Don’t Wish on Good Luck to Gain Market Share
A Solid Marketing Plan, Strong Creative Team and Trackable Results are the Keys to Ensuring Future Success.
All too often – bound by time, talent or budget constraints (or all three) – companies will cobble together a marketing campaign, throw caution to the wind just to get it out there and then hope for the best. Sometimes they get lucky and their messaging hits its mark and is well-received by the target audience. But… is luck what you really want to rely on when it comes to marketing? When it comes to a well-executed marketing campaign, you should really have these three things in place:
1) A Solid Plan that includes overall campaign theme, delivery methods, time frame, target audience and objectives/desired results;
2) A Strong Creative Team that can take your plan from concept to completion; and
3) A Reliable Means of Tracking Results in order to gauge the success of your campaign – which will in turn aid in the planning of future campaigns.
Developing a plan is essential to the creation of any marketing campaign – the deeper you drill down into elements such as your target audience and methods of delivery (e.g. direct mail, e-newsletter, social media, print/tv/radio advertising, online banner ads, etc.), the greater the likelihood that your campaign will succeed… IF executed properly. Imagine a standard house that consists off all the basics vs. a luxury estate with all the bells and whistles like intricate woodworking, hardwood floors, gourmet kitchen with granite countertops, home theater, spa-inspired bathrooms and more. You wouldn’t want to hire just ANY builder to help you realize the latter. That’s where your creative team proves equally vital. If you’re a business owner or marketing manager with lots of vision, but not a lot of time or the software/skills to pull off all of those great ideas rolling around in your head – a highly skilled creative team like the one at Woodall Creative Group can help you breathe life into your campaign, possibly even growing it beyond your initial expectations.
With a plan and creative team in place, your campaign will take shape beautifully. But what happens after execution? Some companies may opt to rely solely on sales growth to measure the success of a campaign, and while that’s a great indicator (since sales growth is probably your #1 goal) there are some additional details you could be gleaning that you won’t necessarily get from sales figures alone. Here are a few examples:
1) Email marketing: If this is a tool you use to deliver messaging as an element of your marketing campaign, you can measure things like delivery rate (excellent indicator of the quality of your email marketing list – a large number of bounces may indicate that it’s time for an overhaul), open rate (a great measure of the effectiveness of your subject line – you really piqued their interest if your open rate is high) and click-through rate (this is likely the BEST indicator of the effectiveness of your overall messaging. For them to click on various click points in your email campaign means that they are engaged.) Depending on your call to action, you may even be able to track the conversion rate as they take the next step and become an actual buying customer.
2) Digital marketing that leads to a landing page: Whether you use banner ads, social media ads or email marketing to drive them there, any digital marketing that leads to a specially designed landing page can be measured. You can measure bounce rate (# of people who visited the landing page but immediately left or didn’t take further action), average amount of time spent on your landing page and lead conversion. Your landing page may be designed to have a call to action, such as “contact us to schedule your no-obligation consultation” with a digital contact form. A warm lead just became a hot lead. Your landing page may promote a specific product, and the call to action is “BUY NOW” – a warm lead just became a customer.
3) Digital marketing that leads to your website: Again – whether you use banner ads, social media ads or email marketing to drive them there, there are ways to measure web traffic and where they’re coming from. You can measure new website visitors vs. returning visitors, page views and more. The data you gather for this will be integral to determining your website’s UI (user interface)/UX (user experience) effectiveness.
And that’s not all! Even the effectiveness of print ads, direct mail and bulletin boards can be measured by sending leads to a dedicated phone number or landing page. What you DO with all of the data you collect is just as important as collecting it in the first place. If you’re looking for a leg up on your competition, tracking the results of one campaign to the next and LEARNING from those results is a great way to do it. Woodall Creative Group is adept at analyzing data and using it to make your NEXT marketing campaign even MORE effective than the last. We welcome the chance to serve as an extension of your own skilled crew and take the concept of luck out of the equation. After all, who needs good luck when you’ve got a great team!
Contact us today at 706-658-0244 or via email at design@woodallcreative.com to schedule a meeting. We can’t WAIT to hear your ideas and learn more about your company!
