Can you answer these questions about your marketing? Part 2
Following on from part 1, this blog post will look at your email newsletter, website conversion rate, press releases and your competitors. Can you answer all these questions about your business marketing?
How many of your customers are actually reading your newsletter?
The newsletter is one of the most effective tools in a marketer’s box. A good marketing newsletter ticks multiple boxes including new product announcements, special offers, branding, maintaining on-going relationships, sales and so on.These are only possible if people are actually opening and reading your newsletters. Without this data, you can’t make changes to increase your newsletter’s effectiveness. The key data you need is:
- Total number sent
- Number delivered
- Bounce rate (including who they are)
- Emails opened
- Click through rate
- Conversion stats i.e. sales, revenue, downloads etc.
Once you have this information, you can start measuring how well your newsletter is doing, and the effect any changes you make have.
How to get this information:
- Sign up to a professional email service such as www.mailchimp.com
- Tag every link with Google Analytics tracking
What is your website’s conversion rate?
Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who go on to perform a desired action on your website. This may be buying a product, signing up to a trial or downloading a file. Naturally you want as a high a conversion rate as possible. Low conversion rates can be a sign that visitors are finding it difficult to navigate your website and find the information they need to complete the action. Use funnel visualisation to discover where your website’s leakage points are.
How to get this information:
- Install Google Analytics on your website
- Set up goals
- Within Google Analytics Go to ‘goals’ >’Funnel visualisation’
Where are the best places to send your press releases?
Press releases are incredibly effective at raising awareness, positioning your business as experts and building incoming links. One approach to sending out a press release is to use a blanket distribution service that sends it out to targets regardless of who they are, essentially focusing on quantity over quality. Some might stick, but as a proportion, it is likely to be very small. It is far more effective to research your industry’s leading news outlets and to send them your press release directly.
How to get this information:
- Search Google (web, news & blog) using your industry keywords e.g. if I were a law firm I would search for “legal news” etc.
- Look beyond your direct industry and send your press release to related sectors. E.g. a web host would send theirs to an IT magazine.
- Identify your regional news websites looking for local business news
Where do your competitors advertise that you don’t?
One of the best places to start when it comes to deciding on where to advertise is with your competitors. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or start with a blank page, especially when they have done the leg work for you. Find out where they have print adverts, links, banners, press releases etc. and if they are within your budget, consider doing the same, or looking at comparable equivalents.
How to get this information:
- Search for their brand name in Google (web, news, blog and image search)
- Buy your industry publications
- Go to your regional focused websites (if applicable)