Marketing strategy for small business owners can be overwhelming, the market place is very noisy and knowing what works best for your business can sometime be difficult to ascertain. What we often see is business owners investing a lot of money into marketing activities but not having any data to understand how effective their marketing spend is, or where to further invest to get the best return.
Value of measuring where your leads are coming from.
In Australia a small business is described to be an organisation that employees less than 20 people. The unique characteristics of a small business often necessitate a distinct approach of marketing strategies. A small organisation that has developed and implemented a well-formulated marketing plan obtains long-term benefits. Adapting to the ever-changing marketing environment that comes with being a small business is essential in stimulating and promoting business growth.
Marketing a small business that is centered around analytics creates content that drives results and ensures precious resources are being allocated to the most appropriate avenues possible. Analytics helps you who know your audience is, when they’re most active and what type of content resonates with them. Comprehensive data analysis ensures strategic organisational decisions are made and are based on insights into the consumer behavior instead of relying on prospects. Understanding this information means your business will deliver relevant content and overall, a more impactful marketing approach.
Easy strategy to do this.
The first step in analytics is understanding where the data is coming from. Data may be drawn from several places and understanding the difference is vital in making informed decisions to benefit your business. The most effective method of data collation is gathering information straight from the consumers, this ensures all data is specifically relevant to your audience and business. When a new client has signed up to your business via any platform i.e. email, phone or social media, ask how they heard about your service. Having this information means you can measure what platforms are receiving the highest levels of engagement. Once this data is accumulated you are then able to gain an understanding of how to better advertise according to your consumers’ behaviors.
Initial market research enables businesses to understand the type of content their audience engages with before they’ve gained firsthand experience. Each platform attracts a different demographic, this can be based off age, gender, geographical location as well as many other characteristics. Understanding where your target market sits is vital in strategic decision making. Social media platforms are notorious for having specific audiences, for example Facebook is often used to advertise for the middle-aged demographic, with visual/written content whereas, Instagram often attracts a younger demographic, visual heavy content. Factors like this impact the effectiveness of the programs as the audience isn’t likely to interact with platforms they don’t often use or content that doesn’t align with the platform’s norms.
Return on investment (ROI) is an important aspect to consider when investing money into marketing. Data analytics helps you understand where your money is being spent effectively and/or determining what platforms no longer warrant further investments. For example: If you are seeing an increase in email subscriptions or product purchases via Facebook advertisements, it is a valid on-going expense. However, if you are handing out physical fliers and receiving little to no engagement, it’s likely there are more strategic pathways that will come with higher consumer interest.
Decision making with this data.
As a small business, measuring data can be a meticulous process that requires patience. In order for the data to be beneficial to your business it should be from multiple platforms in order to compare and refine. Ensuring the content has received adequate responses and time for engagement ensures the accuracy of the data isn’t compromised, which has the potential to lead to ill-informed insights and/or misguided business decisions. The timeframe from releasing data to be analysed can vary, depending on the industry your businesses is in. It is recommended for business to have a 3-6 month ‘buffer period’ in order to collate enough data to measure.
Basing business decisions off consumer behaviours is a key avenue that provides invaluable insights into what a specific audience wants. Analysing the user engagement data highlights the customers patterns and means content can be refined according to the audiences’ preferences. If a particular marketing segment is performing more favourably to a campaign, resources can be diverted to capitalise on that success and better cater for the audience.
Business analytics provides organisations with data to improve their timing and frequency strategies. Knowing when consumers are most active allows for strategic scheduling of marketing content, giving content more opportunity to be engaged with. This could be sending emails at the optimal time, positing on social media during peak times or launching promotions when consumer interest is high. The timing of posting content will significantly impact a business’s success.
Financially, organisations must be attentive to their return on investment when it comes to marketing. Analysing what outlets are bringing in the most income allows for businesses to see where they should be allocating the most resources.
In summary, making informed business decisions based off of marketing data is a dynamic landscape for a modern business. Refining strategies according to consumer behaviours and engagement ultimately ensure your business is staying up to date with marketing trends and delegating resources to the most effective avenues.
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