You have a product or service that you’re trying to sell to the public, and in order to do that, you’re going to need to come up with a marketing plan that will put you in front of the right audience. With the right strategy, you can increase your odds of having an impactful marketing plan and increase the likelihood that you will succeed in converting casual browsers into paying customers. In this article, we’ll discuss five tried and tested tactics that you can use to improve your marketing performance and strengthen your bottom line.

1. Conduct Market Research & Discover The REAL Reasons Your Prospects Are On The Web

When you sit down to develop a marketing plan, the first thing you need to do is to do some market research. But, before you begin spending your hard-earned money on ads and paid traffic, you must first understand why your target audience is on the web in the first place. The old adage ‘know your audience’ really does apply here. You need to research who your target audience is, why they are on the web, and what they want. Only then can you devise a strategy that will move the needle for your company.

As a marketer, you have access to a massive amount of data from across the web. You can use tools like Google Analytics to gain insight into how visitors arrive at your site and which pages they interact with most. From there, you can determine the key messaging and calls-to-action (CTAs) that will drive the most impactful conversions.

2. Measure The Results Of Your Efforts

In order to determine the effectiveness of your marketing plan, you’re going to need to set up monitoring stations to measure the results of your efforts. There are many marketing metrics available to measure the performance of your campaigns and their impact on driving sales. The five key metrics that you should monitor are:

• Visits
• Conversions
• Engagement
• Action
• Acquisition
• Cost per acquisition

By monitoring these metrics, you can determine the effectiveness of your campaigns and the ROI (return on investment) of your marketing efforts. It’s also important to track the performance of each individual campaign as opposed to relying on aggregated numbers. This way, you can identify the specific elements that contributed to a successful campaign and make adjustments to your strategy as needed.

3. Identify The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) To Track

Once you have a clear understanding of why your target audience is on the web and what they want, you can begin to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track. These are the quantifiable measures that you will use to determine the success or failure of your marketing plan. The better you are at determining specific KPIs, the better you’ll be able to track the effectiveness of your strategy and make refinements as needed.

For example, if you’re doing paid search ads and you want to track the number of calls made to action (CTAs) on your site, you can use tools like Google Analytics to track this data. You can also use conversion tracking pixels such as Google Analytics’ cookie to track the path that users take after landing on your site. For eCommerce stores, you can use order metrics (such as order value, order volume, and order recency) to measure the success of your internet marketing efforts.

4. Identify The Important Takeaways

When you’ve finished conducting market research and establishing key performance indicators (KPIs), it’s time to pull out the important takeaways. These are the key messages or lessons that you can take away from your research. The better you are at identifying the important takeaways, the better you’ll be able to communicate these to other teams within your business and utilize them to formulate future marketing messages and campaigns.

Here are some examples of key takeaways that you might want to carry over into your next marketing campaign:

• Customers prefer to work with companies that have a physical presence.
• Visitors to your site have an immediate need and desire to find the information you offer.
• Customers want to feel that they’re receiving value from their interactions with your company.
• Mobile customers prefer to engage with businesses that have an active social media presence.
• Women more than men are inclined to purchase clothing items online.
• Shoppers consider the quality of the user experience when purchasing items online.
• People are more likely to visit websites that have content that is relevant to them.
• Customers are more likely to leave a positive review than they are to leave a negative review.
• Customers like to be asked directly for their opinion.
• If you want to be liked, be helpful.
• 80% of social media users have posted something about a brand or product that they’ve discovered on social media platforms.
• One way to gain credibility with potential customers is to give back to your community. 
• People are more likely to remember brands that support causes that they believe in.
• By adding value to your customers’ lives, you’ll increase your chance of converting them into paying customers and brand advocates. 
• Keep your website fresh. 
• Adding more videos to your blog can help establish you as an expert in your industry. 
• 94% of customers say that the experience they have while shopping on a mobile device is critical in determining whether or not they’ll make a purchase on the go.
• Customers expect companies to have a mobile presence. So if you’re not equipped for mobile shopping yet, get on it!

Hopefully, this has given you a better understanding of how to optimize your marketing strategies. Instead of just throwing money at ads and hoping for the best, by taking the time to analyze the data and set up monitoring stations, you can easily determine the success of your campaign and make necessary adjustments to your strategy as needed. In order to grow your business, you must have a solid marketing strategy in place and be willing to tweak it as needed.