Marketing Strategy Guide for 2019

Are you sick and tired of pouring money and time into marketing and not seeing results? Make 2019 the year you get serious about your marketing strategy.

At Spade Design, we use smart goals to consistently achieve success. No matter what we set out to achieve, we have systematic processes for a marketing strategy that works. In this article, we share key ingredients. Use them to plan your 2019 marketing strategy or get in touch. Spade Design develops digital strategies to achieve organizational goals. We’ll help you choose which ingredients make the perfect blend for growth in spades.

Why You Need Marketing Strategy Goals

If you run a business, you already know the competition is cutthroat. No matter how successful or popular you are, there’s always a contender out there trying to take you out.

New methods and new products constantly appear. Every day there’s a new kid who’s hungry. He or she doesn’t have your overhead (and possibly not your ethics) and is willing to do it for less.

You could spend 2019 always reacting to the market and competition. Or, you could develop a marketing strategy that helps you focus on what’s most important.

Marketing planning helps you narrow your focus to the audience that matters. When you show them how your business stands out and how you meet their needs, they hear you over the noise.

Marketing strategy gives you control over your efforts. You set your target and budget, then measure according to specific milestones. It’s a living document you can refer to when decisions arise. It also provides motivation as you approach goals and gives reason to celebrate success.

You need marketing strategy goals because they’re the plan toward and the yardstick for growing your business. The basis of your plan is KPIs.

What Are KPIs?

KPI stands for key performance indicator. A lot of the time, we hear clients say their goals are one of the following:

• To make more money (more sales, revenue, profit etc.)
• To draw more customers (more leads, buyers, lifetime customers)
• Improved online presence (better search engine ranking, more social media followers and so on)

However, it’s hard to measure a quantity like “more.” Business owners don’t want to put a cap on exactly how much more they want. They’re also not comfortable setting a number for the low end.

Key performance indicators help you put a number to your goals. Then, they give you metrics for measuring progress.

KPIs To Choose From

Choose key performance indicators for your marketing strategy based on what’s most important to your business. If you’re a home builder, you probably want to know how much money you keep after you pay all your expenses. If you’re a dentist, you might be interested in the number of patients who come back for repeat visits over time.

The list we’re about to give you is long, but don’t be overwhelmed. You pick what matters to you and use that to create a marketing strategy that gets results.

Money-Making KPIs

No matter how much you love what you do, the money matters. Key performance indicators related to sales and revenue are as follows:

• Revenue – How much money comes in to your business. This number is also known as gross profit. It’s an important number to measure, but it isn’t the only one. Revenue tallies up dollars and cents before you pay expenses.
• Net profit – This indicator tells how much you keep once after supplies, payroll, taxes and other expenses.
• Revenue per client – Some clients buy from you again and again. This number reflects the amount one client spends for as long as they shop your business. Over time, this number (also known as lifetime customer value) should increase.
• Average purchase value – How much each customer spends per transaction. This varies widely based on your business. If you have an ice cream shop, average purchase value is much less than for a car dealership, but you have many more visitors during a day, and they might buy from you several times a week. You might also call it average contract value or average cart value.
• Sales growth – Measure increase or decrease by months, quarters, years or other time frames.
• Revenue per employee – Gather information over time to see how much money each is responsible for bringing your business.

Retailers might also measure the cost of goods sold, sales per square foot or online vs. point of purchase transactions.

KPIs Related to People – Your Customers and Clients

Your bottom line is the bottom line, but clients, customers and leads are what keep it healthy. Build your marketing strategy around what works and what doesn’t. Measure these KPIs to track what’s going on with the people who need your business.

• Average cost per lead – How many marketing dollars do you spend to acquire one lead?
• Cost per customer – Once you get their attention, what did it cost to get them to commit?
• Customer acquisition – How many new customers, followers or leads did you gain during a specific time frame?
• Lead to customer ratio – How many leads does it take to get a customer?
• Client referral sources – How many sources send you leads and clients? From what avenues do you receive the most traffic?

Measuring Conversions

When people visit your website, store or social media page, what do you want them to do? When they complete that desired action, that’s a conversion.

Conversions aren’t just sales. If the goal of your blog post is to get people to subscribe to a list, conversion might mean entering their email address into a form. Make these conversion KPIs part of your marketing strategy.

• Shopping cart conversions – How many people complete the checkout process?
• Coupon conversions – These tell you which of your ads lead to customer follow-through!
• Landing page conversion rates – This KPI tells you if your ad targeting is precise.
• Email open rates – Aim for 30 percent or greater.
• Email conversion rates – How many people don’t just open your email, they act!
• Social media statistics – Gather data on likes, followers growth, social shares, traffic conversions and web visitors from social channels.
• First visit conversions – How many visitors perform the desired action the first time they shop your store or visit your website?
• Shopping carts abandoned – This is the opposite of a conversion, but it shows you have a problem to address.
• Mobile vs. desktop conversion rates – You need a website that’s optimized for mobile.

KPIs for Customer Service

With everything you’re investing in getting customers, you want to make sure you keep them once they’ve chosen your brand.

They seek support and provide feedback online. Improve customer service by setting goals and using these KPIs to measure.

• Support requests – Tally the overall number of requests you receive.
• Customer satisfaction with response – Incorporate surveys that measure how satisfied consumers are with the support they received.
• Time from inquiry to response – Look at the ways customers reach out and measure how long it takes you or your representatives to get back in touch. Set goals to decrease that time.
• Complaints resolved – How many customer problems were solved after the first contact? How many required repeat conversations?

Look at your website and social media pages from a customer service perspective. Do they load quickly? Is navigation easy to use? Are topics arranged logically? Is it easy for them to get in touch? If not, incorporate a plan for improvement into your marketing strategy.

Search Engine Optimization Metrics

Business owners would like to see every one of their website’s pages at the top of search engine results. Search engine optimization is a core function for the Spade Design team, and it should be part of your marketing strategy. Use these KPIs to determine top performing pages, keywords that convert and areas that need optimization.

• Keyword click-through rate – These metrics measure how often people click on your listing from search engine results pages compared to how many times it appears. Goals might include a high click through rate for specific search terms.
• SEO traffic – How many website visits came from organic compared to paid search?
• Pageviews – The number of times visitors view one of your website’s pages. This metric lets you know the most popular pages and topics.
• Domain authority – This measures the “trustworthiness” of your domain.
• Link building metrics – How many links come from other websites directing visitors to yours?

Marketing Strategy Made Simple

You don’t have to get a degree in marketing to gather and make sense of critical data. Spade Design has a team of experts who can help you set and achieve goals for 2019. We’ll work with you to develop a marketing strategy that’s specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-sensitive.

Data can be overwhelming or it can be a tool. We’ll work with your brand, your organization and your specific challenges to make this the year you smash through obstacles and experience what it’s like to Grow in Spades. Schedule your free consultation online today.