The Key to Data-Driven Marketing: Conducting Quarterly Reviews
The start of a new quarter provides a good checkpoint for assessing your business goals, and the marketing strategy that’s helping you reach them. Keeping your finger on the pulse of your efforts is an important part of keeping your strategy optimized and staying on track with your goals.
Here are a few reasons why you should be conducting quarterly marketing reviews:
Track Progress: By examining key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, conversion rates, social media engagement, and email open rates, you can gauge the effectiveness of your strategies and identify areas for improvement.
Identify Trends: Trends in the world of digital marketing can change rapidly. By conducting quarterly reviews, you can stay informed about emerging trends in your industry and adapt your strategy accordingly. Whether it's a shift in consumer behavior, new algorithm updates from search engines, or the rise of a certain type of content, staying in tuen with trends can help you stay ahead of the competition.
Evaluate ROI: A holistic digital marketing approach should involve an investment in a variety of channels, like paid advertising, email outreach, automation tools, and so on. Quarterly reviews allow you to take a closer look at what’s working and what’s not in order to inform your ongoing efforts and adjust budget allocations as need. It’s always a good idea to determine which channels are delivering the most value for your business.
Optimize Performance: Marketing requires some trial and error in order to achieve true optimization. No two audiences are exactly alike, so you must do the work to determine what works best for your specific crowd. A/B testing is usually recommended, and analyzing the results of your efforts can help you make data-driven decisions to optimize performance and achieve better results in the future.
Stay Agile: We all know that this world moves fast, and the digital world moves even faster. It’s critical to maintain agility and avoid becoming stagnant. Adapting and pivoting your strategy is inherently part of the digital marketing game, so you really must stay on your toes in order to remain relevant.
Convinced? Let’s dive into the logistics now. Here are some things to consider when conducting a quarterly marketing performance review:
1. Website Performance
What feedback have you heard from customers?
What’s working, not working? Do any pages need edits?
What questions are prospects asking that could lead to new thought leadership content?
2. Sales and Marketing
How have your sales and marketing priorities changed since your last review?
What conversations is your sales team having with prospects?
Has your product or brand positioning language shifted?
3. Strategic Business Initiatives
What new initiatives do you have planned for the next quarter?
What new content or features will you need to create to support new product launches or sales initiatives?
What new campaigns or organic search changes will be required?
4. Analytics Review
What channels and locations are leading traffic to your site?
Look at overall traffic patterns and trends, conversions and deal quality.
Note top organic queries and landing pages.
Review search engine and device breakdown.
Note keyword rankings, relevancy and movements up or down.
5. Content Review
What content is old, irrelevant or thin? What needs to be updated, combined or removed?
Are the people featured on your About Us or Leadership pages up-to-date?
What recent work could make a great case study to feature on your site?
Regularly checking in on your marketing efforts is just as important as implementing those efforts in the first place. Your marketing strategy is only as strong as your insights. By following a structured approach to quarterly reviews and leaning into a data-driven approach, you can continuously refine your strategy and drive sustained success for your business. If you’re not sure how to go about it, we’d be happy to help; you can schedule a consultation here.
