2017 is fast approaching and business owners are taking a look at their numbers.
It’s time to take stock of yours and your marketing should not be the exception.
So, is your marketing working? You already know the importance of marketing analytics, but are you keeping your marketing accountable?
Recently we sat down for lunch with a local business owner. He mentioned how fast 2016 went by and how his business had the best year ever.
We just had to ask him if he thought his marketing department had something to do with it and if he could mention what strategy had worked the best and … he couldn’t tell us.
It’s the end of the year and he had no idea what type of advertising had worked. Trust me, it happens more often than not.
The most effective digital marketing channels you can use to market your business
Digital marketing has a lot of benefits, but if you ask me, I’ll tell you that the best thing about digital marketing is that it makes it easy to measure your results and track your audience. Once you’ve found what works for your business, finding people should come easily because you can target your marketing based on what gives you results.
Here are four different types of marketing that allow you to easily track your investment:
Website with blog posts – Having a website that you continuously update with interesting and relatable content helps you establish your authority. The best blogs out there answer those FAQs that their readers have. If you’re consistently posting helpful content for your target audience, it’ll help you set yourself as an authority in their eyes.
Hey, raise your hand if you want more website visitors. Yep, we all do. Well, every time you post some content, it’s one more indexed page on your website and one more opportunity for you to show up in search engines and drive traffic to your website in organic search.
Email marketing – This one is an easy-to-use platform to connect with your customers and share timely and relevant information with them. Think of it as your direct communication channel with your target market. Not to mention those email coupons and offers! We still get them for a reason: they effectively drive online and in-store sales.
Google PPC and remarketing – Takes the guesswork out of online advertising. With Google AdWords you get to see how your ads are doing. You will be able to see how many people are shown your ads, visit your website, or call your business. You can even target specific types of people if your business is specialized.
Facebook ads and remarketing – On Facebook, you’re able to see the results of your efforts. Their ad reporting tools show you how the ads you’ve created have impacted your business in visually appealing and easy-to-read reports.
Now that we’ve talked about a few marketing strategies that allow for easy tracking, let’s go over a few that may require a bit more work to track, but can definitely be worth it for some businesses. The evolution of the internet doesn’t kill off these channels; it just makes us look at them differently because they are used differently by consumers.
Traditional marketing channels are harder to track but still worth considering
Print in mags and papers – We get it; it’s the 21st century and the internet is taking over. But there’s something about tangibility that gives value to a message. It can help build up engagement that results in a priceless interaction with your potential customers.
Brochures, newspapers, flyers, and magazines will give you the constant exposure that is quite different than an online ad. Adding the element of actual touch can help capture your reader’s attention. Research has proven that consumers usually spend a lot more time looking at a print ad than a digital ad.
Billboards – They’re huge and eye-catching so it’s a given fact that people will see it — you’re guaranteed an audience. Since they’re placed on busy streets and highways, you will be targeting a large and diverse market. Due to them being mostly image-based, they provide a strong visual effect with their photographic information.
Radio – For small businesses, radio represents a very powerful local channel. Advertising on the radio will help you attract an audience that keeps up with local news and events. Radio advertisements help your business reach an audience that trusts this medium to get their information such as news, weather, traffic, and sports reports.
The appropriate channel to market your business depends entirely on your business itself and the audience you’re trying to reach.
A word of advice: make sure your marketing allows you to track its effects and hold it accountable.
Ways you can hold your marketing accountable
Call tracking – Taking advantage of a good call tracking service will provide you with the full story on your phone conversions and help you discover which ads, campaigns, and strategies are driving phone calls.
Analytics – A web analytics and marketing measurement tool will provide you with the information needed to measure website, app, digital, and offline data to gain some customer insights. You can then turn these insights into actions.
Unique landing pages – By taking advantage of simple and single-goal landing page experiences, your reporting will be able to show what ad strategy is performing best. With unique landing pages, you can expect to have a greater culture of accountability where you can boldly say you own your marketing.
CRM – An effective Customer Relationship Management strategy will help you make sure you’re using only the best practices, strategies, and technologies to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. The goal of CRM is to improve business relationships with customers, assist in customer retention, and drive sales growth.
Schedule time with yourself to review your marketing
Just recently I was working with a client whose ad conversions suddenly dropped down to zero. Everything else stayed the same, but their conversions disappeared. What was it? After taking a look at their PPC account, we were able to notice their best keywords had a below average bid, preventing their ads from showing up when they had the most chance to turn into conversions. By knowing the details of the issue, we were able to raise their bids for the situations that seem more likely to lead to a sale, and lower the bids for situations that seem less likely to lead to a conversion.
After all is said and done, having all the data in the world is useless unless you slow down to review it, interpret it, and turn those insights into actions that will help you reach your goals. You have to find the time to sit down and go through all the info you can get about your marketing strategies. Remember, if you don’t know what’s going on, how are you going to improve it?
Photos courtesy of: http://tvorbaweb-stranok.sk, chriscorneschi, uriba, Sean MacEntee.
