Sometimes I think the most simple thing that we can do as businesspeople and marketers is “put ourselves in the shoes” of our prospects and customers. Are we making it easy to buy? Or are we setting up unintentional barriers, however slight, that may interfere with—or obliterate—the purchasing process?
One of the challenges for — and criticisms of — the marketing function is that it’s often difficult to calculate an ROI on a company’s marketing efforts. For example, how does a soft drink or beer company determine whether or not their multi-million-dollar Super Bowl ad was worth the investment? How can they tell whether a customer made a purchase based on that ad as opposed to a purchase they were going to make anyway? Not an easy task.
And yet both employers and clients want (and deserve) to know if their marketing investments are paying off for them. Fortunately the measurement game these days is often much more straightforward than in the past. (more…)
It’s hard to believe another year is winding down. It’s the old “toilet paper roll theory” (a not-so-scientific way of explaining relativity). Time may pass more quickly (at least perceptually) for me, than for the university students I teach, for instance. For them a year represents about 1/20th of their lifetime. For me, well, you get the point!
A Harvard Business Review case study recently posed a provocative question: when should humans listen to algorithms vs. when should they trust their own experience and intuition? For this case study, the issue related to which of two employees to choose for a promotion. But, given the widespread applications for the use of big data and the power of predictive analytics, the question could be applied to any field or area of business practice—including content marketing.
When should content marketers listen to the algorithms instead of relying on their own instincts, which have been finely honed over time? (more…)
Marketing has long been faced with a perception that its results are difficult to accurately measure. Consequently, many business leaders are skeptical of investing money into marketing efforts, because they aren’t convinced they can tie the dollars they put into marketing to their bottom line. When it comes to online marketing, in particular, a lot of metrics have been developed to help evaluate the effectiveness of marketing efforts in the absence of the ability to measure a concrete ROI.
But, not all metrics are created equal, and not all make sense. (more…)
Today, virtually every business has a webpage, sometimes multiple pages. Not to mention social media accounts. But, while getting your name and your brand online is a crucial first step for raising awareness and preference for what you have to offer, it’s just one piece of the marketing puzzle. To be truly effective, you need to develop a process and method of tracking how effective your online marketing actually is. (more…)
pen, magnifying glass and the working paper with a diagram
The modern marketing strategy just isn’t complete if it doesn’t include a social media element. As we’ve discussed in a previous blog post, tools like Google Analytics are great for tracking your social media activity and its impacts on your business. While we encourage social media marketers to read that blog and the background information linked within, it’s also important to discuss some of the misconceptions many businesses have about all the social media data they are collecting. Some might focus on information that isn’t particularly helpful, while others might be disregarding, or missing entirely, key metrics. (more…)
Sometimes I think the most simple thing that we can do as businesspeople and marketers is to “put ourselves in the shoes” – literally – of our prospects and customers. Are we making it easy to buy? Or are we setting up unintentional barriers, however “slight,” that may interfere with – or obliterate – the purchasing process? (more…)
Recently we discussed the challenges of determining the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. We cited a McKinsey & Company report showing that many companies don’t make any effort whatsoever to measure the success of their marketing efforts, and we discussed that there is a variety of variables that can make objective comparisons difficult.
However, rest assured that you can, in fact, measure the results of your marketing investment. As Content Marketing Institute discusses, there are a variety of key performance indicators that you can use in your analysis. The article gives some KPIs and some specific examples of each: (more…)
by Linda Pophal
One of the most important elements of successfully implementing a strategic plan of any size (whether a business plan, an annual company plan, a marketing plan, etc.) is establishing benchmarks or objectives that are specific and quantifiable and that will be tracked throughout the planning period. The use of dashboards is a great way to visually—and simply—convey information on how the organization is doing. (more…)
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