Marketing in its essence is to foster creativity but in the more recent years it’s also playing the numbers game. Where are our leads coming from? What’s our CTR? Are people coming back for more and how do we do?

Knowing the answers to these questions give you the upper hand in a sea of companies like yours. This is now utilizing analytics helps your company or marketplace grow more efficiently. You’ll know which aspects need more work and where you can focus less on. Knowing how to extract and use the information can come in many forms which can be the hardest part. So we’ve put together a few ways using analytics can help your marketing strategy.

Content Effectiveness

Most companies are creating useful content for their audience now and there’s an endless amount of topics to write about but which ones are more effective? Analytics help you find out what articles and blogs have been working and what haven’t. Having that insight helps you understand your customers more and what they like to read or learn about. Looking into the data derived from your content you’ll be able to find what type of blogs work best (infographic, tutorial, tips..) and with that information you’ll hopefully be able to generate more views.

Another feature many analytics offer are keywords, what keywords are used most popular in your industry. Knowing those few key terms can help you develop a stronger SEO strategy.

Related: 6 Steps to Creating Share-Worthy Content

Competitors

Knowing your competitors can give you an upper hand and analytics can help you get ahead of the game. With analytics you can discover how many leads they are generating or what content others are pushing out that are working for them. Perhaps you are lacking in social media efforts and they seem to be getting more followers and likes. What are they doing differently? How are they scheduling their posts and who are they partnering with? You can find this data to help you fine tune your business.

Achieve A True Ideal Customer

You may go into your industry having a good general idea of your ideal customer. Maybe they’re male or female, works full-time, 3 kids and likes going to nice dinners. What analytics can do is tell you if this is true or not. It can provide you their age and interests based on whatever Facebook analytics have consumed and tell you if they are parents or not. Understanding these details of a persona’s life can increase your sales or content views. Maybe your ideal customer likes to cook more than go out, you can retweet some cool recipes to catch their attention in a new way. All in all, you’ll just be able to know your customers more and that helps you.

Marketing Budget

Spending a ton on social media and less on Facebook ads may be a good strategy for some companies but there is no use playing a guessing game. Analytics can show you what strategies are the most effective for your company. Content is doing great so let’s invest more for better content or maybe sending promotional products to influencers has been working well, you can expand your partner list.

Knowing where your ROI is coming from will save you money in the long run and create a very effective way of marketing your business.

Analytics are a standard in any business if you want to flourish and the future of it is boundless. Find what works for you and hopefully you get some insight that helps.

Related: 3 Ways to Supplement Your Content Marketing Strategy