For businesses developing an online presence, it’s important to take a step back to evaluate your digital marketing strategies regularly. Looking at numbers and statistics may not always seem like an attractive pastime, but this information will help you detect consumer patterns and weaknesses in your tactics. Evaluations will also help you determine the best next steps for your business.
Several variables in marketing can influence your online success and growth. By analyzing multiple aspects of your online marketing strategy, you can take advantage of every available opportunity for improvement. The following are areas that you can dissect to uncover patterns in your data. By discovering your strengths and weaknesses, you will determine how to best optimize your brand for online growth.
1. Review Your Targeting Strategy
Audience targeting is a critical component of online success. If you’re hoping to improve your engagement online, reviewing your targeting strategy may help you identify ways to further your reach and growth. Utilizing predictive audience models is one way to analyze your targeting strategy. Predictive audiences will help you discover common behaviors and traits among your most active consumers. From there, examine your current efforts to determine if they are tailored well to your audience.
For example, if your most active consumers are in the millennial age range, but you’re gearing your content toward a younger audience, you may not be reaching your full potential. Target audiences can change over time as well, so it’s important to continue reviewing this aspect of your approach regularly. Analyzing your strategy in this manner will help you create content that is most relevant to those interested in your brand, which will encourage engagement and conversions.
2. Analyze Your Return on Investment
A big part of reviewing your online marketing approach is tracking your return on investment. Your ROI is key to understanding how your online efforts have contributed to your revenue. By using the tracking and analytics of your website and social platforms, you can determine a rough estimate of the business generated from online efforts. Once you’ve gathered this data, you can start to compare your average spend to your ROI.
Ideally your ROI should be greater than your spend. However, if your business is just starting out, spending more than you earn doesn’t automatically mean there’s an issue. It might be worth the investment up front to have greater returns over time. That said, keep an eye on what’s working and what isn’t.
If you’re spending on banner ads and social advertising, but you’re not seeing a lot of conversions, switch up your approach. If you’re not seeing improvements in your ROI after making changes, then it may be appropriate to reconsider your budget. You don’t want to invest time and money into a strategy that consistently does not work for your business.
3. Assess Your Content
When cultivating your online presence, you’ll find yourself creating an array of content. With new platforms and content formats being introduced regularly, there are many ways businesses can keep consumers engaged on social media. While considering your strategy and future in online marketing, it’s essential to review your content strategy. Most publishing platforms offer tracking services that give you a high-level view of engagement rates and impressions. Tracking and analytics will provide insight into the content that has been working best over time.
When planning your content, take time to review your engagement rates. Start by comparing the different content formats on your marketing channels. Pinpointing the material that didn’t perform as well may clue you into what needs to change going forward. For instance, content types that don’t get much engagement may need some rework or may be worth omitting completely. Discovering your strengths and weaknesses will help you determine what works best in front of your target audiences and the areas that can use a little attention.
4. Consider Your Goals
Business goals are a key way to track your growth and motivate your team toward success. Throughout the year, you should regularly compare your online results to your goals. Benchmarks will help you quickly discover shifts in your data and consumer behaviors. For instance, by setting monthly goals, you’ll notice how the data changes in accordance with your strategy. If you see sudden drops in numbers, you can decide to make a quick change in your approach.
After examining your data and experimenting with your tactics, hitting or getting closer to reaching your goals would be the best-case scenario. However, if you’re still missing goals despite your realignments, it may be best to take a high-level look at your business plan. Goals are important, but you want them to be appropriate for the stage of your business. If you’re consistently missing your goals, you may be setting your sights too high. Appropriate goals should be challenging but still be within your team’s reach.
Worth the Time
Taking time to review your online performance thoroughly is imperative to your business’s ongoing success. Examining your goals, return on investment, content, and targeting strategies will give you insight into your online reach. These evaluations will help you uncover patterns and learn what is truly working for your business. With this information, your team can make appropriate strategy adjustments to set your business on the right growth path.