Marketing Optimization Steps & 4 Ideas for Businesses

Marketing Optimization October 29, 2020

Chloe Henderson

Writer

Traditionally, launching a marketing campaign was a hit-or-miss operation that relied on guesswork and past experience. However, this approach can quickly consume valuable time, money, and resources without guaranteeing results.

Now, organizations practice marketing optimization to improve strategies based on data-driven decisions. This enables companies to meet their financial benchmarks, such as increased sales, income, and customer engagement.

What is Marketing Optimization?

Marketing optimization is when businesses evaluate their marketing campaign insights and determine which strategies to promote and eliminate. By optimizing effective marketing promotions, companies generate more sales to increase their return on investment (ROI).

For example, a retailer may initially launch several campaigns across various sales channels to later find that social media ads are not performing as well as search engine promotions. The business can choose to halt social media ads and invest this money into further promoting SEO campaigns.

Many companies invest much of their income into marketing ventures, making it crucial to ensure the investments are actually generating more sales. By practicing marketing optimization, companies can improve-

Customer Reach
Conversion Rates
Traffic
Brand Exposure
Sales
Revenue
Profits
Competitive Edge
Business Expansion

Once an organization finds which marketing strategy works best for them and their customers, they can funnel money into improving top-performing campaigns.

4 Steps of Marketing Optimization

The most challenging part of marketing optimization is pinpointing and defining successful strategies. The best way to identify a company's most successful marketing approach is to break down the process into four comprehensive steps-

1. Learn the Process

First, management needs to identify and state their marketing objectives, whether it's resolving an issue or improving a system. This enables project managers to determine which processes impact marketing performance and progress to the company's goals.

For example, a company can set a goal to increase conversion rates to boost sales. This requires marketers to evaluate their content, sales channels, engagement rates, and advertising methods to determine which variable directly affects conversion.

This step gives businesses the opportunity to learn their processes and collect valuable data to generate insights. It also enables project managers to review their marketing campaigns from the customer's perspective.

2. Master Organizational Alignment

Next, project managers need to collaborate with relevant departments to identify the company's stakeholders and decision-makers.

Involving department representatives generates valuable insight from various perspectives to gain a well-rounded view of marketing performance. It also allows departments to voice their concerns and goals to ensure all employees are working in unison.

This stage is flexible and may be different for every business. The primary purpose of organizational alignment is to foster an inclusive and productive work environment where everyone feels heard. Ensuring all departments are on the same page significantly improves efficiency and streamlines progress toward objectives.

3. Utilize Resources

After the plan is on paper, project managers need to utilize the departments' capabilities to source materials and determine how to execute the plan.

Management should list the resources, space, time constraints, and any other requirements needed to orchestrate the strategy. Resources could include labor, funding, facilities, machinery, management systems, and supplies.

This is also the time to designate tasks and responsibilities to each team member and establish a schedule to ensure deadlines are met.

4. Test the Plan

Once all logistical planning is complete, managers need to analyze and test the plan to pinpoint inefficiencies and variances. Evaluation is a great way to identify strengths and weaknesses to capitalize on advantages and improve lagging processes.

Companies should also consider utilizing technology, such as marketing and forecasting software, to improve performance. With automation, businesses experience increased efficiency, consistency, and responsiveness, as it eliminates human error.

Software even measures the performance of campaigns and generates key performance indicators (KPIs) so management can effortlessly monitor marketing progress.

4 Marketing Optimization Ideas for Businesses

More organizations are leaning towards paid advertisements to boost their brand exposure and customer base. However, this method requires constant monitoring to ensure that the company is investing in effective promotions.

To generate positive results and minimize expenses, businesses should consider the best marketing optimization practices-

Refine the Targeted Marketing

Research has shown that trying to reach the majority of consumers is significantly less effective than appealing to defined demographics and buyer personas. Therefore, businesses should shift their focus to targeted promotions that attract consumers similar to their customer base.

In order to develop targeted campaigns, marketing teams need to know customer interests, demographics, and behavioral patterns. This enables organizations to determine the best sales channels to promote their campaigns and optimize customer engagement.

For example, businesses with a predominantly younger demographic would find more success investing in social media ads on Instagram or Twitter than renting billboards.

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Begin Retargeting

Customers who are already familiar with a brand are more likely to patronize them than consumers who haven't heard of the company. This information is beneficial when combined with the pixel tracking tool.

A pixel is a tool available on Google AdWords and Facebook that tracks users' behavior when they enter the business's page. Management can access pixel metrics to promote ads to anyone who has shown interest in their brand. Companies can even push discounts on specific product lines the user was browsing to encourage sales.

This method is known as retargeting and is one of the most effective types of paid advertising.

Promote User-Generated Content

Consumers buy from brands they trust and have built a strong relationship with. One way to gauge customer advocacy and trust is to monitor user-generated content (UGC). UGC is content created by consumers that reflects a brand, product or service, such as reviews, posts, emails, and complaints.

By promoting positive reviews on the business website or social media accounts, users can read honest third-party reviews to familiarize themselves with the brand.

Learn Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the ranking of content on search engines, such as Google, which determines the likelihood of online users encountering a brand. The algorithm for SEO is continuously evolving, making it challenging for businesses to promote goods and services consistently.

However, Google tracks and boosts content that the audience finds to be helpful. The longer a user stays on a page, the more they perceive the information as valuable. Therefore, companies should prioritize creating marketing campaigns that not only attract consumers but keep their attention as well.