It’s National Girl Scouts Day, Do You Have your Digital Marketing Cookies?

You see them selling their cookies at strip malls and grocery stores; Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos, Samoas and the list goes on. It’s National Girl Scouts Day, and in order for their cookie venture to bring in significant revenue, they need to use every cookie flavor in their arsenal while finding ways to pair each cookie to their customer’s taste buds.

Digital marketing is very similar in that multiple flavors (channels) are used to reach the right audiences. If you are only using one or two channels to reach your buyers, you are leaving lead volume on the table thus missing out on sales opportunities.

Girl Scout Cookies and business 101 go hand-in-hand. If you visit the Girl Scouts Cookie website and click on individual cookie flavor descriptions you can read how each box goes towards teaching the girls a business skill. From money management to people skills and decision making, these cookies offer a valuable lesson. And when immersing these lessons into a digital marketing stratagem, the right marketing channels and the skills required to manage them illustrate a valuable lesson. Here are the necessary channels required to utilize a digital marketing growth stack to increase sales and grow your customer base.

SEO Tagalongs- Yes It Still Matters, and Always Will

You know Tagalongs: those chocolate peanut butter cookies that help a Girl Scout learn decision making skills. The Girl Scouts express that when a girl sells a box of Tagalongs “she makes a plan, solves problems on her own, and thinks creatively”–vital skills she can use in her future career in putting together an SEO strategy.

Today’s SEO is very different from what its common practices were several years ago. Trying to rank pages by stuffing keywords into content is a stale cookie. With the advancement and ease of use in mobile voice search technology, and with the boost in smart home technology search, buyers no longer click on “rank bait” that leads them to a sales team to get more information. Today’s digital consumer does thorough research before making a purchasing decision, so good SEO relies on topical and contextual articles that explore popular industry subjects, tough on buyer pains, and offer a product or service as the best solution to the need at hand. Keywords still matter, but you need to get into a Girl Scout Tagalong frame of mind and use these keywords while keeping today’s technology and search behavior in mind while making a plan, solving problems and thinking creatively.

Reaching People, Paid Search and Shortbread Trefoils

Shortbread is a classic, and so are people skills when it comes to marketing 101. The Girl Scouts state that when a girl sells these cookies she is “meeting new customers, making eye contact, talking about the cookies, and saying thanks”. This is THE PERFECT blueprint for a Google PPC strategy. You need to bid smart to get placement for meeting new customers, use clever copy to make eye contact and a valuable first impression, have a landing page that talks about the product or service in a way that will convert, and have a thank you page after the person completes the step. Be sure to use compelling copy that targets a buyer persona. Most Girl Scouts can tell the difference between a Toffee-tastic fan and a S’mores lover. Make sure the bid keywords, negative keywords, and ad copy reflect the real people you are targeting.

Engagement Through Inbound Marketing and Thanks-a-Lot

These cookies have a bottom coating of fudge with a thank you message in various languages on the shortbread side. Moreso, the Girl Scouts state that when the Thanks-a-Lot cookies are sold, girls learn business ethics through interactions with each customer. They explain that “a girl learns the importance of keeping her word, doing the right thing, and being fair. She learns the importance of doing business right”. Though much of the inbound methodology relies on marketing automation which makes process easier for the best inbound marketing agencies, there are a number of components that require customized, unique content to help move people through the buyer’s journey. You do not want to skip on writing email copy, blogs and guides. In order to truly do the right thing and run a fair service, there must be a number of pieces build from industry research, buyer persona data, and details obtained from sales teams. When it comes to business ethics in digital marketing, an inbound engagement must leave no stone unturned.

Goal Setting, Reporting and some Do-Si-Dos

Do-Si-Dos are delicious peanut butter cookie sandwiches, and each box sale helps Girl Scouts learn about goal setting. The organization states that “she learns how to organize the cookie sale, set goals, and work hard”.

Setting goals are important because it allows digital marketers to track analytics, gauge success, and prove value to the client. Goals can also change based on a number of factors that include internal changes to a business or how users engage the website. Reporting is a crucial piece of goal setting because it allows the marketer and client to attribute value to the services and investment while setting realistic expectations.

The last thing you want to do is take the easy way out by regurgitating Google Analytics in a copied format with data that will confuse the client. Take after the Girl Scouts Do-Si-Dos lesson; put in some hard work to create reports that make complete sense to the client while offering full transparency. There are a number of software solutions to help marketers deliver amazing, customizable reports. For example, Raven Tools pulls data from Google Analytics with custom fields and allows agencies to integrate other analytics from multiple platforms into one easy report. Put your personal touch on your reporting, and use the clearly presented data to achieve growth goals.

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