How To Determine Marketing Effectiveness
Periodically, you should evaluate how you market your business
and decide if you need to make any changes. Here is a list of questions to ask
about your efforts and help you decide if your marketing is effective.
Social Media
Is your social media increasing your online reach? Have you
added fans to your business Facebook page this year? Have you kept posting
regularly? Are your customers and fans responding to your posts and engaging in
conversation with you? Do they share the information you post because it is
interesting, entertaining or informative? Social media works better when it is
a regular activity and creates conversation. Don't use it to sell yourself; use
it to create relationships with customers.
Online Advertising
Are your online advertising dollars creating a Return on
Investment (ROI)? If you have Pay Per Click, or PPC, advertising, are the
clicks resulting in sales? Do you track that? A non-performing PPC campaign can
be due to ineffective ad copy, inadequate funding of the campaign, or a poor or
missing landing page. Do you know which one of these needs to be improved? PPC
is one of the easiest advertising tools to track and using Google Analytics and
AdWords to do that is free. If you are buying from local media outlets, make
sure they are giving you weekly reports on your clicks and the CTR -
click-through rate.
Traditional Media
Do you use traditional advertising? How do you measure the
effectiveness of print ads, radio, TV, billboards, etc.? They are measurable
but having the sales person tell you how many people might have seen your ad is
not the same as people coming in the door and the phone ringing. Make sure you
are taking steps when creating your ads to allow for tracking. Use a separate
phone number just for print ads, or add a promotional code on a radio
commercial. Combine your traditional marketing with your online marketing to
increase your marketing effectiveness.
Identifying Your Target Market
Do you really know your target market? Who are your customers
and what do they want? Great marketing means that you are providing your
customers what they want or need, right when they want it. So it is important
to know up front who your customers are and what they want and you may need to
do a little research for that. Make sure you are talking to the right people
because spending money to advertise to customers who have no interest in buying
your product or service is a waste.
Ad Spending
Are you spending enough or too much on your advertising? A lot of
businesses can't really answer that question because they did not set up
trackable goals before they started to spend. Remember, there is no magic
formula for how to spend your money or how much to spend. The most important
thing for any business owner to know is how much it costs to acquire a new
customer, and how much a new customer is worth to the business. Obviously, you
want the cost to be less than the value to the business in most cases (loss
leaders not included). A solid marketing plan will help you create measurable
goals so you will know for sure if your marketing is effective.
Marketing Expertise
Lastly, are you trying to do your own marketing but don't really
know how? Marketing is an art and a science and for most business owners, it is
not their area of expertise. Outsourcing your marketing to a marketing
consultant or advertising agency can give you the expertise you need without
having to hire additional staff. Plus, you get the added benefit of spending
more time doing what you know how to do, taking care of your customers and
delivering high quality customer service.
Outsource your marketing with Deppe Communications, a marketing
consulting firm that helps small businesses get the most from their marketing
dollars.With over 25 years experience in marketing everything from $1 billion
businesses to sole proprietorships, Deppe Communications can scale their
expertise to match your goals and your budget.
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