Marketing has grown since the 1960s; the Internet has constructed a new wing — with rooms galore — on the mansion of effective marketing. However, it’s foolish for a business to engage in marketing efforts they can’t track. If you can’t see if something works — or if it’s more efficient than another method — how do you know if you’re wasting your time and money? If you can’t measure your ROI, switch up your methods. Marketing isn’t just about attracting people to your products; it’s about using your budget efficiently so you can have the biggest impact possible. Collect, organize and use the data you collect to benefit your marketing campaigns. Email marketing campaigns give you an unprecedented ability to sculpt, direct and evaluate marketing materials for a finely segmented audience; Pay-per-click advertising, on the other hand, lets you target a general audience — people searching for the type of product or service you provide — but lets you stick to a tight budget by only requiring you to pay for click-throughs.
Email Marketing
Many businesses reach out to their target audience through email. If your business has gone through the effort of obtaining email leads, make sure those leads are converting. When you send out emails to your list, pay attention to the reports you receive about the habits of your email recipients. These reports allow you to see how many of the emails you sent were read, how many resulted in clicks to your site, whether your emails were marked as spam and if readers unsubscribed from your list. Pair this data with your website’s metrics to get a clearer view of the full impact of your business’s email marketing campaign.
Pay-per-click Advertising
Not every company has the funding to advertise everywhere. This doesn’t mean you need to abandon the idea of advertising online, though. Pay-per-click advertising allows you to buy into specific keyword searches and place ads your targeted audience is likely to see. You pay for it based on the amount of clicks your ad receives, hence the name. Many pay-per-click advertising platforms provide you with detailed reporting, so you can track whether your efforts are worth it. You can see what people searched for to reach your site, how many people clicked on your ad and whether those clicks converted into sales. If the keyword you chose isn’t effective, choose a different keyword.
The Importance of Analytics
Some companies simply start advertising online and don’t realize they need to track their efforts. Then, they don’t understand why they aren’t seeing the success their competitors are or why they aren’t driving more traffic. When you pay close attention to the data, you spend less money on better results.
Making the most of your marketing efforts requires you to see which tactics work and which don’t. With the help of analytics, you can see where your money is best spent and where you need to make changes to ensure you make the greatest impact, no matter what your online marketing budget is. As long as you’re able to reach your target market, you’ll achieve the success you desire.
