The Great Marketing Experiment - November 2023 Update

When we decided to restart Prevail Marketing, LLC., we knew that even though we had a seasoned group to execute any engagements, the fact we were all in-house for the last 4 years meant we, in many ways, were starting at ground zero.

The website had been dormant during that time and lost all domain authority and traffic. This meant that we would have to generate traffic pretty much the way any new startup would. We decided that this was a perfect opportunity to test the legitimacy of what every inbound marketing agency preaches to their clients.

We decided to test the effectiveness of using omnichannel marketing to distribute the content created to address the concerns, pain points, and interests of our targeted buyer personas. We made the decision that we would not prime the pump through any paid demand efforts. We dubbed this as the Great Marketing Experiment of 2023/24. We committed to producing a long-form blog each day (7 days/week). We would use that content to produce a daily video on YouTube, and a short, on both TikTok and Instagram. All those materials would be amplified through posts on X (Formerly Twitter), BlueSky Social, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

At the outset of this experiment, we promised to provide transparency, so that startups and young organizations can fully understand the power of content marketing, and maybe, along the way, be enriched by the content we are creating.

Today was the completion of the first 30 days, and it's time for a progress report. Whenever one begins a startup, it is important to savor the small wins, as they are often all you will have for a substantial period. We had to give ourselves the same “pep talk” that we often need to have with our clients. We reminded ourselves that organic growth is never quick. It may take three to four months until you see a substantial sign that it is working. This process allowed us to better understand the mindset of our startup clients where three/four months can seem like an eternity.

We are proud to report that our first success criteria was met. We managed to post a blog, videos, and amplification every day. Since we are now thirty days into this program, we are told it has become a habit. Hopefully, that means the next thirty days will be easier.

The First 30 Days

As the month progressed, we did see substantial upward trends in both the number of sessions and unique users visiting our website. In the first couple of weeks, we saw little or no traffic to the website. However, as we rolled out our content plan, we saw some remarkable improvements. To the extent possible, we utilized a Pillar blog strategy, where the main blog has three or four cluster blogs that provide a more in-depth analysis and examination of the issue. This approach seemed to resonate, and the traffic responded accordingly. The net results were that during the first 30 days of the website, we received 453 unique visitors (we blocked our IP addresses). These 453 individuals engaged in 2,738 sessions over that period.

This meant the average daily visit was 15 unique visitors engaging in 91 sessions. The actual daily results, for the last two weeks, were significantly higher to achieve that average.

It was not surprising to learn that 85% of the traffic originated in North America, but we were surprised that 97% of the traffic came from desktop users.

We also learned that 85% of the visitors who came to our Homepage navigated to the bottom of the page. Shoutout to our UX/UI team for crafting a page that kept the visitor engaged.

Omni-Channel Marketing Results

We placed a UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) code at the end of the URL for each social platform, so we could see what platform was giving us the most engagement. It should be no surprise to anyone that LinkedIn outperformed everything.

YouTube – We receive far more engagement on the YouTube channel than we anticipated. We found that there was a direct correlation between the thumbnail and the number of views. When we upped our designs on the thumbnails, there was a marked increase in viewership. Shout out to Altcoin Daily for the suggestion. The average number of views for each video was 16. We even managed to get an average of two likes per video and a half-dozen comments. The great part, about YouTube videos, is that there is no temporal component, and the numbers will continue to grow for each of the videos. YouTube was the second largest originator of traffic to our website, accounting for 35% of the website traffic.

LinkedIn – The LinkedIn results were particularly interesting. While our Prevail Marketing LinkedIn Page had nominal growth. We got 14 new page followers and 55 page views from 40 unique visitors.

The posts themselves received 426 views with 66 reactions and six reposts. There was a high conversion rate with 60% of the traffic coming from LinkedIn.

Other Channels - While we posted every day to TikTok, Instagram, BlueSky, Threads, and X (formerly Twitter), the engagement, so far, has been minimal. We did get a few additional followers, but none of them resulted in actual traffic to www.prevail.marketing. We had no illusions that we would generate any significant followers or traction with only 30 days of activity.

Was This Month Successful?

By every measure, this month produced far greater results than we had anticipated. It was encouraging to see a steady increase in engagement as the month progressed. However, make no mistake, that 98% of the traffic was at the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey and are not even market-qualified leads.

On the bright side, two organizations, that had not heard about us prior, did covert to become opportunities. Both of these originated after watching a video we reposted on LinkedIn.

We have just begun the Great Marketing Experiment of 2023/24. The determination as to how successful a content marketing initiative can be will not be apparent until the end of month four. By then, the compound effect of all the blogs, videos, and amplification should be sufficient for Google to reward us with high-quality traffic.

We will continue to report on the monthly results. As more leads become market-qualified leads, we will also begin reporting on the effectiveness a full-funnel nurturing campaign has on bringing these to sales-qualified leads and opportunities.

Looking forward to sharing this journey with you next month.