People start a business to make a profit and, hopefully, live off it full-time. Unless you’re already making it big in your industry, you may still be struggling to boost your sales and revenue. You can only achieve this level of stability if consumers are actually buying your products and services.
Having an effective marketing strategy is crucial to succeeding in business. In today’s modern world, you have to focus on reaching your target audience digitally, since 87% of shoppers start their buying journey through online product searches. (1)
Moreover, you also have to remember that most consumers use their smartphones for everything, from browsing the web to completing purchases. About 63% admitted that they’re more likely to purchase from brands that have personalized mobile sites and apps. As such, you should invest in mobile marketing software to keep track of customer engagement and other key factors. (2)
Key marketing metrics
It’s not enough, though, to just be visible to consumers. You have to ensure that they’re actually interacting with your brand and developing their interest in your products. You must determine whether your company is attracting and retaining customers successfully.
Although there are so many platforms and tools to run your marketing campaign, there are metrics you can monitor to determine whether your strategies are effective or if they’re working against you. Here’s are some things to watch out for:
It’s not helping you achieve your goals
One of the most common online marketing mistakes that can hamper the success of your campaigns is not setting a clear goal. If you don’t have a specific objective for each strategy you’re implementing, your efforts will surely be wasted. On the other hand, if you’re certain that you did everything correctly at the start and you still haven’t reached your goals in a given period, then your marketing campaign might be working against you.
With marketing, your aim shouldn’t always be to generate sales. It all depends on what you want to achieve for your company at the time that you run your campaign.
It’s too expensive
If your marketing campaign is costing you more, you’d better rethink your strategies and figure out where it went wrong. When talking about returns, it doesn’t even have to be monetary, such as having lots of sales. For example, gaining leads and driving traffic to your website doesn’t generate ROI immediately, but with proper nurturing, they’re likely to contribute to your company’s revenue in the future.
Nonetheless, you still have to monitor these factors to ensure that you’re not going way over your marketing budget and invalidate your campaign:
- Cost per win – This pertains to the expense that you accumulate for each sale or successful buyer. If a USD$1,000 campaign got 10 sales, the cost per win would be USD$100. This metric helps you compare different campaigns to each other to see which one is more cost-effective.
- Cost per lead – On the other hand, this one focuses on the leads or potential customers, not just on the purchases. With the same budget of USD$1,000, if the 10 sales generated 20 leads, then the cost per lead would be USD$50. Depending on your company and goals, this could already be a good deal.
It doesn’t generate a high conversion rate
Sales and leads are good, but another factor to consider is the conversion rate. Its effectiveness depends, again, on your goals for a particular campaign, since it measures how many people perform the desired action.
If you want your landing page to boost your newsletter subscriptions, then your conversion rate for that webpage would be based on how many people signed up for the newsletter. The same goes for your social media marketing strategies. If these campaigns don’t reap the type of return you want, it’s time to scrap them and come up with a new plan.
It doesn’t boost sales
Ultimately, the end goal of any business is to generate income. Knowing which campaigns are effective and which ones are working against you is crucial to keeping your enterprise afloat. After all, if you’re spending so much to reach your target audience without actually capturing their interest and converting them into paying customers, you’re just throwing away your hard-earned money.
Takeaway
It’s important to stay on top of your marketing campaigns. Monitor them regularly and check whether they’re still effective tools for reaching your goals. If so, you can continue to run them or give them a few tweaks to improve your ROI. On the other hand, it may be time to find other strategies if you’re not getting the return you want.
References
- “10 Mind-Blowing Stats About Consumer Behaviour”, Source: https://thekeenfolks.com/10-mind-blowing-stats-about-consumer-behaviour/
- “Marketing consumer research statistics – Think with Google”, Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/marketing-consumer-research-statistics/