Digital marketing for real time monitoring and deep research

Is future focus enough?

“Some companies cope with what happened, some react to what’s happening and some others wonder what in the world just happened.” It’s an old marketing aphorism describing traditional business methods but these days none of those comments should apply to your business. Like everyone else, your business plans for what’s going to happen, right? But a plan loaded with all the right forward focus - stuffed full of goals, tactics and strategies - can still propel a business into the wall, maybe even faster and harder than a reactive business. As well as goals, a strategy and who’s going to do what, when and how, a plan must have a retrospective mechanism built in, generally under the heading of “control”.

Your instrument panel

Even the best jet fighter with the best targeting and guidance systems must have an accurate real time monitoring system to see how the mission is progressing. So too with your marketing effort – ideally it has an inbuilt analysis mechanism that is measurement rich, measuring not only what’s happening and providing analysis for tweaking the current plan but also providing research to help with planning for the next campaign. That’s the value of digital marketing. It’s full of potential for real time monitoring and deep research. For example, Facebook can break down reaction to a campaign not only by the number of views but also the gender of the viewer and the times of engagement. Similar analytics are available through Instagram and of course Google Analytics is the gold standard. You can thus build a picture of your audience. But that’s not the end of it. You will want more than raw measurement at the end of the campaign. Remember that reporting is a somewhat retrospective exercise with all the dangers of that – essentially one cannot drive forward by looking in the rear vision mirror. The measurement data is the foundation for deep analysis. Your marketing report must show the customers’ journey from marketing touch point (say the website landing page), through to whether revenue followed, and then to whether you now have a loyal customer (who say asked for your newsletter) and so will be a continuing source of revenue. Each way-point in the digital world is susceptible to measurement. The take out message • Have a plan on how to get to where you want to be next year. • Organise a marketing plan that dovetails into that overall plan. (You knew these two steps already, right?) • Monitor the marketing strategies as you execute them. Digital marketing is through machines and systems that count. Use the data they provide for the analysis that will keep your business growing. For more information or advice on digital marketing, contact the team at Mark 2 Creative today.