Regardless of your marketing budget, every marketer is trying to get the most out of it. If you’re a new startup, then squeezing the most out of every dollar spent is critical to success. But even if you’re a larger corporation, launching a campaign shouldn’t blow the rest of your budget. Marketing efficiency simply means maximizing the impact of every dollar, ensuring you’re still reaching your objectives.
But working smarter, not harder isn’t a walk in the park for marketers. With new platforms pulling audiences in different directions, finding how to pinpoint them with your brand messaging can be challenging. Luckily, you’re not in it alone. Here are four smarter ways to boost the efficiency of your marketing strategy.
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1. Seek Out Content Gaps
Targeting a keyword that all of your competitors have already written on may not be the best strategy. While you may quickly assume that because they did it you need to as well, it may be more advantageous to find what they haven’t already covered. Content gaps are any topics that your audience is searching for but no brand has aptly written on. These gaps should be filled to better serve users and fulfill search intent.
Content gaps are hard to find on your own — you can spend countless hours putting strings of words into Google and seeing what comes out. By leveraging a competitive content analysis, however, you can recognize competitors’ strengths and weaknesses in terms of what they’re covering. This advanced software tool allows you to exploit weaknesses, identifying keywords that you have a higher chance of ranking well for. Doing so will give you the upper hand on your competitors and can help you distinguish yourself from others in the market.
2. Try Various Marketing Channels
Putting all of your eggs into one basket is not an efficient strategy. If you had used all of your marketing dollars for Twitter campaigns in spring 2022, then you may have been left with a pile of nothing. Once Elon Musk acquired the company, many users started scrolling elsewhere and brands were left with a dwindling follower count. This is just a recent example of why diversifying your marketing channels is oftentimes a better decision.
Multichannel marketing can lead to better brand awareness as you’re reaching users who may not have found you on another channel. With an expanded reach, you also have a more varied consumer profile. This can help inform future marketing campaigns as you learn more about your audiences’ needs and wants. Keep in mind that finding the right marketing channels can take some time, but don’t be afraid to experiment and learn from each campaign launch.
3. Survey Your Audience
You don’t know what to give your audience if you don’t really know what they want. Surveys are an efficient way to learn about your audience and their opinions about your products and marketing strategy. The trick is to keep your surveys focused and to the point. You can’t (and shouldn’t) ask users everything and anything about your brand. Instead, if you’re looking for insights on your marketing strategy then tailor the survey to those specific questions.
The word “survey” may seem burdensome to some without some sort of incentive. You may want to promote a certain discount code for those who participate in the survey. Or, if you’re surveying loyal customers, then perhaps free shipping on their next order would help sweeten the deal. You can send them via your email subscriber list or even on social media. If using the latter, then shorter is better since people scrolling are not always in the mindset to start and complete a long questionnaire.
4. Automate As Much As You Can
Having your team focused on time-consuming tasks is a waste of their time and energy. But thanks to AI and automation, many of these arduous roles can now be done by sophisticated software tools. These tools can do almost anything from scouting competitors to data sourcing and mining to content production. Advancements in AI are allowing marketers to accomplish much more in less time every day.
This isn’t to say that you can replace your skilled marketing team with a bunch of new tools. Rather, these systems can be put into place to help streamline processes and allow the team to focus on more critical thinking projects. Before you adopt any type of new tool, make sure it will help you achieve your goals efficiently. That means saving time and/or money. A smart way to weigh your options is to ask for demos or trial periods. That way you and your team can see which tools work best for your unique needs.
Conclusion
To achieve the highest return on investment (ROI), you want to spend as little as you need on your marketing tactics. At the same time, it’s because of these tactics that you’re able to be successful and pull in new revenue from new customers. Finding the right balance between spending too little and too much can be tricky. Yet these four tips will help keep you on track and ensure your brand’s marketing dollars are all well-spent.
