Marketing Strategy

Marketing isn’t what it used to be.

Technology has changed the way businesses market, and the way people seek out information about goods and services has changed right along with it. Marketing your business doesn’t just take effort anymore, it takes knowledge. That’s why a tailored marketing strategy is at the core of every business that grows.

Successful businesses set goals and measure results. Successful businesses make sure that they are always in front of the right customers. Successful businesses have stellar marketing plans.

Here’s what yours should consist of:

Goals

Your goals should be well established.

Goals set a clear direction for your business. They also keep your marketing team’s objectives aligned with those of your sales team.

How many new leads do you want every week? Every month? Every quarter? What conversion percentage are you striving for?

The earlier you nail the answers to these questions the better. Write them down and put them in a visible place. Keeping them top-of-mind will help you stay on-task day-in and day-out.

Great Search Engine Rankings

You can be selling the best product the world has ever seen, but it’s all for nothing if your customers can’t find you online. In other words, your organic and local search engine rankings will help your business reel in the leads it deserves.

Building your organic visibility takes time, but will pay dividends if you stick with it. Google doesn’t like to see enormous changes, so having a good long-term organic search plan is your best bet.

Attracting the Right Customers to Your Business

Understanding your target audience will help you grow your business through relevant marketing.

According to the US Census Bureau, the number of people that regularly use the internet on their household computer has increased from 18% in 1997 to 71.7% in 2011. Moreover, since 2001, there has been roughly a 46% increase in individuals ages 45-55 who use the internet at home.

This is a sign that you should be engaging your customers online. Ultimately, however, knowing your target consumer – their age, sex, income, etc. – is the most important information your marketing team can understand, as it will help you craft a strategy specifically aimed at your ideal customer.

Taming Your Acquisition Costs to Keep You Profitable

If every new customer you acquire costs $50, but only generates $40 in revenue, you’re going to run yourself out of business.

That is why keeping your books in order is important to the longevity of your business. Working with your marketing team to set goals and ensure your acquisition costs make sense is one of the healthiest things you can do.

To find your acquisition cost, take your marketing costs over a given period – a week, a month, a quarter, a year – and divide it by the number of customers you acquired during that period.

Tracking, Analytics, and Testing

These numbers will tell you what is working and what needs to be changed.

Tracking your visitors and goal completions are essential to a custom-tailored marketing strategy. Doing so ensures the site is properly optimized for conversions. Continuously testing your site will help determine which elements lead to greater conversion rates and, in turn, more leads.

Having a qualified source analyze the data from the tests is possibly even more important than the test itself, because an accurate interpretation of the results will send you down a successful path. A/B testing is one great way to test your website’s lead generation effectiveness. A/B testing, or multivariate testing, employs different variations of a display, call-to-action, or content to see if it affects visitor engagement in a positive or negative way (i.e., did they become a lead or did they leave your website).

Marketing Strategies are Ever Evolving

Your marketing development never ends. Having a custom-tailored marketing plan will give you a cutting edge over your competition. It will help your business continuously grow. A professionally sculpted marketing strategy will help you create realistic goals, track your progress and effectively reach new customers.

This is only a brief overview of the key components of a marketing strategy. For a more in-depth look, call Spectrum or schedule a quick free demo. We’ll help you get on track.