressed by cost per leads (CPL). Learn more: wlion.com/LTV

2. Go-To-Market Strategy (GTM Strategy)

A pricing and distribution blueprint for an organization to deliver a product or service in a differentiated manner, gaining a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. Learn more: wlion.com/GTM

3. Customer Segmentation

Identifying similar customer groups to best target within a market, in part to identify underserved segments. Learn more: wlion.com/segment

4. Cost Per Lead

The cost to attract a single prospective customer to perform a desired action, like signing up for an offer which could be a content download. CPL helps determine the cost-effectiveness of campaigns. Learn more: wlion.com/CPL

5. Offer Inventory

Speaking to a specific desired end result, offers are value-based, relationship-building engagement opportunities, acting as a lead generation medium to ultimately draw someone closer to either being a customer or for a customer to repurchase. Most offers take the form of desired and helpful content and are often delivered as lead magnet and tripwire offers. Learn more: wlion.com/offer

6. Offer Sequencing

Mapping to defined customer segments, the optimal order by which an offer is made over a set period of time. Often times, an offer sequence warms up existing and prospective customers by first offering smaller commitments to later transition to larger commitments over time. When done out of sequence, conversions can suffer. Learn more: wlion.com/sequence

7. Retargeting

Even though it can be a little creepy, we have all visited a site and soon after being presented an ad on a different site like Facebook or a Google property from that very same site; often showcasing whatever product or service we had reviewed moments earlier. Retargeting is when a site owner places an unobtrusive piece of code most often referred to as a ‘pixel’ which works in conjunction with a browser cookie so the visitor can be identified on other retargeting platforms like Facebook, Google or Twitter. Retargeting is an effective way to attract more traffic through the sales funnel. Learn more: wlion.com/retarget

8. Email List Segmentation

The ongoing process to group an organization’s entire email list into sets of similar people to facilitate more relevant and timely content delivery ultimately resulting in higher conversions. Learn more: wlion.com/list-segment

9. Competitive Analysis

This 4-part diagnostic component framework allows an informal prediction of a competitor’s response profile which should impact the organization’s overall strategy. Learn more: wlion.com/competition

10. Inbound Marketing Efforts

A ‘pull’ approach to attract potential customers to the organization by strategically creating and offering content designed to appeal to buyer personas. Learn more: wlion.com/inbound

The Digital Planning Guide has 56 additional digital marketing checklist items and 33 website resources designed to help ensure your website outperforms your competition. If you haven’t already, consider downloading the full guide and be the hero and share it with your friends, too! And, let us know how we can help support you and your team in your digital journey.

Are you looking to maintain a leadership position and increase the margin of your wins?