ARE YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS PRODUCING RESULTS?

How do you know if your marketing strategies are working? Are you producing leads and bringing in customers? The truth is, it is hard to gather the right information to tell if your strategies have any impact. Your recent Facebook post may have over 1,000 likes and 300 shares, but how do you know if it pulled people to your website, Facebook page, or into your physical business location? 

Marketing and advertising can be expensive, so it is essential that we are putting our dollars in the right places. Brand awareness is great, but at some point we need to make sure our work is producing. Check out these three tips for tracking marketing efforts and results!

Use Google Analytics

With Google Analytics, you can track all aspects of user behavior on your site. While this free tool collects massive amounts of data that could be overwhelming, Google organizes this data in a way that is understandable and useful. Google Analytics also connects with many advertising and publishing products, so you are able to better connect your data with results. You are able to determine what campaigns and media are bringing you the most traffic and conversions, what people are searching for on your site, what pages aren't being visited, and much more.

Google Analytics is free and easy to set up. To learn more about how you can use this amazing tool to measure your marketing results, click here.

Create Forms on Your Website

If you are pulling people to your website, you should be trying to capatilize on their visit. You should be providing pages for your audience to voluntarily submit their information. Filling out a form is often less threatening for your visitors than making a phone call, writing an email, or stopping into your business. You can place multiple forms on your existing pages or you can create separate landing pages to direct your ads and other marketing pieces.

Let's say you are running a Facebook ad specifically for one of your services. Rather than directing that ad to your Home page, you can setup a landing page with a form for your visitors to submit to receive more information or to sign up for that service. You then have any easy way to track how many new leads or customers you gained from that one specific Facebook ad.

Develop a Tracking System for Print

I am not going to try to convince you that tracking the effect of your print marketing is easy, but you can create systems to better understand its impact. It could surprise you how many people are reacting to your print ads, but on the other hand, they might not be making an impact at all. Print can be extremely expensive, so stop wasting your time and money on the pieces that aren't working. 

One way to track your print success is to create your ads to be trackable. Directing your audience to visit a landing page is a great example of this. You can use multiple tools to track your landing page results including forms and Google Analytics. If you prefer to have your leads and customers call, email, or stop into the business, you can setup internal tracking systems. Every time someone new walks in the door or someone calls about your advertised service, ask them how they heard about you or the service. You can even go so far as to ask them if they were influenced by your ad. Train your staff to ask these questions, and set up a system where they can enter their results.

Keep Tracking

There are so many more ways to track your results. These three suggestions may not be the perfect solution for tracking marketing for your business, but it is key is to find what does work. Continually track as many of your promotions and ads as you can. You are able to compile more and more data, which only helps you make better decisions on how to use your marketing budget. Soon enough you will see trends in your results that will allow you to clean up your marketing plans and use your budget wisely. 

Not sure what numbers you should be tracking? Checkout the 6 Marketing Metrics Your Boss Actually Cares about!

What are your tips for tracking results? Let us know in the comments!