The question at the end of any marketing campaign should be ‘Did it work?’. You may be congratulating yourself that everything went as planned, you hit your deadlines, the adverts went in your target publications, the events were beautiful and you were all over Facebook and Twitter.
But how do you know if any of that was worth doing?
And should you keep on with more of the same kinds of marketing in the future? Everyone wants to know if a marketing campaign has given them a return on their investment, but it is not always obvious how to check which promotions paid off.
The only way to get answers to these important questions is to monitor the results of your marketing promotions against your original business goals. Measuring these kinds of results will tell you exactly what has worked and what needs a rethink. Then you can plan your next campaign armed with even more detailed knowledge.
Just one word of warning, though, it can take time for some marketing activity to pay off so it is worth monitoring your results over a longer time period rather than in just one hit.
Follow these six simple ways to check whether your marketing has worked:
1: Voucher codes
These are a brilliant way of tracing back sales to your marketing activity – whether the code was delivered to customers through a print or radio advert, a flyer, email newsletter, social media page or website. If people have to quote a code to attain a special offer, you can easily trace where they found that code. Then you will know that this particular piece of marketing was successful in driving a sale. Don’t forget to remind staff to ask for the codes when they make a sale or take a booking, otherwise you lose all this vital data.
2: Website Analytics
A great way to check whether people have been engaging with your website is to use website analytics. This runs from your website and shows you exactly where the traffic has come from. So you can see if people clicked through from Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn to visit your page. This will give a very clear idea of what attracted people to visit your site and will help you target online adverts too.
You can also find out what people enjoyed on your website as it measures the amount of time a person spent reading the article.
3: Social media tools
All the social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have an Insights or Analytics section, which allows you to see how many people have viewed your post and how many have clicked on it. They also tell you the demographic of those people, so it is a useful way of checking whether you are reaching your target audience.
You can check how many people saw your Tweet or post, how many clicked on it and from there track which of these led to sales. This information will help you target social media adverts in the future.
4: Post-event checks
After an event, you can see how many new leads you generated. Ideally, you will have asked attendees to fill in a form to register interest in one of your services or even give their details to take part in a competition. Use this information to create a spreadsheet with all that lovely potential customer detail.
The next step is to check which of these leads have been converted to sales. Did the amount of money you made amount to a good return on investment (ROI)? Have more people expressed an interest in your services or products? Are you attracting new customers from the areas that you targeted with your promotions?
5: Media hits
Did that press release get you any coverage? If you don’t have access to all the physical newspapers then setting up a Google alert with keywords, such as your business name, will help. This will tell you if the story went online.
Other ways to monitor your media coverage include subscribing to a media monitoring service, who will send you all your cuttings and online results.
6: Follow up direct mail marketing campaigns
If you have sent out a direct mail marketing campaign, the best way to drive it home is to follow it up with a call. Did the people you targeted receive the letter? Did it lead to any sales? Has it piqued their interest?
At Spirus, we know that you may not have the time to evaluate marketing activity yourself. This is why we are able to offer a full evaluation service following on from promotional campaigns. The more you monitor your results, the easier your business will find it to respond to customers’ needs and changes in the market. It may be necessary to monitor the success of a campaign over a period of months to see the full results as it can take time to see the full impact of a promotion.
So drop us a line today to find out what we can do for you: hello@spirusmarketing.com or 01638 741830.