Implementing a well-developed marketing strategy is exciting and can bring great results. However, much of the impact of a strategy or campaign can be lost if the results are not properly measured and evaluated. Yes, there are plenty of tactics to try and ideas to implement, but without measuring their impact there is no way to determine if they are successful and worth continuing.
What should you be tracking?
The answer is as much as possible. From social media to email marketing to media relations and everything in between, measuring your efforts should be top of mind, even before your tactics are developed.
Tracking mechanisms for marketing campaigns can take different forms. Before implementing marketing tactics, such as an email blast or digital advertisement, determine the goal of the tactic. What action do you want the audience to take? If you want them to click a link that takes them back to your website, how will you measure if they click? This is where tracking comes into place. Setting up campaign tracking and using tools like Google Analytics can allow you to see who visited your website from the specific campaign and, more so, from the specific tactics you have implemented. This type of measurement is invaluable and can give insight into the number of people who have interacted with your campaign, their likes/dislikes, their location and more.
Measuring PR Engagement and Sentiment
Measuring public relations efforts can be slightly more challenging and less concrete, as results can lean more towards qualitative instead of quantitative feedback. For example, you may engage the media with a news release that generates stories across a variety of publications. In this case, using certain software and tools, you can track your coverage and gain insight into how many audience members it reached, as well as if coverage was positive or negative.
Additionally, when using social media as a tactic, you can measure certain engagement and reach numbers; however, it’s not quite possible to know exactly how many people interacted with a post that could have been shared with others via email, text message or other interactive means. Additionally, public relations efforts can result in word-of-mouth and other less trackable means of communication among audiences about a product or service, which can cause a gap in measurement.
Prioritize Results-Based Decision-Making
The most important aspect of tracking marketing and public relations efforts is using the measured results to make informed decisions about whether to continue each specific tactic, and when it might be time to adjust the overall strategy. If you see a nice ROI from a specific tactic, it might be worth sticking with it or even increasing similar tactics in your plan. On the other hand, if you don’t see the results you were looking for from a paid advertising opportunity or pitch, you can either adjust your messaging or find a new outlet to work with.
Don’t be discouraged if a tactic doesn’t necessarily work as planned the first time around. It can be challenging to pinpoint the exact recipe for success within a campaign, but you can use the results to build something more targeted and relevant to your audience. Tracking campaigns from the beginning gives you a leg up in making the most of your time, ideas and effort. The TRINDGROUP team is here to help with your marketing efforts, from strategy to implementation to measurement. Contact us today for more information.
