Every NASCAR team that has dominated the series has ever entered a race without a plan. Pit crew, driver, owner, and everyone in between knows where they stand, what their job is, and what goal they are trying to reach. They know who they are competing against and what opportunities they have to succeed.

Successful businesses are the same way. There is a tool in the business world called a S.W.O.T. analysis. It helps you analysis your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This helps you think about what internal factors are in play and what external elements could come up. A S.W.O.T. analysis helps business owners create strategies to succeed and develop plans that will get them where they want to be.

So how does a S.W.O.T. analysis work in the digital world? Businesses are competing on the digital frontier nowadays and you need a plan to succeed. There’s only one problem. Digital marketing is a huge category and you can’t do just one analysis for your everything. What do you do? How do you break things down? Here are some areas you can look at to make sure you know where you stand, what you’re doing, and who you’re competing against.

• Search engines
  How is your site doing on Google? Look up your brand or your product and see how it shows up.(Before you freak out: Yes. We realized that Google is not the only search engine in the world, but considering over 80% of online searches are done on Google, we will focus on it for the most part)

  Questions to ask: How are you ranking? What can you do to rank higher? How is your competitor ranking? What are they doing differently? Should you add a PPC campaign?

• Social media
  Questions to ask: Is all the About Me information filled out? Do you give contact information? Is there a link that will take people to your site? Do you have your logo as a profile pic? Are there social media sites you should be on that you aren’t? How is your competitors social media site performing? What do they do that you don’t? What content are you posting/tweeting/pinning?

• Blogs
  FYI: If you’re not blogging you should be! Blogs help you talk to your customers. You can create content they find interesting and stay better connected with them. If you already have a blog, great work! Think about how to make it better.Questions to ask: Do customers interact (comment, share) with your content? Do they read it? Is your content easy to find? Do you update it frequently? What are your competitors blogging about? Are there other topics that your customers could find more interesting?

These are just a few areas of your digital marketing campaign that you can do a S.W.O.T. analysis for. Feel free to analysis anything and everything that you need to create a solid strategy for. Here’s a S.W.O.T. template to help get you started.

If you don’t have a strong digital marketing presence and need some help, please contact us here at CarCareCONNECT. In this generation, digital marketing is a must for every business no matter the product or service. CarCareCONNECT can work with you to build your online presence and grow your business. What are you waiting for? Give us a call.

Like this blog? Find it helpful? Feel free to let us know! As a leader in online marketing, CarCareCONNECT wants to hear from you. Comment below, like, and share. Also, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.