How can you determine what’s working and what’s not for your business? It’s not always easy, but it is always necessary. According to emarketer.com, business owners waste about 30% of their budget on ineffective marketing strategies and procedures. The bad news is that billions of dollars are wasted on marketing channels because of lack of attention, and business owners making the wrong marketing moves.

The good news is that this can be changed. You can find out what’s working and what’s not for your business so you can stop wasting money, and start spending it where it counts. Marketing should be making you money, not just taking your money. How can you be sure you know what’s most effective for your business?

Experiment

The first step to effective marketing is to experiment, experiment and then experiment some more. When you’re trying to determine which marketing outlets are making you money, and which are wasting your money, you first need experience with multiple marketing methods. For example, you could be trying: mailers, social media marketing, Facebook ad campaigns, Google paid ads, email/text campaigns, etc. Once you have given a fair shot (meaning you don’t give up after 30 days) to multiple marketing methods, it will be much easier for you to determine which of these are worth it for your business.

Marketing is a game of trial-and-error and there’s no real way around this. If you know that your target audience is younger people, who probably aren’t homeowners, you can skip the mailers with confidence. If your audience is the much older generation, who likely aren’t on social media, then maybe you don’t want to start with Facebook ads. However, you don’t want to miss out on other potential business because you’re focus is too small when it comes to your marketing efforts. Give your marketing methods a fair chance, and really work to determine what’s working, and what’s not.

Pay Close Attention

Unfortunately, many business owners will pay to run ads, or they’ll run text campaigns without following up to see how these methods are performing. This is a huge issue when it comes to your marketing! Perhaps THE most important thing you can do when it comes to marketing your business is to pay close attention. When you are writing content for your social media channels, be sure you’re noticing which posts are getting the most interaction and engagement from your followers. If you notice that some content is very underwhelming to your audience, you can steer clear from that in the future. If you’re running ads on Facebook, Google or Yelp, be sure you’re checking frequently to see how many people are following your page because of the ads, how many calls you’re receiving, etc.

Paying attention means more than just looking at your data every so often to be sure you’re still receiving calls, clicks and conversions. It means that you’re analyzing your data, determining how much you’ve spent vs. how much you’ve profited, and that you’re tweaking your marketing methods and content to match the trends you’re noticing.

Look to the Experts

Hey, we get it! Marketing isn’t the easiest part of running a business. According to Forbes.com, many business owners say they don’t like the marketing aspect of their job, mainly because they don’t understand it. It can be very overwhelming if you’re not familiar with the processes and the game of trial-and-error. Luckily, FreshLime is full of marketing experts who have developed and perfected a platform for business owners to help connect the dots between you and your customers. On average, it takes about 10-20 hours each week to market your business effectively. However, with FreshLime’s easy-to-use and simple to understand technology, you can track all of your data in one place, and avoid the headache.

If you find yourself struggling to market your business effectively, or too busy to perfect your marketing, schedule a FREE demo with FreshLime today and start easily determining what’s working for your business, and what isn’t.

For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, subscribe to the FreshLime Newsletter here. Connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. And last of all, if any of these tips have helped you or if you have anything to add please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!