Marketing budgets are under constant scrutiny—and they should be! Spending money without a strategy won’t get you anywhere. Unfortunately, many businesses invest in marketing tactics without a clear plan. They continue to use strategies that don’t yield results, sometimes without even realizing it.
In today’s blog, we’ll walk you through how to evaluate your current marketing approach, identify common marketing pitfalls, and recommend solid strategies that commonly bring positive ROI.
Evaluate Your Tactics
The first step in improving your marketing plan and maximizing your ROI is evaluating what you’re currently doing and identifying what’s working and what’s not. Take inventory of all your marketing efforts and determine which ones are producing results. Here are some questions to ask:
- Which channels are driving the most leads or sales?
- What content or campaigns have had the best engagement?
- Where are you investing time and money with little to show for it?
The answers to these questions can be good hints as to which strategies or worth investing into and which are not. Or they can tell you which strategies you need to approach differently. For instance, you may decide to pause ad campaigns that aren’t converting or determine how you can adjust them to perform better.
Common Spend-Wasters
If you’re still not sure which of your strategies are underperforming, try looking out for these common mistakes made by businesses.
- Unfocused Paid Ads: Paid ads on social media can be very effective at reaching your primary audience—but only if you target them intentionally. Many businesses cast too wide of a net with paid ads and end up with very little ROI. A better strategy is to target your ads toward specific demographics that you know are likely to be interested in your products and services.
- Outdated SEO Strategies: SEO is one of the most important ways to keep your content visible online, but it’s not a one-and-done solution. Google frequently updates their search algorithm, and outdated strategies won’t cut it. AI-powered search results are also increasingly common, and SEO experts are still learning how to adapt. By paying attention to the latest algorithm changes and industry-wide best practices, you can create SEO content that pays off.
- Ignoring Existing Customers: While it’s always good to attract new customers, you can often see better ROI by retaining and nurturing your current ones. After all, they are the people who have already proven their interest in your brand, and retaining their business is more cost-effective than straining your budget to reach new audiences. A balance of both is important, but you should never forget to maintain your relationships and communication with loyal customers.
Proven Strategies
Every business is unique, and while there is no one-size-fits-all solution to positive ROI, there are some commonly effective strategies you can try.
- Local SEO: As mentioned above, SEO is always evolving. But targeting local customers will always be important, especially for businesses with physical locations and service areas. Some quick research into search terms will find that “x service near me” is one of the most commonly searched phrases. That’s where location-focused SEO and service area landing pages can be some of your most effective marketing tools. Optimizing your Google Business Profile and other online listings is also vital for reaching bottom-of-the-funnel users who are actively looking for services near them.
- PPC: Pay-per-click ads are another way to target customers who are ready to buy. Google Ads lets you research and select the most effective search terms for your ads, showing you which terms have high search volume and low competition. You can even target users by location, device, and other data to reach the people most likely to respond to your ads.
- Email Marketing: Email is a low-cost tool that can reach a large number of people very quickly. Combine that with the statistic that people are three times more likely to make purchases from email marketing than social media, and you have an extremely effective channel for producing positive ROI. Email can also be used in a variety of ways—newsletters, personalized ads, special offers, and more.
PRIME Can Help You Focus on What Works
We hope we’ve given you some ideas to get started, but we understand that navigating marketing strategies can feel overwhelming. At PRIME, we have an eye for identifying effective strategies and a knack for executing them. We can audit your current marketing plan and help you reallocate your budget to the channels that will serve you best.
Contact us today to learn more about our services and start making your marketing strategies work for you.
