Inthinktive - Articles - How do you make your marketing more effective?

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Marketing

How do you make your marketing more effective?
This analysis will help you fine tune your campaigns.
By Ray Boucher

One of the most important aspects of marketing is the collection and analysis of data. Throughout the year as we follow through with our campaigns we should be collecting data about the leads and sales generated by our marketing efforts. We then analyze this data to measure the success of our campaigns and see where we need to make adjustments. You should be checking this data regulary but at the very least you should do a yearly review of your overall marketing efforts.

First, you need to take a look at what you have done over the past year. You wi'll need to analyze the marketing data from the past twelve months and figure out what marketing actions were successful and which were not. Hopefully you have implemented some form of tracking on each of those actions and kept statistics on the results generated by them. This type of analysis should be done at the end of every quarter in order to keep your marketing running efficiently. At the very least you should perform this function at the end of every year.

Download inthinktive's free marketing analysis tool

You want to extrapolate the following key bits of information relating to each of the individual marketing actions that you have implemented over the past year:

Total number of leads generated
Total number of sales generated
Amount of average sale
Cost per lead (how much you spent to get one lead)
Cost per sale (how much you spent to get one sale)
Percentage of leads converted to sales
What percentage of your total sales resulted from a particular action
Net income of an individual action

Once you have attained this information you will have a clear picture of your marketing plan's effectiveness and then you can make adjustments based on accurate information instead of guessing what you think will work.

Knowing what actions you are doing that are successful and which ones are not is important knowledge that is vital to the success of your business. Things that have worked well for you in the past may not be as effective as they once were or may not be working at all.

Think of your marketing plan as if it were a finely tuned automobile. It may be running perfectly for a while but as you continue to drive it every day it's going to need some scheduled maintenance such as oil changes, tire rotation, tune-ups, etc. You know when it's time to perform the maintenance because you use a maintenance log (data/statistics) to keep track of them. Also, you drive the car every day so you can feel the subtle difference in performance. You understand that if you do not handle the regular minor adjustments they will turn into major repairs and ultimately, if not attended to, the car will eventually stop running.

A major function in marketing is the analysis of data. The data helps us make informed decisions. Remember it's crucial that you keep accurate records of all the results from your marketing actions throughout the year so you have the information necessary to make the right adjustments and keep your marketing running efficiently instead of in the breakdown lane.

Download inthinktive's free marketing analysis tool

About the author:
Ray Boucher is a marketing professional, author and the founder of inthinktive.

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