Improve your marketing campaigns with these easy tips

It can feel as though launching a new marketing campaign is like throwing a boomerang into the distance and hoping it comes back to you. You know there are ways to ensure your marketing campaigns connect with your customers and help convert sales, but there’s always a risk that they won’t work the way you want them to. The good news is, there are proven strategies you can do before, during, and after your campaign to improve the overall performance. Plus, the process of taking control of your campaign also gives you the chance to get to know your customer-base better. And when you understand your customer base, you’ll have a better idea of how to reach them with your marketing.

Decide which metrics matter for your business

If you’re not paying attention to your marketing campaign’s metrics, that’s your first problem. You need to be paying attention, and more specifically, setting goals for the metrics that matter most. For instance, if you’re running a social media campaign on Facebook, when or how will you know that your campaign was successful? Facebook ads provide opportunities to run metrics and to see how many views and clicks your ad experienced. Also, you need to know what action you’re hoping to experience. For instance, do you want people to follow your Facebook page? Do you want them to click through to your website to learn more? Do you want them to join an email list? Do you want them to sign up for a virtual event? For each action item of your marketing campaign, you need to set a goal for customer (or potential customer) engagement.

Likewise, if you’re running an email marketing campaign, which metrics are most important? Do you only want to see an increase in open rate? Click-through rate? Or new sales that use the code you provided in the email? You can set goals for each item, but it’s important to set your benchmarks so you know whether you get the results you want, or if you’re falling short.

Quick note on this, though. Goals need to be realistic and attainable. This means you need to have an idea of how your campaigns have performed in the past. If you have email marketing platforms or social platforms that help track your statistics, you can look back on old campaigns to get a good idea of your baseline. For instance, if your email click-through rate tends to be about 2%, setting a goal for your click-through rate to be 20% is likely unrealistic and unattainable. A better goal would be to try to get a click-through of 2.5% or 3%, instead. That way you can feel good about seeing results and you won’t be setting yourself up for failure.

Target your ideal customers

The beauty of content marketing is that with the demographic tools available today, it’s incredibly easy to target the customers that are a better fit for your product or service. Take advantage of these tools! For instance, social media ads can be set up to target people who fall in a certain age group, have a certain relationship status or gender, who live in a certain area, and who have interests aligned with your business. If you’re a camping gear company with a physical store in Boulder, Colorado, you don’t want your ads being wasted on people who hate camping who live in New York City. By setting your target customer to those living in the Boulder area in the 18-45 age group and who have interests in camping, hiking, and rock climbing, you’re more likely to get engagement, and to get engagement from customers more inclined to buy from your company.

A/B test your campaigns

Before you launch a full-fledged campaign, you can A/B test a smaller target customer group to see which, of two possible campaigns, the potential customers respond to. Maybe you have two different photos, two different tag lines, and two different call to actions. You can send a small test campaign out to a limited number of target customers, and see which of the two campaigns received the most views, click-throughs, and sales. The campaign that got the better results is the campaign you may want to send out to a wider audience. Or, if neither campaign performed the way you wanted it to, you can make tweaks and changes to start again.

Use “trigger marketing”

When it comes to email marketing campaigns, you can implement a tactic called “trigger marketing.” Essentially, it’s a way to automatically set up follow-up emails along a customer or potential-customer’s path. For instance, once a customer has signed up for your email list, that action might trigger an email that has a first-purchase discount code, or that offers next steps for engaging with the company.

Another common trigger marketing tactic is an automatic reminder email for registered customers who leave an online shopping cart with items inside. For instance, if the customer leaves your webpage without making a purchase, this could trigger an email the following day to remind the customer that items are waiting. For someone who was on the fence about buying, or who got distracted before finishing the purchase, this type of automatic reminder can help convert “easy” sales.

Measure your results and tweak

If you’re not measuring your campaigns, you’re not doing yourself any favors. The results of each of your marketing campaigns can help you get to know your customers and respond even better the next time. If your campaign performed well, you can use that information to release similar campaigns in the future, but perhaps with an even more targeted audience. Or, if your campaign didn’t perform like you hoped, you can go back to the drawing board and try again.

Contract with a content marketer

If your attempts at online marketing never seem to get the results you want, it’s definitely worthwhile to contract with someone who’s an expert in the field. Chances are you don’t even need a full-time person. Fifteen to 20 hours a week could do wonders for your business and help you overhaul your marketing attempts. Plus, it’ll free you up to do other work that you need to do.