Gone are the old days of marketing when you implemented a kicking campaign and all you could gleam from it was that it was seen by “X” amount of people or that you had “X” amount of households who received the flyer, the direct mail piece, or the printed publication.
Today, marketing tactics bring with them a whole new world of high tech tools and analytics giving you the ability to track your return on investment (ROI) on almost every tactic you employ. Specifically, online marketing tactics have been created with built-in metrics that help you, the business owner, better understand and track the results of your marketing activities.
Despite the fact that all of this information is at our marketing fingertips, many business owners simply do not know what is available, how to access it and, more importantly, have the time to learn all of the analytical software and analyze the results. Unfortunately, there is no universal software that tracks all of your online marketing activities. You, your staff or your agency needs to track campaigns across various mediums using several software solutions and to do this, it requires time and a thorough understanding of what you are looking for and what that tool can do for you.
There are several marketing tactics including phone marketing, QR codes, and webkeys, but I have outlined below what have become the most popular and easily measurable tools of the online marketing field today.
- Website tracking: Google Analytics is by far the most powerful tool for measuring website traffic. In addition to tracking referral sites, viewed pages, and basic site stats, you can also see mobile usage and page flow, track landing page and Google Ad campaigns.
- Google Ads: These can be tracked directly from the dashboard of Google AdWords’s website. They will tell you what words are being indexed, how many impressions, which ads appear on the first page and how much it will cost for you to bid that keyword appear on the first page.
- Social Media: Finally, you can actually track your social media site stats. Though nowhere as comprehensive as Google Analytics, the main sites (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) will give you a good idea as to how often people visit your site, basic demographics, how often your posts are “liked” and what reach you are obtaining with your posts. The information, though not rich, allows you to see trends that may lead to changing up your style or approach or any future campaigns.
- Word Press: Using Word Press for your site or blog is a great way to track analytics. Much like the social media sites, Word Press can give you basic info on what posts people are reading on which day and the number of followers you are picking up. This information will help you to again, look at trends and change or modify your campaigns.
- E-blasts: No matter what external service or software you use for eblasts, they all have extensive analytics which help you determine how many of your emails were opened, rejected, clicked on and therefore how many resulted in a lead or conversion.
Bottom line, your marketing agency or department/person needs to be accountable to you for your marketing budget. It is your business and you need to be in control of or aware of how your marketing dollars are being spent and what your return is for your marketing investments.
Are you tracking your marketing efforts? Do you have the tools in place and the people who understand how to track and analyze your results? If not, why not? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments below.
CreativeWorks Marketing 