How to Make Your Marketing Dollars Work Harder

Marketing used to be difficult to track—which gave many professionals an excuse to push it aside. But with today’s technology, it’s easier than ever to get the most bang for your marketing buck.

Here are four steps you can take to distill your marketing strategy into something more efficient and trackable:

1) Identify your ideal target. Who do you want to attract? This key question drives marketing success because as you develop your materials, you want to craft messages that appeal to your target market. Ask yourself the following questions to get started:

• Who are my best clients?
• How old are they?
• What are their interests?
• Where do they work? How much is their household income?
• What kind of content do these markets consume?
• What questions can I answer for these audiences?

Answering these questions will help you develop personas, which should be the lynchpin of your marketing strategy. For example, your ideal client might be a 55-year-old male who works in a white-collar profession and has $750,000 of investable assets. His primary concerns are saving for retirement, saving for a private school education for his two children, and traveling to Europe next summer. Identifying this first client persona is the start of figuring out who you really want to target with your marketing efforts. Creating content that answers this client’s questions will help you attract a similar audience.

2) Implement retargeting. Retargeting is a form of online advertising that follows your audience even after they leave your website. Most website visitors don’t convert during the first visit, but retargeting allows you to stay in front of your audience—and directs them back to schedule an appointment or reach out.

Retargeting adds a piece of code, often called a “pixel,” to the back end of your website. This code allows you to “cookie” visitors, and as they move around the web, the cookie tells you where to place your retargeted ads. These ads could appear on search engines, social media, other websites and more.

Marketers often use retargeted ads because it focuses their ad spend on people who already visited their site and demonstrated some sort of interest. It enables you to not only understand who you are targeting, but also track the right audience for you. Retargeting works best when you use it in conjunction with other inbound and outbound marketing strategies.

3) Track your emails. Another great way to know your target is to study your email analytics to see which emails gain the most traction and attention. Most email providers provide statistics such as open rates, click-through rates and more. Use this information to compose more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

4) Take advantage of Google Analytics—it’s free. Your website should be integrated with Google Analytics, the leading website data provider. The platform tracks who is visiting your website, where they’re coming from, what they’re doing on your site and much more. Use Google Analytics to answer three key questions:

• How much traffic is coming to my site?
• Who makes up this traffic?
• What are these visitors doing?

Marketing can sometimes seem like an uphill battle without tangible results. But by developing your personas, retargeting your ads and tracking analytics, you can make sure your marketing dollars are performing to the best of their ability.

Craig Faulkner is founder & CEO of FMG Suite, which offers a complete inbound marketing solution for independent insurance agents.