Back to Basics is a Think with Google Canada series where Google experts explore digital marketing best practices. We updated this article to include 2021 resources.
More than ever, marketers are looking for resources to help them adapt to a new normal and adjust marketing strategies to remain empathetic and relevant to their customers. Here are some Google tools and resources to help you stay on top of this ever-changing landscape.
How to stay helpful
With many Canadians turning to digital channels to get updates and stay informed, it’s important to keep your information up-to-date and easy to find.
Create your Business Profile on Google
Creating a Business Profile on Google can help you manage the way your business information appears across Google Search and Maps. It’s also an easy way to communicate timely updates and information, like temporary closures or posts about business offerings.
Google My Business Marketing Kit
The Google My Business Marketing Kit helps you quickly create custom posters, social posts and more using customer reviews and highlights from your Business Profile on Google. You can also add helpful information to posters, such as delivery partners or special hours.
How to stay informed
News, policies and consumer needs are constantly changing. Staying on top of the latest trends can help you remain relevant.
Google Trends
Google Trends allows you to follow the latest search trends across Google Search, YouTube, Shopping, and Images, and identify growing interest in products and search terms. You can brush up on how to use Google Trends with these lessons on how to interpret the data, and subscribe to get Google Trends alerts on topics and searches in your region.
YouTube Trends
Following YouTube Trends can help identify videos and topics that reflect broader cultural shifts happening right now. Keep an eye on YouTube's trending videos to see what people are watching most, and what they’re searching for.
Google Analytics
Get a deeper understanding of your evolving customers by tapping into current insights from your website and app. If you host videos on YouTube, you can also check out YouTube Analytics, with detailed statistics on which videos and moments drive the most engagement by your target audience.
Google Alerts
Monitor the web for new content and important topics relevant to your business as-it-happens. Create custom alerts for your business (like tracking your company name, recent blog post or product titles) to stay in the know when people are talking about your brand.
Consumer Survey
Asking questions can help you stay empathetic and inform important business decisions. With Google Consumer Surveys, you can ask up to 10 questions and select the relevant audience demographic you wish to answer. You can then analyze your data in easy-to-navigate graphs and segmentations.
Rising Retail Categories
This interactive tool, updated daily, can help Canadian marketers better understand which retail search queries are rising in global markets, by retail category.
How to adjust and adapt
As consumers' needs change, your business may need to evolve, too. Continue to monitor and adjust your channels and strategies to ensure you’re meeting their needs.
Test My Site
Test your website’s mobile performance and address specific fixes to help create a more frictionless experience. Check out PageSpeed Insights in Chrome DevTools to get a deeper audit on performance, accessibility and improve overall quality of your web pages across multiple devices.
YouTube Video Builder
Quickly adapt your creative with this self serve-tool. Animate static assets — images, text and logos — with music from our library to generate a short YouTube video. For best results, follow the recommended styles, sizes, and orientation for images highlighted in Video Builder. As you upload new images, use the “Storyboard” panel at the bottom of Video Builder to preview the layout of video.
Performance Planner and Reach Planner
If you’re adjusting media plans due to market changes, these forecasting tools can help you dynamically plan and reach the right customers across Google properties. Performance Planner lets you plan your advertising spend within Google Ads, with forecasts refreshed daily and based on the last 7-10 days. Reach Planner is designed to accurately plan for reach based video campaigns across YouTube and video partners sites with forecasts refreshed weekly.
Market Finder
As the market continues to change, your customers and where they are based may change, too. Explore helpful tools and guides to understand if expanding in new markets is right for you. There is a dedicated section to help you plan your operations within each market you could be considering including localization, payments and logistics.
My Export Score by Market Finder
In addition to Market Finder, My Export Score can offer tips for assessing, planning and scaling your business globally based on your current level of “readiness.” To find your score, enter your URL, answer a few questions about your business operations and goals and then receive a downloadable report with your score and tips for taking it to the next level.
