12 Organic Social Media Tips to Drive Engagement

12 Organic Social Media Tips to Drive Engagement

It’s a tough crowd out there in the world of social media — and you might be feeling the heat. No matter the platform, it’s an oversaturated scene with seemingly countless brands, businesses, creators, and more — all generating captivating, clickable content.

So, there’s a lot of pressure when it comes to knowing how to create a memorable social presence that also reaches your key audiences. It can feel like an uphill battle to win an audience and conquer the ever-shifting algorithm — especially without paid advertising.

You might even feel like your content is a tree falling in a forest — without anyone to hear it.

To that end, we’re providing 12 social media marketing tips and tricks to help you make some audible noise and notch up engagement on your organic social media content.

But, first, let’s define what constitutes social media engagement.

What Is Social Media Engagement?

Social media engagement is an overarching term for a metric that measures how much your audience interacts with your content and, in turn, how responsive you are to their interactions.

While the types of interaction can (and do!) vary by platform, let’s look at Meta as an example of what engagement can encompass.

  • Page interaction: Profile clicks, CTA button clicks, tab clicks
  • Post interaction: Likes, comments, shares, and saves
  • Story interaction: Replies and shares
  • Direct messaging: Messaging and responses

It can also include the mention of your page on other pages.

Why Is Social Engagement Important?

Increasing your social media engagement is beneficial for multiple reasons:

  • It means consumers are finding your content compelling.
  • It increases your reach.
  • It amplifies your content’s visibility.
  • It can result in more organic growth for your social media accounts — and, ultimately, your business!

The more users who engage with your content, the more it signals to the social algorithms that what you’re sharing is valuable. As such, the platforms are more likely to increase the visibility and discoverability of your content among more people.

12 Organic Social Media Tips to Drive Engagement

Use this cheat sheet of 12 social media tips for marketing to help boost your engagement. 

1. Strategize Your Content

Successful social media content that generates engagement cannot be an afterthought. While the “right” type of content varies from brand to brand, what doesn’t change is that it should generally be a combination of informative, inspiring, and entertaining. But it’s also essential that the content is relevant to its intended audience.

2. Prioritize Relatability

Adding a human touch to your brand through relatable content and storytelling not only draws your audience closer, but it can also lead to higher engagement. People feel compelled to like, comment, and share things that make an impact on them — not things that feel like sales pitches.

3. Create Opportunities for Interaction

Whether you encourage followers to comment on a post by asking them a relatable question or use social features like polls and quizzes, content that sparks interest and curiosity while inviting participation will amplify engagement. Stories — especially on Instagram — are also highly interactive opportunities for engagement with action buttons, question boxes, engaging templates, and more.

4. Ensure Your Visuals are High-Quality (and Unique!)

It goes without saying, but we’re going to say it anyway: Your visuals must be high-quality, and they must stand out. From powerful images to professional infographics and beyond, the social media landscape thrives on content that includes a visual component — not just text. 

Not only do 91% of consumers prefer interactive and visual content over traditional, text-based, or static media, more than half of marketers (56.2%) believe high-quality visuals are a key to success, according to Forbes. It’s essential to avoid generic stock images as much as possible, as studies show that stock images perform the worst of all visual formats. Visuals should ideally be unique and authentic to your business. 

5. Prioritize Video

Video — especially short-form video — is continuing its reign as the leading way people are consuming content.  In fact, a 2023 report by video marketing company Wyzowl found that 91% of consumers say they want to see MORE videos from brands. What’s more, an impressive 96% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn more about a brand, and 84% of consumers say that watching promo videos has convinced them to purchase a product or service.

While much of video’s success can still be attributed to the TikTok effect, the prevalence and priority of video reaches far beyond that platform. Social algorithms favor video content, so a sound way to increase your engagement is to post more snackable and shareable videos. You might also consider researching what types of videos, styles, and songs are trending and adopt some of those trends in your video content strategy.   

6. Shout Out Other Companies

Invite engagement from other relevant, non-competitor brands and companies by posting about them — and tagging them. For example, if you heard an incredible soundbite from a company at a conference, post it. If you stumbled across an informative blog from a brand, share it with your followers, too. Received a cool gift you think your audience would love, too? Don’t gate-keep it!

Shouting out other companies is another great way to increase connections and keep the conversation going while simultaneously boosting engagement. 

7. Be Consistent

While it can be easy to focus on the quantity of posts, it’s better to focus on consistency (and quality!) when it comes to social media. Algorithms tend to favor the posts from pages that are consistently active — rather than those that post multiple times a week and then go on hiatus for a few weeks before returning. Consider what posting schedule is manageable for your company — whether it’s three times a week or more or less — and keep to that schedule to see your engagement rise.

When it comes to social media, consistency is key — more so than quantity. It’s better to post three times a week on a regular schedule than to post daily and then disappear for a week. 

8. Respond to Your Audience

It’s called social media for a reason! So, it’s no surprise that you can boost engagement by having reciprocal interactions with your audience. Engaging with comments — especially within the first 20 to 30 minutes of an in-feed post — and responding to questions and DMs will pay dividends in boosting your own engagement metrics and working the algorithm in your favor while also humanizing your brand to your followers. 

9. Collect User-Generated Content

Collecting and sharing user-generated content (UGC) is an excellent, less “sales-y” way to show off your business while also giving your consumers some love. It also can help amplify engagement. UGC can be anything from consumer photos or messages about your products, to responses to questions, testimonials, and beyond. 

10. Host a Giveaway

Who doesn’t love a giveaway?! Not only do they create a positive halo effect around your business, but they can be a foolproof way of drumming up additional engagement — especially on an in-feed post. For example, the “entry” to win could be the requirement to leave a comment and “like” your five most recent posts.  There are also many social media tools available, like SweepWidget, Woorise, Gleam, to help you successfully host social media giveaways and contests. 

11. Repurpose Content

It can feel overwhelming to have to constantly come up with new ideas to share — and to make those ideas engaging. So, don’t reinvent the wheel every time! Think about content that has performed well in the past and strategize on ways to repurpose it for additional social shares.

For example, you could take a successful blog post and repackage it into a carousel post with informative, shareable takeaways. Or you could take video soundbites from a seminar or workshop you hosted and turn them into engaging teaser reels. The options are truly endless when you think outside the box to extend your content across multiple channels and posts.

12. Engage with Other Brands

Social media engagement is a two-way street — one that works best when you are also proactively engaging with other non-competitor brands and businesses that have similar target audiences to yours. It’s not only a way to signal to the algorithm that you’re an active part of conversations, but it’s also a great way to improve your discoverability while making lots of social media connections.

Support for Increasing Your Social Media Engagement

Building an organic social media presence that likewise garners meaningful engagement can be challenging and time-consuming, but it should be an integral part of your brand strategy. 

While these 12 tips for social media marketing can be helpful, you might need some additional support. At Denver Post Media, we understand that organic social media requires a significant investment of time and work as well as content expertise. And we’re here to help!

We know how small businesses can leverage social media — and it’s why we work with brands daily to achieve their content and marketing goals. If you’d like to explore how we can help you increase or enhance your organic social media engagement, learn more here.

8 of the Most Common SEO Myths — Debunked!

8 of the Most Common SEO Myths — Debunked!

Search engine algorithms can feel like an enigma — and they definitely can be challenging to decipher, especially the all-important Google algorithm. That hasn’t stopped people from trying, though. Yet, as with any good enigma, there are many SEO myths floating around out there about how to improve your website’s ranking. These myths about SEO are often time wasters (at best!), but they can possibly damage your search rankings, too. 

That’s why knowing some of the more common SEO misconceptions is vital.

But, before we jump into debunking some of the most common SEO myths of 2024, let’s quickly review what SEO is and why it’s valuable.

What is SEO?

SEO is a commonly used acronym in the world of digital marketing that stands for “search engine optimization.” SEO encompasses all the actions you can take to have your website rank higher in search engine results. 

The higher you rank in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) for your target keywords, the more people will visit your website or webpage.

Why Is SEO Important?

The goal of SEO is to increase the quantity of organic (non-paid) traffic your website content receives from search engines. This is important because research tells us that the first five organic results on a search page get 69.1% of all clicks, and the next five account for only 17.2%. Then, it’s all downhill from there. To get the most web traffic, you need to be near the top — and that starts with SEO.

8 Common SEO Myths Debunked

There are many effective things you can do to rank higher on search engines, most notably Google’s. We talk about them here. But, make sure you’re NOT counting on this list of eight SEO myths and misconceptions to positively impact your ranking.

1. Myth: PPC Advertising Boosts Your SEO Ranking

Sponsored rankings — also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising — appear at the top of SERPs. And that’s probably one of the reasons this myth has gained traction. While “paying to play” through a paid search campaign like PPC does get your business to appear first, this is entirely different from SEO optimization for organic search results.

Google also doesn’t give bonus points or priority to websites that engage in PPC advertising, as the algorithm for ranking organic search results is completely different from the one that engages PPC ads.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t consider a paid search campaign, but doing so won’t impact your SEO optimization efforts.

2. Myth: Older Domains Are Better

Website domains that have many more years under their belt can often rank better than the new kids on the block. But the fact is that age isn’t a ranking factor. 

That said, a big reason for the correlation is simply because a site that has been around for eight years instead of eight months has had more time to check the box on SEO best practices. For example, it may have accumulated a higher volume of relevant backlinks, and there may be more high-quality content on the site’s blog.

But, while SEO is a long game, a more mature website doesn’t always correlate to better SEO. So, a 15-year-old site that’s poorly maintained with bad links and low-quality content has nothing on a 15-month-old site that is being regularly optimized.

3. Myth: You Only Need to Optimize SEO Once

SEO is not only a long game, it’s also one that requires consistent work and optimization. Optimizing the copy across your site one time will help, but you can’t just set it and forget it.

The internet is a constantly and rapidly changing place, which impacts not only how users search but also how search results appear and what is being prioritized. For example, the rise of the zero-click search is having a distinct impact on SEO.  

For all these reasons and more, copy, graphics, images, videos, and more all must be continually evaluated and edited in order to evolve and stay competitive in webpage results.

4. Myth: There’s an Exact Keyword Density to Follow

Keyword density is the frequency at which your keywords appear in an article or content on your site. For example, if you use a keyword 30 times in a 1,000-word article, the keyword density would equate to 3%. While “ideal” keyword densities are often prescribed — anywhere from 2% to 5% — the fact is that there’s no optimal or exact percentage that’s best for SEO.

The better solution is to focus on authentic, natural-sounding, and fresh content that’s relevant to your audience. This will go a lot further in helping your SEO efforts. 

You also want to be careful to avoid keyword stuffing, which is using your target keyword(s) so many times that it translates as ridiculous to readers and spammy to search engines like Google.

5. Myth: You Should Only Pay Attention to High-Volume Keywords

High-volume keywords are broad, general, and often short search terms that rack up millions of searches every month. Because they are so popular, some may think that they need to prioritize high-volume keywords that are relevant to your business.

But that’s not the case. High-volume keywords are highly competitive and not often specific enough for niche offerings. While it’s okay to integrate some high-volume keywords, if that’s the only thing you’re focusing on, you’re leaving a lot of potential on the table.

It’s much better to also strategically integrate some long-tail keywords, which are longer, more specific phrases, and other low-volume, lower competition keywords to round out the mix and make your site more competitive and targeted to your exact target consumer.

6. Myth: Duplicate Content is Always Penalized

Duplicate content basically refers to any content on a webpage that’s nearly or precisely the same as another page on your site — and it has been thought to be penalized by Google. While duplicate content often isn’t ideal for many reasons, Google has stated that they don’t penalize duplicate content — as long as it’s not intentionally designed to deceive search engines.

 

The bigger issue is that duplicate content can hurt your SEO performance simply because the algorithm isn’t clear on which search result should be the primary one, not because of a penalty per se. 

That said, while you don’t have to make sure that every single page is entirely different, try to avoid duplicating content whenever you can.

7. Myth: More Words are Always Better

It has long been claimed that longer-form content performs better. For example, a 1,100- to 1,200-word article is often seen as the minimum preferred word count for good SEO performance on Google.

There is some validity in the fact that articles that clock in at around 1,000 words can lead to better organic search results, according to Semrush’s 2023 State of Content Marketing Report. However, there’s a law of diminishing returns here.

Longer isn’t always better. This is where quality versus quantity enters the chat again.

A poorly written, keyword-stuffed 2,000-word article that’s not relevant or strategically composed won’t do your ranking any favors. You’ll see far better results from a shorter piece that may have fewer words but is comprehensively written to align with search intent and includes primary and secondary keywords that are naturally incorporated.

8.  Myth: Mobile Responsiveness Doesn’t Matter

With 94% of people accessing the Internet by smartphone, there are many reasons to have your site optimized for mobile. SEO Is just one of them. 

Contrary to the myth, mobile friendliness and responsive design does indeed matter to Google; and they’ve confirmed that it is a ranking factor.

Fact: SEO Support Is Here for You

With so many SEO myths and facts, it can be hard to know what to do to ensure your website is optimized and on the right path to achieving your business and marketing goals.

At Denver Post Media, our SEO experts take the overwhelm out of SEO and focus on just the facts. We specialize not only in SEO and website ranking but also in content development and strategy that can enhance your visibility and impact in search and beyond. Learn more here.

Should You Use AI to Write Content? Pros and Cons

Should You Use AI to Write Content? Pros and Cons

The siren song of artificial intelligence writing tools is calling — and there’s no question that the allure is there.

Yet, as attractive as they may seem, it’s essential to understand when and how to use AI-generated content — and why it’s ultimately better not to fully succumb to its temptation. 

Because, in the contest between AI vs. human writers, the humans are still winning. 

Before we explore the pros and cons of AI writing, let’s first take a closer look at what AI content creation actually means.

*Note: A human being wrote this blog.

What Is AI Content Creation?

AI content is essentially machine-made text that’s generated from a human search query. AI writing relies on topics, keywords, and phrases from any given query, and its writing tools compile existing content and information from other sources and search engines to produce products like blogs, articles, white papers, captions, and other marketing materials.

While AI-generated content certainly has its pluses, there are some caveats to those advantages — and some distinct disadvantages to consider, especially when using AI for blog writing. 

Pros of AI Writing

AI content creation can be valuable when used strategically and in the right context.  

It’s Efficient and Scalable

Because AI can provide nearly instantaneous content creation, it produces a lot of efficiencies, which can lead to highly scalable opportunities. This is probably its most attractive and alluring quality — especially for busy teams with too much on their plates.

What can take even the most productive and fast human writers and content creators multiple hours to research, write, and produce, AI writing tools can accomplish in mere seconds. 

It’s Cost-Effective

Some AI writing tools are free, while others may charge a monthly subscription rate or project-based fee. That said, no matter what, they cost a fraction of what talented human writers charge per project and can churn out unlimited content in a short amount of time.

It Can Help with SEO

As AI writing tools and content generators crawl through already-popular and SEO-optimized content, they can recommend keywords that could help your content appear more prominently in search engine rankings — if it likewise follows other best practices for SEO

It’s a Solution for Writer’s Block

Even the most prolific writers will struggle with writer’s block at times as they try to come up with new ideas or create authoritative content around subjects they may need to learn more about. When deadlines loom, this can be even more challenging.

AI writing tools can help overcome these blocks by sparking multiple ideas as a starting point while providing detailed content outlines and key points.

Cons of AI Writing

While there are some potential advantages of AI writing tools, you should evaluate their perks against these significant drawbacks. 

It Generates Content with Inconsistent, Low Quality

Because AI relies on algorithms and data for content, there are frequent inconsistencies in the information and the content quality of work that is produced. AI writing tools can check the box on straightforward facts, but they often miss the mark on the more nuanced, complex, or subjective topics.

It Requires Human Editing

While you “can” publish whatever AI produces, this is a precarious option that isn’t in your best interest. Human writers and editors still need to read and often rewrite the content for quality while detecting any inaccuracies, insensitivities, or poorly structured sentences. That’s why, if you decide to use AI-generated content, it should always be the first draft — not the final product.

It Misses Tone and Emotion

AI is machine-produced — so, without question, it’s not going to have the same emotional intelligence that a human writer can provide. While some tools allow you to “teach” and inform the tone you want, the results are iffy at best because AI refers to existing web data and content to repackage it into something new. That indefinable human connection that so many pieces of human writing provide — even in technical categories — is lost in the combo of words that AI provides. 

It Could Create Plagiarism Concerns 

While AI writing tools pull from multiple sources to create the content you’re seeking, they never provide sources or citations. If the content is too much like existing work, there could be legal implications if the original author discovers the content.

Algorithms Can Devalue It

Because AI writing tools produce content that could be — and most likely is — quite similar to existing published materials, AI content can be an immediate flag for search engines, especially when it has not been reviewed and edited by a human.

In March 2024, Google rolled out another core update to continue improving its content ranking systems and ultimately reduce low-quality, unoriginal content by 45% in search results. This latest update only emphasizes the importance of E-E-A-T even more, offering an outline of what is considered credible content that has a better chance of ranking in search results.

E-E-A-T stands for: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. So, to align with E-E-A-T, all content should demonstrate first-hand experience and expertise in the respective subject matter. It should be authoritative, and trustworthy authors and sources should support it. It’s nearly impossible for AI to achieve any of these things without a human writer or editor.

It Means You Get What You Pay For

Ultimately, while one of the advantages of AI writing tools is their cost-effectiveness, it’s important to remember that you very often get what you pay for. And, in this case, that can mean low-quality, problematic results that still require the work of humans. 

In the long run, an investment in human writers to create high-quality, well-researched content — especially among your most important pieces of content like website copy, blogs, articles, white papers, and more — can pay dividends for your business and your marketing efforts. 

An Effective Alternative to AI Writing Tools

While you don’t need to eliminate AI writing tools in your content creation process completely, many busy companies simply don’t have time to navigate when and how to use AI effectively — nor do they have the writers or content producers on staff who can dedicate time to this part of the business.

Denver Post Media can help with all your content production needs and serve as your alternative to AI. Through our Denver Post Content Studio, we create original, high-quality, human-produced content for our partners that’s specifically designed to achieve your marketing goals and engage with your target audience. Learn more about how we provide a full suite of marketing solutions for clients here.

Common Mistakes in Digital Analytics and How to Avoid Them

Common Mistakes in Digital Analytics and How to Avoid Them

Marketers are busy bees these days. In fact, marketers are using an average of 18 data sources for reporting, according to a recent report from Salesforce. From their CRM to Google Analytics, Meta Ads dashboards, sales platforms, and more, it’s all in an effort to pool together the data points needed for marketing reports.

And it’s really no surprise, as data can provide a highly effective roadmap to success. Yet no matter how many data sources and reporting tools you use (or don’t use), it’s possible to miss the mark and make digital analytics mistakes, which can lead to adverse ramifications and the inability to stay competitive in the online world.

Let’s look at five common analytics pitfalls — and some corresponding solutions for avoiding analytics errors.

Over-Collecting Data

The thing with data is that there can be a lot of it — cue the 18 data sources that many businesses rely on. But with data, there can be such a thing as TOO much of a good thing.

The overcollection of data can work to your disadvantage in digital analytics when it becomes an issue of quantity over quality. Too much data can create unnecessary clutter that diverts attention away from analyzing the information and key metrics that are truly impacting your business outcomes. Not all data is equally valuable and actionable for your business goals and analysis.

Solution: Thoughtfully consider the data points that directly impact your strategic objectives. A quality-driven rather than quantity-driven approach to data will not only streamline your strategy and avoid unnecessary data overwhelm, but it will also ensure that your metrics are accurate, relevant, and reliable.

Ignoring the Patterns of User Behavior

Truly understanding how your ad campaigns, website, landing pages, and more are performing isn’t just about tallying up the number of people visiting your page. Data doesn’t make a difference if you are measuring or paying attention to the wrong things. One thing that businesses often miss in digital analytics is skipping metrics like session duration, bounce rates, and user flow.

Solution: It’s essential to consider the data points that tell the story of user behavior and how users are interacting with your website or experiencing your digital marketing. Consider adding tools like heatmaps to inform how a user is experiencing your website, what actions they’re taking, and if they’re missing important CTAs. Implementing A/B testing is another way to evaluate and test user behavior, as you look at insights that can refine site functionality, improve conversion rates, and better achieve your marketing goals.

Overlooking Mobile

We’re living in a mobile-first world — yet mobile is often overlooked when it comes to digital analytics data. But when you don’t measure mobile, you’re missing out on essential data points that uniquely impact a significant audience segment. Issues like unresponsive design, slow loading times, and suboptimal user experience can show up in digital analytics data via metrics like bounce rates and low engagement. The thorough analysis of mobile-specific data can also identify where users engage differently than desktop users.

Solution: By paying attention to mobile data patterns in your digital analytics, you can prioritize mobile optimization while tailoring mobile experiences that align with your users. Similarly, you can implement A/B testing to try out different versions of your mobile site.

Not Setting Specific Goals and Objectives

If you’re attempting to review and act on your digital analytics without clear and specific business goals and objectives, it’s going to be a rather aimless endeavor. Plus, you may even be wasting time and resources on the wrong — or, at the very least, irrelevant — information. While vanity metrics about pageviews and more might seem like the “right” thing to focus on, they could mean nothing to what you’re trying to accomplish.

Solution: Establish KPIs (key performance indicators) to understand what you want your site to accomplish based on your business objectives. With KPIs in place, you can effectively analyze what digital data points are necessary — and what they mean as you strategically make decisions for your business.

Lack of Analytics Ownership

Often, organizations share the responsibilities of data collection and digital analytics without allocating one main owner and champion who is accountable and has expertise in this area, potentially creating inconsistent, fractured, and even inaccurate applications of analytics data.  This fragmented focus on digital analytics can negatively impact your business goals. It creates many layers of inefficiencies in the organization, as each team relies on its own tools and siloed objectives with no lens to the holistic impact and valuable, actionable insights that digital analytics can provide.

Solution: If you don’t have the capacity to structure your team with a digital analytics owner, consider engaging the help of a digital marketing agency. By bringing in outside help, you can have both the expertise and the dedicated attention required to be successful in your digital analytics.

Digital analytics is an essential part of marketing — and it needs to go beyond data collection. That’s only half the story, as that data must be translated into clear, actionable insights that drive business strategies and outcomes. By avoiding the common pitfalls of digital analytics, you can set a foundation for better, more informed business decisions. If you’re focused on improving analytics accuracy in Colorado, Denver Post Media can help.

Not only does our Colorado digital marketing agency offer a full suite of services to support your business goals, but we also prioritize constant and comprehensive reporting and optimization to continually refine campaigns, websites, landing pages, and more.

The Benefits & Best Practices of Email Marketing Automation

The Benefits & Best Practices of Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing is generally a well-performing channel for businesses. In fact, 50.8% of brands have seen a 2X improvement in their email marketing ROI in recent years.

Email can be a highly effective way to generate leads in addition to nurturing and converting prospective audiences.

But if you haven’t added automation to your email marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a powerful way to amplify that impact. Indeed, effective marketers are 46% more likely to use automation than those with ineffective strategies, according to HubSpot’s 2023 State of Marketing report.

What Is Email Marketing Automation?

Email marketing automation is the process of using software and tools to strategically put repetitive emails, campaigns, and workflows into motion. It essentially provides the pathway to send personalized and targeted email messages to leads, prospects, and subscribers efficiently and effectively.

There are many types of automated email workflows that serve a variety of purposes — all in service of your business goals.

For example, with email automation, you can:

  • Onboard new subscribers with welcome emails.
  • Connect with consumers who have completed an order or purchase.
  • Re-engage email recipients who have stopped opening your emails.
  • Follow up with potential buyers who have abandoned carts.
  • Nurture and convert prospects into customers.
  • Qualify potential leads based on their engagement.
  • Follow up with people who have downloaded a white paper or infographic or attended a webinar.
  • Ask consumers for product reviews and feedback.
  • And so much more! 

Benefits of Email Automation

There are many benefits of email automation, not the least of which is that it provides a streamlined marketing process for you to continuously engage with your subscribers in a highly customized and relevant format. Well-placed, targeted emails can nurture prospects into buyers while instilling brand loyalty among existing consumers.

Depending on your business objectives, you may activate automated email workflows in a variety of different ways, but here are three main benefits to keep in mind. 

1. Email Automation Increases Your Revenue

Increasing sales is a nearly universal goal for most companies, and email automation can be a highly effective tool for achieving revenue growth.

According to a Barilliance study, email marketing has an average return on investment (ROI) of $38 for every dollar you spend. Top performers (18% of companies) see that ROI increases to $70 for every dollar invested.

Email automation helps realize the highest ROI possible by focusing on things like email personalization, demographic customization, and triggered campaigns that rely on conditions like consumer behavior, abandoned carts, and time-based initiatives (i.e. subscription expirations). 

2. Email Automation Enhances Productivity

It’s nearly impossible — and impossibly time-intensive — to speak directly and impactfully to every single one of your customers (or prospects) without email automation that affords you multiple ways to activate many customized custom journeys.

You’ll not only be able to scale your marketing efforts, but you’ll also do so far more effectively and win back a lot of time and productivity for your team. And that means they can focus on strategy and relationship-building.

3. Email Automation Boosts Retention

Sending out the same email message to every single person on your list at the same time is a good way to lose prospects, trigger unsubscribes — and even irritate long-time customers.

Email automation allows you to segment your lists and deliver personalized and relevant messages that will be far more meaningful for consumers. When you approach email campaigns in this way, you’ll build your customer base and increase loyalty. 

5 Email Automation Best Practices

Curious how you can maximize your email automation success? Here are five best practices.

1. Be Strategic About Your Email Automation Software

When it comes to email automation, the right software solution for your company is going to be one of the first things to consider. There are many different email automation tools — some of which you may have heard of, like Hubspot, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, and ConvertKit.

While every single platform comes with its own distinct advantages, it’s important to ensure the one you choose has:

  • Advanced audience segmentation.
  • Advanced customization tools for personalized content.
  • Sophisticated campaign flow and trigger email capabilities.
  • Customer data protection.
  • Real-time customer support. 

2. Segment Your Audiences

Make sure your subscriber groups are distinctly and appropriately segmented. That way, you can fully take advantage of the audience-targeting capabilities that your email automation software provides. For example, you can segment your lists based on demographics, purchase history or behavior, demonstrated interests, or pain points.

Many email automation solutions also sync with CRM software, meaning you can integrate segmented data that way, too. 

3. Strategically Personalize Your Emails

While email automation can do a lot of the work for you, you must invest in strategically creating personalized and relevant emails for each of your campaigns and flows.

From content that specifically addresses an audience segment’s needs or preferences to targeted special offers that increase engagement and sales, it will all pay dividends as you see your ROI tick up. 

4. Use AI to Help

Whether it’s generating ideas for subject lines, drafting or enhancing copy, or even making suggestions to improve email deliverability, AI can be an asset to increasing the success of your email automation.

AI can also help quickly discover and align product recommendations for your prospects and consumers based on audience segments.

Most email automation programs have built-in AI you can implement. 

5. Test and Track

Email automation is an excellent way to A/B test different versions of an email campaign to see which is performing best. You may consider testing things like the subject line, layout, design cues, copy, CTA, and even email frequency.

Then, make sure you’re paying attention to performance via your email marketing metrics. Here again, email automation software makes tracking and measuring these metrics easily accessible. From there, you can evaluate what’s working and what you need to optimize further.

Support for Email Automation Success

Email automation opens a whole new world to your email marketing strategy. If you need support to ensure you have all the right pieces in place to optimize your existing campaigns — and launch new ones — Denver Post Media provides comprehensive email marketing services in Colorado.

Whether you’re a small business looking to make an impact or an established powerhouse seeking next-level strategic ideas and advanced reporting, we customize our approach to each and every one of our partners and their unique business needs. Learn more here.

The Role of Authenticity in Organic Social Media Marketing

The Role of Authenticity in Organic Social Media Marketing

One hundred and forty-three minutes. That’s how much time the average person worldwide spends on social media consumption every single day. For many users, those minutes tick up even higher on a regular basis.

But what do these 16-plus hours of weekly scrolling mean for brands and companies on social media platforms?

First, it means that platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn are vital avenues for most companies to share information and connect with their target audiences. An organic social media strategy is key to this.

But all that scrolling also means that users have become highly attuned and sophisticated consumers of content—especially in a world where ads and promotions are mixed in right along with the fun videos and friends’ updates. They are discerning, can sense inauthenticity miles away, and will likely immediately tune it out. 

That’s why authenticity in organic social media marketing is so vital to building trust and loyalty among followers.

We’re going to look at some simple ways for how your company can connect authentically in organic social media marketing, but first let’s review the benefits of organic social media

Benefits of Organic Social Media 

There are many reasons why having an organic social media presence is essential — no matter the size of your company:

  • It is an opportunity to share your brand and engage with current and new customers.
  • It provides a place to build and amplify your brand’s personality, goals, and values.
  • It offers a resource to support customers with questions or concerns.
  • It cultivates a community around your brand. 

The Importance of Brand Authenticity in Organic Social Media

When a brand is honest, transparent, and true to its values, promises, and identity, it creates an authentic connection with its audience. People crave this genuine connection to companies — so much so that 88% of consumers say that authenticity is crucial when deciding what brands they will support.

Organic social media is an ideal way to build authenticity. Through organic social, you can:

  • Build consumer trust.
  • Foster real engagement and connection.
  • Humanize your company.
  • Celebrate your unique brand personality, values, and voice.
  • Stand out in a saturated digital market.
  • Create community.
  • Deepen emotional connections with your audience.
  • Increase long-term consumer loyalty and advocacy.

5 Simple Ways to Build Brand Authenticity via Organic Social Media

Building trust on social media can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Here are a few simple strategies for amplifying how you authentically show up for your followers.

1. Tell Your Story

Storytelling has always been an integral part of the human experience, and that hasn’t changed in our tech-forward world. Narratives that reflect our emotions and values make an impact. So, by establishing and telling your brand story via organic social media — while still ensuring it’s relevant and compelling — you’re creating strong connections with your audiences.

Here are just a few ideas for how you can tell your story: 

  • Share the mission behind your company.
  • Showcase employees — the people behind your products or services.
  • Talk about your CRM initiatives.
  • Take consumers behind the scenes of your brand.
  • Get vulnerable about mistakes and challenges your company has overcome.

2. Tell Others’ Stories

While it’s important to tell your brand story, you can also implement content that shows and tells real stories about your consumers — and how your brand has positively impacted them.

This is where UGC (user-generated content) can be very beneficial in addition to testimonials and reviews.

When your followers see the social proof of others’ experiences with your company, it adds credibility and authenticity to your content.

3. Engage with Your Followers

Another huge benefit of organic social media is that it gives you an easy way to engage immediately and directly with your audiences. While it’s tempting to implement automated responses and generic comments to save time, meaningful engagement is what will truly help bolster your authenticity and show your commitment to your community. 

That means you should engage in conversations on social media, respond thoughtfully and humanly to comments and messages, and show real interest in your customers’ feedback and opinions.

A bonus? You’re getting valuable insight and feedback that you can maximize for your company’s long-term growth and improvement.

4. Stay Relevant

Organic social media content doesn’t only have to solely be about your company and brand. In fact, it probably shouldn’t be!

There are many interesting and entertaining ways you can introduce additional layers of relevance into your content to further heighten your company’s relatability.

Here are a few to consider:

  • Integrate national and global events — i.e. the Olympics and the Super Bowl — into your content strategy.
  • Amplify collective seasons and experiences, such as summer travel, New Year’s resolutions, and more.
  • Celebrate brand-appropriate holidays and campaigns, like Valentine’s Day, PRIDE Month, Halloween, Christmas, and many more.

Remember that companies that cleverly and compellingly capitalize on these ideas don’t just post a generic message; they fully integrate the event, experience, or holiday into their brand voice, personality, and values to make it their own.

5. Activate Influencers Wisely

Brands often like engaging with and working with influencers and content creators because many of these individuals have built their platforms on the foundation of authenticity — and their millions of followers trust what they have to say.

Working with the right influencer for your company can introduce your products or services to new audiences while adding another layer of legitimacy to your brand.

Support for Your Organic Social Media Strategy

Building and maintaining authenticity is a long game. It’s about investing in organic content that’s informative, interesting, and entertaining; it’s about telling stories; it’s about engaging and connecting with your community meaningfully.

This commitment to organic social media can be invaluable to your brand strategy and positively impact key performance indicators like target audience acquisition, consumer retention and loyalty, and product sales and conversion.

If you’re looking for support and expertise in this category, Denver Post Media is here to develop a powerful and authentic social media presence. We provide social media services in Colorado and beyond, working with brands to achieve all their content and marketing goals across many channels. If you’d like to explore how we can help you build or enhance your organic social media, learn more here.

SEO Terms & Definitions Guide

SEO Terms & Definitions Guide

SEO is an acronym that is often used in digital marketing. But sometimes, there’s confusion surrounding those three little letters. SEO can be a complex concept that requires lots of technical jargon. 

So, it can be helpful to start with a list of SEO terms for beginners to establish a baseline for understanding.

With that in mind, here’s your cheat sheet of common SEO terms to know: 

SEO

We’ve established that SEO stands for search engine optimization, but let’s dive a little deeper into what that actually means. SEO encompasses all the actions you can take to have your website rank higher in search engine results. 

The goal of SEO is to increase the quantity of organic (non-paid) traffic your website content receives from those search engines. On-page SEO factors like page titles and descriptions, content (a blog), tags, internal links, and even site architecture can help improve search visibility and increase traffic. 

SERPs

SERP is just a shorthand way to say Search Engine Results Page. This is the list of pages that populates when a consumer is searching for something in Google or another search engine. This is where you want your website’s “position” — where you rank in the SERPs — to be as close to the top as possible. 

Organic Traffic

When you see the term “organic” in marketing, it basically means “unpaid.” So unpaid search results often generate organic traffic to your website — and this desirable organic traffic is one of the main goals of optimizing your site so you can drive as much free traffic as possible.

Keywords

Keywords are KEY to how your website ranks on Google. That’s because keywords are essentially the short words and phrases that users search for. Identifying and then implementing the best keywords for your website is critical to amplify organic traffic. Once you’ve established which keywords to use, you can create high-quality, relevant, and authoritative content based on those words and phrases. 

There are keyword research tools, like SEMrush, that can help you find keyword suggestions for your SEO. You can also check your web page’s keyword ranking — its organic ranking position in search results for any given keyword — to see how it stacks up to others.

Long-Tail Keywords

In addition to the standard-issue keywords (see above), there are also long-tail keywords. These are precise search queries — generally four or more words — that are used to describe something. 

While long-tail keywords are used less often, they can still be a competitive part of your SEO strategy. That’s because they are generally less competitive and have lower search volumes while helping to reach a more defined audience — all of which can help improve site ranking and conversion.

Keyword Cannibalization

When keywords “eat other” — cue the Pacman visual — you have keyword cannibalization. This occurs when the content on different pages of your site is ranking for the same keywords with similar search intent. Not surprisingly, this cannibalization can impede performance and real results because your keywords basically cancel each other out.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword cannibalization can often be a result of keyword stuffing — which is loading up a webpage with too many keywords to try and quickly boost your site’s ranking in Google search results. To achieve this, keywords are often used unnaturally in content or appear out of context. Not only does it look bad for your users, but it’s also an unsuccessful strategy that will harm your site’s ranking. 

Backlinks

A backlink is a link on another website that points to your content — and it’s surprisingly effective in helping your search ranking. That’s because search engines use several off-page signals to determine whether your site can be trusted — one of the leading signals is backlinks.

Backlinks legitimize your site to search engines.

Link Building

To get more high-quality backlinks to your page, you work on link building. There are several strategies you can implement for link building, including:

  • Creating link-worthy content: High-quality content will naturally attract links. This could be anything from infographics to free quizzes, downloadable assets, and other interactive pages.
  • Engaging in guest blogging: Getting the word out about your content and writing for other sites is a great way to extend your reach and get some backlinks in the mix.
  • Auditing broken links: Identifying links that no longer work on other sites and suggesting links to your pages as replacements can be a lot of work, but it will pay dividends.
  • Adding links: By adding your own set of relevant external links to your content, you’re also improving authority and credibility.

Authority Links

When you’re working on backlinks and link building, you’ll want to keep authority links in mind. Authority links are high-quality backlinks from sites that are considered the most trustworthy and credible in their respective industries. Major news outlets, top industry sites, and educational institutions are considered authority links. When a high-authority site links to another site, it shares that credibility and power.

While this SEO terms glossary is not comprehensive, it does provide a helpful guide to knowing more about the world of search optimization. But what these SEO key terms don’t tell you is that SEO is a long game. It requires a long-term SEO strategy — and results don’t often appear immediately. You’re also never finished with SEO; it’s a continuous process that requires constant attention and improvement.

For all those reasons and more, SEO may seem overwhelming. At Denver Post Media, we act as your experts who know the full SEO terms glossary —  and so much more. We’re leaders in helping brands and companies achieve their marketing and advertising goals, including SEO and website ranking.

Testimonials: How to Include Them in Marketing Emails and Why They Matter

Testimonials: How to Include Them in Marketing Emails and Why They Matter

Consumers buy what they trust — and what other people trust. Such is the power of WOM — Word of Mouth. But how do you harness and multiply this game-changing organic marketing tactic to spread the word to more consumers?

This is where customer testimonials come into play. They are a form of social proof that can be incredibly valuable in your marketing strategy.

While customer testimonials and product reviews are frequently celebrated on websites, a meaningful way to maximize them entirely is to integrate them into email marketing.

The way you integrate customer testimonials in email marketing is important, but first, let’s dive into why testimonials are so powerful. 

Why Customer Testimonials Work

Customer testimonials are a form of social proof in marketing. This psychological principle basically refers to the phenomenon that people are more likely to do something when they see others doing it. Customers want to feel assured that purchasing a product or service is the right decision, and they gain that assurance from others.

In marketing, social proof, such as testimonials and reviews, can help companies validate and simplify their customers’ buying decisions, build consumer trust, and increase credibility.

In fact, consistent use of customer testimonials has been shown to help generate 62% more revenue from every customer — and not just one time, either. In another study, Hubspot showed that 57% of customers visit a business’s website after encountering positive testimonials.  

How to Use Testimonials in Email Marketing

When you use testimonials in email marketing, your email subscribers get to see your product in action — and how it’s working for others — without feeling like they are being sold to. Check out these ideas for how to harness the power of email marketing testimonials.

Engage in Product Storytelling

You’ll often hear the phrase “show, don’t tell” in social proof — and content marketing fueled by testimonials is a perfect way to do just that. Sharing meaningful product stories through the lens of customers is powerful. Consumers might see themselves in these stories and shared experiences. What’s more, you’re offering the literal proof that your products or services are worth purchasing.

Consider Video

Written testimonials are influential, of course, but with the prevalence of video in today’s marketing landscape, video testimonials in an email take that persuasiveness one step further. Consumers get to truly put a face to the name of the person behind the testimonial as they witness a firsthand account.

Amplify Case Studies

The results speak for themselves. Whether it’s “before and after” photos or an in-depth overview of problems solved, case studies are convincing to consumers across a range of businesses and their products and services. Email provides a way to succinctly summarize the top takeaways and results of case studies — while offering a call-to-action to link to the entire downloadable case study. However, make sure to include at least one testimonial in your case study email to make for an even more compelling CTA.

Highlight Real Customer Reviews

Customer reviews may seem relatively basic, but the research shows that they work — and they work well. In fact, 94% of people say that positive reviews make them more likely to use a business — 91% of individuals aged 18 to 34 trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. While five-star reviews are different from testimonials, it’s good to highlight some of the direct feedback that customers provide in their reviews in a promotional email. With this version of customer feedback, you can tip the scales in your favor when consumers are evaluating your business or product offering.

How to Collect Customer Testimonials for Email Marketing

Now that we’ve reviewed some examples of email marketing testimonials, you may be wondering how to obtain these customer testimonials.

The simple rule of thumb? Just ask! Here are some ideas to do just that:

Email Request

Send your list an email thank-you that includes a request for feedback after they’ve purchased your product or service. Provide concise instructions for how to leave a review — and then consider connecting directly with key customers who might be well-suited to a more in-depth testimonial, like a video or a personal story.

Social Media

Whether your company spends the most time on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, or another social platform, all these outlets are excellent places to speak to your consumers and ask them to share their stories and experiences about your products and services.

Website Integration

You may want to consider a dedicated section on your website where customers can leave a review or submit a testimonial. Whether it’s a form that’s embedded directly on your site or a user-friendly portal, having this integrated option amplifies the traffic you’re already driving to your site.  

Customer Surveys

Surveys aren’t just a great way to get testimonials; they can help you learn more about how your customers are using your products or services — and what else you might be able to provide or change to elevate their experience even more. Customer platforms like Hubspot have built-in survey form capabilities — or you can use a tool like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to ask for feedback. You may even consider incentivizing consumers to fill out a survey by offering a discount code upon completion or a raffle prize. In the survey, it’s a good idea to ensure that you ask for permission to use their feedback as a testimonial.

At Denver Post Media, we specialize in activating content marketing strategies that effectively integrate social proof — like testimonials. But we don’t expect you to take our word for it!


“Since the Denver Post took over management of our digital marketing, we have double-digit revenue growth.”
-Anthony Nicosia, EVP, Doctor Fix It

(See what we did there?!)


Check out more testimonials from our clients here.

7 Steps to Creating a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

7 Steps to Creating a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is about sharing your brand or company’s story in a way that feels more authentic and useful to the consumer.

For a good content marketing definition, consider the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) version, which references it as a “strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

A successful content strategy is important because it can help you accomplish key objectives and goals for your business, including:

  • Increased brand awareness, retention, and loyalty.
  • Lead generation.
  • Connection with your audience.
  • Higher traffic, sales, and intended consumer action.
  • Thought leadership to build credibility and influence.
  • Introduction of corporate social responsibility goals.
  • Amplification of other marketing tactics, including SEO, PR, and social media.

7 Steps to Content Marketing Strategy Success

The seven steps below provide a guide to creating a successful business content marketing strategy. 

1. Set Your Goals

Before you even pass go, the first step in developing a content marketing strategy is to clarify your goals. Defining the purpose behind your content marketing strategy will help establish your roadmap for moving forward.

Examples of goals include:

  • Establish thought leadership.
  • Increase traffic to your website from search engines.
  • Improve customer retention.
  • Generate an increase in product sales.
  • Drive more lead generation to a free downloadable asset.

It’s helpful to be as specific as possible with goals and include measurable targets so you can assess the effectiveness of your content strategy and make any necessary changes.

2. Define Your Audience

After you establish the goal you want to achieve, it’s time to define your target audience. Knowing who you want to reach is imperative to an effective content marketing strategy — the best content in the world will mean nothing if it’s not relevant and actionable for the consumer.

It’s helpful to create brand personas—or personas—for your best-fit prospects and customers. These personas should include standard demographic data like age, gender, location, income, and more. 

You may also want to consider qualifications like:

  • What are their key motivators, beliefs, and values?
  • What are their pain points or challenges?
  • How can your products or services help solve those challenges?
  • How and where do they consume content?
  • What types of content do they enjoy most?

3. Do Your Research

There are several types of research you’ll want to consider for an effective content marketing strategy. 

First, look at what your competition in the marketplace is doing. Explore the types of content they’re producing and how it is performing with consumers. You might be able to get some ideas to make your own as you think about what will resonate best with your goals and your target audiences.

You’ll also want to investigate what your audience is already searching for online. Keyword research through a tool like Semrush can be helpful in compiling the most popular keywords that people are searching for on Google and other search engines. These results will help guide your content strategy and perhaps even give you some new ideas.

Finally, you might consider researching and reviewing any existing content you’ve already generated. What has generated the most interest? What hasn’t performed well? Use this information to inform your content strategy, too.

4. Choose Your Content Types and Content Pillars

Using your goals, target audience, and research findings, you’ll now want to select the types of content that will be most effective.

Popular content marketing examples to consider include:

  • Short-form videos
  • Static images
  • Tutorials
  • Blogs
  • Podcasts
  • White papers and e-books
  • Infographics

From here, you can establish some overarching content pillars or themes to guide your strategy. For example, you may choose to focus on a different topic every month while integrating special promotions and acknowledging more general-interest content like national holidays.

5. Create a Content Calendar

Once you have created your content pillars and topics, it’s time to make a plan. 

A content marketing strategy template or a content calendar helps you organize, coordinate, execute, and track your content strategy. Otherwise, it’s very easy to lose track of your publishing schedule.

There are many ways you can create a content calendar — from basic programs to more advanced solutions. You can use something as straightforward (and free) as Google Sheets or WordPress Editorial Calendar — or more advanced tools like Trello, Asana, or Basecamp.

All content calendars will likely include details like topic and title, type, graphics, owner, status, due date, and publish date. This helps keep everyone involved in your content strategy informed and on track.

6. Publish and Promote Your Content

With your content calendar in hand, it’s time to go “live” and begin publishing your content. But it doesn’t end there.

It’s essential to make sure your content reaches as many people as possible in your target audience. Therefore, your content marketing strategy should include a plan for amplification, too.

Here are a few ways you can promote your content after you’ve published it:

  • Social Media: Share your content on your social media platforms. Consider boosting your posts to reach more people.
  • Email Marketing: Message your email lists with engaging calls to action.
  • Paid Advertising: From PPC to Google ads, Meta advertising solutions, and more, paid ads are often an investment worth making.
  • Influencer Partnerships: Consider building relationships with relevant influencers to reach new audiences that are appropriate for your brand.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Make sure your content is optimized effectively to rank higher in search results.

7. Monitor Performance

An effective content marketing strategy is constantly being monitored, tracked, and evaluated. It also will likely evolve over time as you learn what types of content are making the biggest impact toward your goals.

The specific metrics you track may differ depending on your goals. Google Analytics is a widely used platform to measure website traffic and engagement. Social media analytics tools — like Meta for Business — are also effective for measuring social media reach and engagement.

Bonus Step: Plan Your Resources

Developing a content marketing strategy — and executing it — requires significant time and expertise. You may feel like you don’t have the adequate resources or time to make it happen. Many companies look to outside resources to support their content marketing.

Denver Post Media’s award-winning solutions in the content space allow us to serve your needs for all things content. Whether you’re looking for placement and promotion or development and strategy, we’re here to help connect your brand to engaged audiences through the unique format of storytelling. We can help you tell your story. Learn more here.

6 Key Metrics Every Business Should Track

6 Key Metrics Every Business Should Track

Key Marketing Metrics Every Business Should Track

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” – Peter Drucker

Management consultant Peter Drucker’s frequently referenced business principle reinforces the importance of measuring data points to manage and improve business processes.

Tracking quantifiable metrics helps reflect the successes — or challenges — of marketing tactics to achieve KPIs for business. 

While it can be easy to interchange KPIs (key performance indicators) and metrics, the distinction is that KPIs are tied to specific business goals and objectives. Metrics are neutral data points that, in context, can be used to evaluate progress toward those goals and objectives. 

Benefits of Tracking Marketing Metrics

We’d be willing to guess that at least one of your business goals is generating more revenue or increasing value in some form or fashion. Your marketing campaigns and sales efforts should have a positive impact on your company’s KPIs and bottom line. But, without tracking marketing metrics, there’s no way to tangibly quantify your results.

Here are just a few benefits of marketing metrics:

  • Assess your company’s performance.
  • Compare your performance against industry benchmarks and your company’s prior performance.
  • Identify any challenges to course-correct.
  • Pinpoint campaign pain points.
  • Evaluate KPIs and set future goals.
  • Provide your stakeholders with important insights.

6 Metrics Marketing Teams Should Track

With a sea of available data points available, you may be wondering what to track — especially for online businesses. After all, there are so many ways for companies to market and advertise their product or service — from online advertising to email, direct mail, email, social media, and more — it’s essential to know what is performing well and what marketing mix is most effective. 

Start with these six essential metrics, many of which can be built into your Google Analytics KPIs dashboard: 

1. Users and Sessions

While it may seem quite rudimentary to track users and sessions in Google Analytics in addition to the percentage of new users versus returning users, this data can paint an important baseline picture of how many people are visiting your site and any of your relevant landing pages—and, in turn, tell you how your SEO and marketing KPIs are performing. 

2. User Acquisition

Although not technically a metric, another report you’ll want to pay attention to is how your visitors found your site or landing page. That’s precisely what user acquisition will tell you. This is especially vital if you’re using a range of different marketing platforms and campaigns and you want to know what’s performing the best — or, conversely, what seems to be driving the least traffic. Google Analytics’s report shows metrics like new users, engaged users, and event counts.

3. Key Event Rate

Google Analytics tracks all actions as “events,” and then you get to decide what is a “key event,” which you can use to get an idea of your customer conversion rate. Conversion rate measures the percentage of your audience who convert by completing your desired action, such as downloading a white paper, purchasing a product, or starting a free trial.

You can manually calculate key events like conversion rates using the following formulas:

  • Conversion Rate = Conversions / Sessions
  • User Conversion Rate = Users Who Converted / Total Users   

4. Customer Acquisition 

Do you know how much it costs to turn a prospect into a customer? Customer acquisition cost (CAC) can tell you. It’s essential to know your CAC because if your investment in acquiring new customers continually exceeds your revenue, your business will be upside-down.

To calculate your CAC, a formula you can use is:

  • CAC = total marketing and sales spend / number of new customers

5. Customer Lifetime Value

While it’s important to know your CAC, it’s even more critical to know what a customer is worth to your business. That’s where Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) comes in, as it shows how much revenue a customer generates during the relationship with your company. The best way to calculate this metric is not by individual customers, but by an average of all typical customers.

To calculate your CLV, a formula you can use is:

  • CLV = (Average transaction value x Average number of transactions in a year x Average customer retention in years) x Profit margin

6. Return on Marketing Investment

In addition to CLV and CAC, there’s one more acronym that can help give you a clear vantage point on your marketing’s effectiveness as it relates to your bottom line. ROMI (return on marketing investment) measures how much revenue your marketing campaign is generating compared to the cost of running that campaign. 

Basically, ROMI can tell you if your marketing efforts are paying off — or not.

To calculate your ROMI, a formula you can use is:

  • ROMI = (sales growth – marketing cost) / marketing cost 

Your Partner to Help You Manage and Measure

At Denver Post Media, we know it can be overwhelming to measure and track these metrics and to understand how and when to pull the appropriate levers to create successful improvement in your marketing strategies and campaigns.

That’s why we do it for you — from content marketing to paid search, email, display, social, mobile, video, and more — all with a customized approach that includes advanced reporting.

Contact us today, and let’s start the conversation!