According to statistics compiled by Ad Age, marketers are projected to spend $540 billion on marketing in 2015. This number is likely to be even higher in 2016. This is the time of year when you start to consider your own marketing budget for the upcoming year. You want to make sure that you spend your marketing dollars wisely, in ways that bring you the greatest ROI. The following tips will help you create the most profitable marketing budget for 2016.
1. Be ready for success. Before you spend money on advertising, you want to make sure that your website is actually equipped to receive lots of visitors. Your pages should load quickly. Your site should be easy to navigate. This is a good time to reassess the look and functionality of your website as well as your web hosting.
2. Go over your analytics. Which pages on your site received the most attention? Where did the bulk of your traffic come from? Which email campaigns provided you with the greatest number of conversions? Which social media platforms provided you with the best results?
3. Do more of what’s working and stop what isn’t. This is a fairly straightforward principle, but too many businesses don’t pay enough attention to their own data and continue reinvesting in ineffective strategies.
4. Test everything. There are innumerable ways to test and tweak your campaigns. With emails, for example, you should test different subject lines, sending times and calls to action. The same goes for web pages and social media campaigns. Test as many variables as possible and look for ways to improve your results.
5. Assess your resources. Is your current technology and staff providing you with everything you need? You may require additional help in the form of new employees or an agency partnership. Consider your budget and decide whether hiring new talent, working with an agency or purchasing new items is likely to be worthwhile.
6. Try something new. While it’s important to perform analytics and test existing strategies, you should also try out new types of marketing. This may include mobile campaigns, new advertising platforms and new types of social media campaigns. Allocate a certain portion of your budget to test new ideas.
7. Have a content strategy. Make sure you reserve a portion of your budget for creating and distributing quality content. You should have a minimum of 10 to 20 new pieces of content this year. This can take the form of blog posts, articles, videos, images or other types of media. Content helps you brand yourself and rank better in the search engines. Content can be displayed on your own website as well as submitted to other online publications and platforms.
Great planning can lead to great success. It helps the team and company decide what the plan of action is and who is responsible for executing the tactics properly. For more information on Digital Marketing contact Moxie Digital.
