Your business may have a few marketing campaigns operating through various channels. It’s important to test if each campaign (and channel) is working.
The strength of your marketing plan is dependent on how relevant it is to your target customers. It should be effective at:
- Drawing in the customers you’re looking for by appealing to their core needs or wants.
- Creating leads. There are plenty of proven lead generating methods you could be adopting if your marketing isn’t working. For example, offering a free sample, trial or a download has worked for many companies.
- Producing sales. it’s vital to have a sales strategy that fits in with your marketing campaign.
Have you accurately measured your business’s marketing results? In this article, we’ll discuss multiple ways you can test whether your strategy is working.
Hitting your return on investment target
Finding out which areas of your marketing campaign worked and which didn’t will allow you to calculate your return on investment (ROI) for each segment of your plan.
To accurately measure your ROI, you should have:
- Recorded how much money you’ve spent on each part of your campaign. For example, an online marketing campaign to attract new customers to your travel agency website may have cost $1,000 for so many clicks through to your site, whereas your local newspaper’s website might have charged $600 for placing your ad on their travel page for a day.
- Determined whether you’ve made a profit. For example, linking to your site from the advert on your local paper’s website may have directly led to travel sales of tens of thousands of dollars and profits of $8,000. This profit figure would make it a successful part of your marketing campaign.
Establish which parts of your campaign produced a healthy ROI and which ones fell short.
Automating your marketing content
If your marketing efforts aren’t quite hitting the mark, consider using marketing automation. For example, you could automate the release of your marketing content through an online forum, or e-newsletter at set times.
It may help your business to maximize the effect of your content marketing on your target prospects.
Receiving positive customer feedback
No one tells you just how well your marketing is coming across than your target customers. You can find out what you need to know about each of your marketing initiatives by:
- Asking for customer feedback about your marketing campaign. Ensure you and your staff interact with your customers as much as possible, asking subtle questions to assess how they responded to your advertising.
- Providing an avenue for online responses. For example, you could have a complaints form on your website, or a comments section for people to leave their opinions on your products, services and marketing campaigns.
- Conducting a more formal survey for more in-depth detail about what your customers think. For example, you could ask questions like “What did you think about our NCAA© March Madness campaign?” or “Did our campaign influence your decision to make a purchase during March?’ A focus group might be an ideal environment to carry out a formal survey.
Increasing sales and profits
If your sales and profits are increasing, it’s likely that your marketing plan is having a positive effect.
For example, if your total sales during the last financial year came to $90,000 and this financial year you’re on target for sales of over $100,000, your current marketing campaign is probably having some kind of beneficial influence.
Getting feedback from your salespeople
If your business has salespeople, get them involved in the discussion about how effective your marketing campaign was. They may have a clear idea based on their interactions with customers.
Ask them if your intended message is getting through. If feedback from your salespeople is negative or your target customers are unaware of your latest campaign, it might be time to adjust your plan.
Next steps
- Carry out our quick marketing plan online training.
- Be sure to market your point of difference.
