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Marketing is an excellent way to increase sales and build a reputable brand. There is only one problem: it’s hard to quantify the results. After all, it isn’t easy to say whether a sales increase were a result of your strategy or another, simpler reason. As a result, some businesses are in the market of guessing and hoping for the best. If this doesn’t sound like a good plan, there are solutions. These solutions involve tracking your marketing strategy to understand its effectiveness, and here is how to do it.

Customer Feedback

Customers are lots of things, but they aren’t liars. In fact, they are brutally honest even if they are talking face to face with a supplier. Although this is scary, it is also a fantastic resource to help codify success. By simply asking them for their opinion, you can figure out whether the strategy was a hit or a dud. And, quantitative research couldn’t be easier. All you need to do is stop passers-by and ask them a question, or get them to fill in a short questionnaire. It’s basic, yet it is very effective.

New Vs Returning Users

Overall, you need both the new and returning website user numbers to be high. The reason is that it indicates two things. The first is that your plan is effective enough to make new customers aware of your brand. As far as marketing is concerned, that is the main goal. Secondly, it shows that your website is appealing and functional enough to keep them coming back for more. And, that is vital if you want to build a solid customer base. After all, you don’t want to spend lots of time creating an amazing marketing strategy to lose it when people visit the site.

Big Data Analysis

Big data is incredibly popular in 2017 and for a good reason. Simply put, using QA metrics and other formats is the best way to gauge success. As long as you know how to read the numbers, the answers are there in the data for everyone to see. Once you translate it, you can then transform or tweak your marketing depending on which one is the most necessary. Google Analytics started the trend, and it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. If you don’t get on board, you may miss the train.

Growth Rate

Although different factors affect growth rate, a business can’t expand without great marketing. There is just too much competition nowadays for a company to survive and stand out from the crowd. As such, it is quite okay to generalize about the success of your strategy even if you don’t have the numbers. It is by no means the only way to go about it, especially when you have analytic metrics and quantitative research. Still, the firm’s rate of growth is a good sign that everything is going in the right direction.

Now that you have the tools, there is no reason not to track your marketing success.

Most businesses use content marketing as part of their advertising strategy. In fact, some estimates suggest that as many as between 77 and 94 percent of all businesses use content marketing regularly. However, I’m willing to bet that only a small fraction of those companies are getting significant results from their efforts.

You see, although content marketing can undoubtedly be a great way to drive traffic and make sales, most companies are making rookie mistakes that stop them from seeing success. So, if you’re using online marketing and it isn’t helping you as much as you think it could check out these common reasons why it might be failing for you:

You Have No Strategy in Place

You can’t just create content and expect people to flock to your website, blog or store – you have to have a strategy in place. You need to experiment, see what works and what doesn’t and put a plan in place to make things better. Just having a plan in place could make all the difference between content that converts and content that goes largely ignored.

You Haven’t Invested in Your Website

No matter how good your content is if you haven’t spent the same amount of time investing in your website, whether by purchasing your own domain from www.wizzhosting.co.uk, developing an attractive theme, or making your website simple to use, you simply aren’t going to get the kind of results you’d expect. So, as well as investing in content, spend a bit of money improving your website, and you may be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Your Content Isn’t Inspiring

Just writing any old content, even if it features all the right keywords to, in theory, drive traffic your way, isn’t good enough. If you want to not only drive more traffic to your website but encourage more people to buy your goods and services, your content needs to be good. It should compel, inspire, inform or entertain your readers so that they’re convinced to make a purchase and more than happy to come back and read some more or sign up to your newsletter.

You Don’t Promote Your Content

If you’re already running a hugely successful business or you’re posting content on one of the planet’s top blogs, you might not have to do much to promote your content, but for everyone else, it is vital. Post links on Twitter and Facebook, write guest posts, send out emails and do anything else you can to spread the word about your latest piece of writing if you want to see spectacular results.

You’re in a Difficult Niche

Sometimes, you might not be doing anything wrong at all. It might just be that you’ve chosen to operate in a difficult niche where the number of people who’d be interested in reading your stuff is limited, or your target audience doesn’t get online much. If this is the case, you’ll have to work a lot harder to break through and get lots of readers, perhaps by combining your niche with a more popular related one, but it is possible, so don’t give up.

You’re Competing Against a Giant

Again, if you’re doing everything right, your content could still fail if you’re forced to go up against a huge competitor. For example, say you were to start producing your own brand of cola. How do you think you’d fare against Coca Cola and their billions? Probably not that well, UNLESS, you can offer something unique. So, if this is a problem you’re facing, don’t be afraid to be quirky or market your product from a  new angle. Maybe you could highlight the superior ethics of your product or the fact that you use organic ingredients. There’s always a market for things like that; it’s just a matter of working out what your USP is and emphasizing it in your content.

You Haven’t Been Marketing Long Enough

Even some of the biggest internet marketers like the owner of https://problogger.com/ weren’t overnight successes. They had to do the work and then wait patiently for the results to roll in. The thing about content marketing is that it takes time. It can take months for your content to get attention, so you need to be patient. If you keep doing all the right things, it will happen eventually, and you will see your bottom line begin to bulge.

Your SEO Knowledge is Poor

If you don’t know how to optimize your content for search engines, no one is going to be able to find it, and that means, no matter how good it is, you won’t see any results from it. So, either learn SEO or hire an expert if you feel that could be where your problem lies.

One of the best ways to give your business a boost at the start of its life is to host a public event. Showing your face (and your product or service) in public is a fantastic way to get some early exposure. Be it attending a trade show, visiting an exhibition or making an appearance at a local mall, make sure you’re using public events to your advantage. To give you some starting ideas here’s some handy advice.

Don’t make the mistake of showing up with nothing

Sure, you might be a startup with limited funds and a cracking idea, but there’s no point showing up to an event just to let people know you exist. It feels like a cry for recognition and more often than not it’ll backfire on you. Make sure you turn up to an event with your product in hand, samples to give out and business cards to distribute. If you turn up with just a great idea and nothing to show for it, then you’ll just be laughed at and made fun of.

Ensure your staff are well-equipped

You need to take some staff with you to help you promote your ideas and product, but you can’t make the mistake of attending without being prepared. Make sure you print out name badges for your staff so they’re easily recognisable and so your visitors can talk to them more comfortably. Ensure they have business cards to hand out and ample knowledge about your product so that they can converse with people and lure them into your business. They should also practice their communication skills if they haven’t already. Public events are fantastic networking opportunities, and it makes sense to speak to as many people as possible.

Prepare contact information

One of the common marketing mistakes people make at events is using placeholder contact information. Make sure your website design is finalised and that it as all of the relevant information about your business on its pages. Don’t neglect the importance of giving a proper contact number or email to the customers.

Produce sample products

Though it might cost a bit of money to produce samples, you need to prepare them so that you have something to hand out to the event attendees. Try to gauge interest on social media before you attend the event so you have a rough estimate of how many you need to produce. If you’re setting up your own public event at a location such as a mall or a busy street, then pick a date that matches a holiday to get the most attention. No one wants to produce samples that won’t be handed out, so it’s always better to have less and efficiently use your budget than produce too many and run out of cash.

Don’t forget to network

As the business owner, you should be the one initiating conversations with people, not waiting for them to come to you. Speak to as many people as possible and try to scout out the competition and other businesses that you could strike deals with. Get to know your surroundings and the industry and you’ll find it becomes far easier to run a business.