How to Measure marketing when being a Small business - know what to do next, using Share of Search Analytics

How do you know which of your marketing initiatives are the most cost-effective and what you need to focus on next? Where to spend marketing budgets are a constant topic of discussion amongst senior managers. So let's look at how Share of Search will help McCarthy & Stone, a UK property developer specialising in retirement living, avoid expensive research to monitor their marketing effectiveness and how they can get the best value for their marketing spend.

Although this will also work very well for their new sales division, for this example, we will specifically look at their resales division, where budgets are much smaller. Using Share of Search we will show how McCarthy & Stone can gain market insights for future marketing optimisation. Follow below the process, where every new answer triggers a new question, thus getting closer to answering that crucial question: What do we focus on next to maximise the effectiveness of our marketing budget? And the best part is that it is all done in a matter of hours.

1. What is our starting point?

We start by understanding where we are in the minds of the consumer. Looking at the Share of Search over the last twelve months, we can see McCarty & Stone has performed well with a leading position.

Conclusion: McCarthy & Stone have a strong brand within the category of resale retirement real estate. This leads us on to the next question.

2. Did we generate that increased interest?

When something pricks our curiosity, often through marketing, we turn to the internet to find out more. Comparing McCarthy & Stone's Share of Earned Media with their Share of Search, we see similar trends; all be it a month apart.

Conclusion: Marketing is effective with a month's gap between campaign and impact. This triggers a follow-up question.

3. Was it all positive chatter and search?

For the case of McCarthy & Stone in general, it's essentially good. They have a substantial amount of people with relatively neutral opinions. So McCarthy & Stone should see this as an opportunity to swing those neutral opinions into positive sentiments.

Conclusion: they can work on a few more particular topics to win over some people and increase positive sentiment. That leads us to the final question.

4. What drives that interest and should we talk about?

We answer the final question by looking at what people relate to the most and what they are talking about positively? With McCarthy & Stone's resale division, people appreciated the clear communications informing them about the properties, but there is more room to explain the great pricing and service offered. Combining that with the trending topics gives a good idea of what to work on next.

Conclusion: by focusing their communications a bit more on the services and the price advantages, their resale market can obtain even better results.

The journey is not entirely finished, as it still depends on what channels to use etc, but these market insights already give a very good direction on what to do next.

If you want to understand more about the analysis and learn on how to do category insights, you can watch the video below or even better: you yourself give it a go!