There’s no question that marketing your business is the key to attracting and sustaining your targeted consumers.

But if you employ outdated marketing strategies, you may find yourself unfavorably compared to a competitor who has seized on the most up-to-date methods to brand its business and appeal to motivated consumers.

So how exactly do you know if your marketing strategies are up to snuff?

Here are three telltale signs that will tell you if your marketing strategy is modern and innovative, or if it’s stuck in the past, and in digital terms, “the past” means just a few years ago.

1. Posting Content On Social Media That Has No Value

Posting for the sole purpose of having a constant presence on social media has become a negative that often results in downgrading on search engine rankings.

Why?

Because the amount of content you post isn’t the key to optimizing your search ranking, it’s the quality of the content you post that’s all-important.

And sometimes when you hit the wall, and have no idea what to post, there is a solution.

In this articleon Darren Rowse’s blog, marketing expert Kelly Exeter said you should solicit guest posts, or let social media users decide what you should post when you’ve run out of good ideas.

2. Your Email List Is Generic

If you’re not building an email list that is specifically targeted to a consumer group that is most likely to buy your goods and services, then you are embracing the old “coupons and flyers” mentality that has ruined so many retail stores.

When it comes to your email list, value is far better than volume, which means that you must build a small, targeted list that is created from market research.

Today’s consumers are inundated with tons of marketing email.

If you don’t appeal to their specific wants and needs, they will simply click your email into the spam folder, and you won’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

3. You’re Not Using Metrics To Track Your Results

The trend towards metrics has invaded the digital landscape, and it’s a trend you should join…quickly.

Why?

Because you can’t market in the dark, and metrics can really help you understand what’s working and what needs improvement.

For example, do you know the number of visitors to your site who purchase a product or service?  That metric is known as your call-to-action (CTA) clickthrough rate.

Do you know what specific keywords drove visitors to your site?

That metric is known as traffic-driving keyword performance, and it can help identify how well your keywords are doing in generating “leads,” which are simply visitors that you can persuade to make a purchase or buy a service that you offer.

In a recent post, digital marketing leader Avinash Kaushik extolled the virtues of Google Analytics as a powerful tool in creating customized metrics reports that are unique to your online business.

Revising Your Strategy

What makes the digital marketplace so exciting is that you can adjust and revise your marketing strategy on the fly. If you decide after reading this list that you need to make changes, those changes won’t require you to alter the core purpose of your business.

Rather, they will force you to adjust your mindset and how you view your consumers, and how you can better target them with outstanding posts, a targeted email marketing campaign, and proven methods of measuring the effectiveness of your strategies.