One of the key elements of building and growing any business is marketing. Good marketing can drive your company’s success while marketing goofs can have a potentially fatal impact. Marketing is often the key differentiator between failure, success and wild success. However, it is not enough to simply invest in marketing. You must track and analyze your marketing efforts to determine what is working and what is not. You will also have the opportunity of setting realistic budgets, testing the market and your message, and then tracking the response rate.
As companies struggle with the financial pressures of owning and operating a business, it is critical to maximize every dollar. Every dollar must work hard and deliver an optimal return. Gone are the days when companies could afford to spend millions of dollars building a brand and then bringing out customer awareness through intensive marketing strategies. In today’s market it is imperative to determine the marketing efforts that will work and help grow the business.
Marketing cannot be viewed as a short term investment. It is an ongoing effort that must be strategically planned and executed. To ensure the maximum return on your marketing dollar you must start with a plan. All too often, businesses fail to clearly identify their target market and the messages and distribution channels that will reach them. Equally important is testing and measuring your marketing efforts once implemented. You must clearly identify your customers, the product or service they are buying, quantity of product or service being purchased, and the opinion of customers about what you sell. With this information, you can begin to determine if your current marketing plan is achieving your objectives.
Developing your marketing messages is part science and part art. However, the end result can be measured and quantified. This process does not have to be painful or complicated. You simply want to compare and score your marketing options to ensure that you are maximizing the value of your dollar. To help you get started with this process, consider the recommendations below.
- Customers – Identify your target audience. Instead of trying to capture the attention of everyone, know who your customers are and develop marketing messages that specifically target their pain points.
- Information – The information you provide to existing and potential customers needs to be well thought out and very specifically highlight the benefits to your target market for buying your product or service. You will want to consider your customer’s buying orientation, needs, preferences and more. You will then want to test and measure your messages to ensure that they are delivering the desired return.
- Marketing Channels – Every company has a number of available marketing channels for reaching customers which include internet, television, print advertisement, sponsorship, etc. It is important to track your marketing channels to ensure that they are the most effective for your business.
- Cost – Each marketing program will have a different price tag. You will want to track not only the direct costs (such as the cost of placing an ad) but the cost of acquiring customers through that channel. To do this you will need to track the response rate and the close rate of those responses.
- Overall Results – Marketing is the communication that fuels your sales efforts. There are tangible and intangible benefits to your marketing efforts. It is important to consider both in your evaluation of your marketing efforts.
You will want to determine the ROI on your marketing efforts so that you gain the maximum value from your dollar. In doing so, it is important to clearly identify the objective of your marketing efforts in advance. For example, you may choose to invest in a trade show to increase brand recognition. As such the return will not be measured by sales or revenue from the event. However, if you send out direct mail pieces with a call to action to make a purchase, the return would be measured by the number of responses and the number of sales from those responses.
Finally, in addition to tracking results you will want to test your marketing efforts. For example you could test headlines on the internet by using Google Adwords, or you could do a test run of 500 for direct mail pieces. Even in successful marketing campaigns, you can test your message by continuing to enhance it by making small modifications and testing the results.
The bottom line is that if the marketing program is developed and executed properly over a set timeframe, you should be able to test the results, track the results, and then make adjustments so the program is working as efficiently as possible. The key is to avoid making several large changes at once. Instead, take each variable and modify it until it is optimized. Testing and tracking can be challenging but you will be glad that you invested the time and effort when you are able to see the results in your bottom line.
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