Learn How To Align Content Marketing To Your Business Goals.

As a marketing student (many years ago and way before the internet) one of the key messages I remember being drummed into me was; “test and measure, test and measure, test and measure” – I heard it over and over again. 

Twenty years on, I have learned that many small businesses don’t have the funding or time to be analysing their marketing. At a high level they might look at an increase or drop into enquiries and new customers, and compare that to the their marketing, but never really measuring the true success of any given marketing campaign.

What I love about technology today, is that even small business can have access to affordable data to test and measure their marketing efforts, and know exactly what’s working and what’s not, helping them to make future marketing decisions based on scientific, rather than anecdotal, evidence.

Is Your Marketing Art or Science?

No longer is marketing about colourful advertisements and shiny brochures which are difficult to track and measure, today we have the technology for closed loop analytics. Closing the loop between marketing and sales, giving markers today the insight to track leads and customers back to the source. Even a shiny brochure can have a unique website address or QR code to measure traffic and leads that come from offline marketing efforts.  To be successful at marketing and lead generation, marketing decisions should be based on data and facts.

Getting Started

It’s important to align all your marketing tasks to business goals – this gives every tactic a purpose, and something to measure against. Think of your marketing as a funnel, the top is wide so you want to implement tactics that attract many prospects, a little further down the funnel is where you convert prospects into qualified leads with lead generation offers, mid funnel is where you nurture your leads to get them them sales ready, ready to pass onto the sales team.

To start, we’re going to work from the end goal back. In column A of an excel document write down the following questions, put the answers in column B, and use columns C onwards for your results. These are high level metrics, I would recommend breaking each down by source (Adwords, Search, Facebook, LinkedIn, Trade Publication, Local Print – or whatever your marketing tactics are).

1. What is your annual revenue target?
2. What is your average monthly revenue target?
3. What is the average dollar spend per customer?
4. How many customers do you need per month, to achieve your monthly revenue target?
5. How many leads equal one customer?
6. How many leads do you need per month? (multiply the answer to 5 with the answer to 4)
7. How many website visitors do you need to achieve your lead goals?**

 

**Because the majority of consumers now conduct online research before buying, whether its online or offline, we'll focus on your website as the main source for lead generation and conversion.

If you haven't already you'll need to start tracking your traffic/lead conversion rate. For example if you need 20 leads per month to achieve your customer goals, and you know your lead/conversion rate is 2% you'll need 1000 website visitors per month.

Once you have your goals in place for: website traffic, leads and customers you can begin testing and measuring different marketing tactics to see which ones yield better results.

Below is a list of marketing tactics that are great for increasing awareness and reach, and driving traffic to your website:

• Networking
: Join as many local and industry networking groups as possible, and make it your goal to meet as many new people as possible at each event, (don’t get caught talking to the same people week after week), get their business cards and connect with them on relevant social media sites.
• Social Media: Because there are many sites choose the one right for you. Focus on building your profile on your chosen social media platform as an industry thought leader, give a lot of information away so people start to view you as an authority figure, this will help with trust and credibility.

• Industry Forums and Guess Blogging: Many industries now have their own sites with forums and guess blogging opportunities this is a great opportunity to position yourself as an industry thought leader and expert in your field, and drive more traffic back to your site.
• Blogging: A blog, linked to your website has been proven to help with search rankings, increasing traffic and lead conversions. Write articles for the same reason as social media, to build up trust and credibility with your target audience as an industry thought leader.

• Print Advertising: If newspaper advertisements, trade publications or direct mail are still working for you, remember to use a unique landing page with url or QR code
 to track the traffic that is generated from the advertisement.
• Paid Search: Set up specific landing pages with unique tracking urls so you can easily track and measure the traffic and leads you get from each campaign. 

How To Convert Your Website Traffic Into Leads

So now you have all this traffic coming to your site, the question is, ‘How do you convert your traffic into qualified leads?’ The key is to understand what information your visitors are looking for,  that will help them convert from a website visitor to a lead.

Below are some successful lead conversation offers that have had proven success across many industries and business types.

• How To Guides:  Write a guide to buying, to help prospects avoid choosing the wrong company or product for their need.
• eBook:  Write an ebook to help prospects solve a problem or need.
• Webinars:  Produce a webinar to communicate latest research figures, examples or case studies.
• Free Product Trials
: Offer a free trial for a limited time, this offers prospects little to no risk to get hands on experience.
• Free Consultations: If you provide a service this is a good way to get in front of leads at no cost to them.

• Quotes and Prices: If you’re a contractor or consultant, offer free quotes and advice to get in front of potential clients.

 

You’ll notice the abovementioned lead conversion offers really depend on your industry and where people are in the buy process. Some are at the early stage just doing research and they don’t want to talk to anyone, just yet. Others may be further along the buy process, they’re ready to buy and just need that level of trust in your company to know you’re the right solution for them so offers like free consultations, product trials and quotes work well. For this reason it’s wise to have a mix of offers, at least one for people doing research and one for people wanting to talk to someone.

Testing and Measuring

Once you have your goals documented, and your content planned out, the final step is to measure the success of each tactic. Google analytics offers a free tool that allows you to track your website traffic and conversions. I use the Hubspot software because it’s a complete marketing software package – it’s the only all in one marketing software in the world and it’s perfect for small business. 


Marketing Takeaway

• 
Set clear goals for each step of the marketing process.

• Identify the purpose and goal for each marketing tactic.

• Choose your analytics software to start testing and measuring.
• Create and publish lead conversion offers on your website.
• And most important, check your analytics weekly and adjust your marketing as needed.

CLICK TO TWEET
 


If you have any questions, feedback or comments about this article please feel free to contact me directly at: Stacie@theinboundmarketingcompany.com.au. 

To stay up to date on all things marketing subscribe to my blog.

Let's connect, you can find me here: FACEBOOK | LINKEDIN | TWITTER | GOOGLE+ | PINTEREST

The Inbound Marketing Company is a Marketing Agency, providing affordable advice and support to help small business improve their marketing, to generate more leads and customers and grow their business.