Continuous Improvement Marketing: How to Produce Ever-Better Results
When it comes to growing sales and increasing market share, good results from a content marketing campaign are important and helpful. However, what the best marketing agencies are after today isn’t helping companies put one impressive dot on the graph. The path to sustainable success requires what you might call “continuous improvement marketing,” with a series of dots on a beautiful and profitable uphill slope!
Yes, your content marketing campaign resulted in (insert your own numbers here) 220 website visits, 37 newsletter signups, and 8 new qualified leads. And that’s great. But, what’s your goal for the next campaign? It’s easy to say, “More of the same,” and to use these numbers as your new target. But if you do, you might be selling yourself short. How about 250, 40, and 10?
The risk, of course, is that you could come in a little under some or all of those numbers and that feels like failure. However, by pushing the envelope, you can learn some critical lessons about your marketing practices, your company’s offerings, and your audience. And all of that intel can be used to improve your content marketing efforts going forward.
Measure, Modify, and Move Forward
“Continuous improvement marketing sounds interesting,” you say, “But how do we achieve continuous improvement?” Good question. The answer is different for every company based on their unique scenario, but here are some actions to consider:
- Measure… or measure more. Having accurate data on your campaigns is fundamental to continuous improvement marketing. And, you have to be measuring more than the simple numbers I gave above. How many emails were sent? What percentage were opened/deleted/bounced? How many blog posts were written? What was the engagement rate across different demographics? If you aren’t measuring the results from your content marketing campaigns, now is the time to start! And if you are tracking some numbers, you should confirm that they are the right ones and consider adding others.
- Try new channels. If you’ve been sticking to your “tried and true” tactics, test some new approaches. Never used Instagram in your marketing? Never presented an online webinar? Perhaps there's a strategy you’ve never considered that could create more engagement and help you hit higher goals. There’s only one way to know for sure!
- Streamline content creation and increase output. The more awareness of your offerings that you generate, the more leads you’ll collect and the more sales you’ll record. That stands to reason. So, while the content you publish must always be high-quality, finding ways to produce more of it with greater efficiency can help you improve your results.
- Do frequent “relevance” checks. In the digital age, the content that consumers find engaging changes faster than ever before. No, you don’t want to chase every blip on the radar, but it’s important that you identify sustained trends so your content doesn’t become outdated and irrelevant.
- Make marketing measurement easier. The harder it is to get the numbers you need to assess the effectiveness of your efforts, the more likely it is that you’ll skip that assessment in the face of a long to-do list. A marketing automation tool like HubSpot does much of the legwork for you. If you aren’t using this type of system, you definitely should be.
Your Partner in Continuous Improvement
When you commit to continuous improvement marketing, you are committing to a steady uphill climb. And as anyone who has ever hiked or biked up an incline will tell you, it helps to have a partner by your side. As a marketer, you want the guidance and support of the best marketing agency you can find. While we’re not into labels here at 30dps, our teams in Colorado Springs, CO, and Springfield, MO, have a reputation for helping clients nationwide achieve ever-better results. Ready to start our ascent? Reach out today!