Use L.O.V.E. Framework to Refine Your Marketing Strategies

The month of February welcomes the season of love and marketing, but many people misunderstand what marketing is and how it can benefit business growth. Marketing strategies, initiatives, and tactics all differ depending on the products or services involved, there's no single strategy that works for everyone. In today's digital world, marketing often involves refining your strategies, which involves understanding the current consumer analytics. Marketing strategies should be reviewed every month and may require further adjustments by the fourth quarter.

First, marketers need to analyze what strategies or campaigns are working well. Asking the questions, how are consumers viewing my product? What demographics attract a certain ad or image? How long do visitors stay on my sites? What needs to be improved to better understand their needs? Do you need to survey, ask more questions, or change the price point? (I’m a big fan of surveying consumers to always ask questions to learn their habits, likes, dislikes, changes, etc.). Look for ways to connect with your potential customers to stay ahead of the competition.

Second, identify areas how to better connect with your customers. Do you need to increase brand awareness? Have you given consumers the opportunity to see or explore your service with different touchpoints (i.e. online and off-line). Do you advertise on a variety of platforms? Marketers call this omnichannel approach to marketing but that is for another column.

In recognition of the upcoming Valentine’s Day in the United States and considering that marketing efforts often focus on the theme of love leading up to this holiday, I have developed an acronym using the letters L.O.V.E. to offer easy to remember insights for effective marketing strategies.

Use L.O.V.E. (Leverage. Opportunity. Views. Engagement.) framework to identify what needs to be improved and retained. There are numerous online applications and free information that just take time to research, analyze, and craft. Or sometimes, just ask your local media or marketing representative for data before you make any significant changes.

Leverage free online applications or research to understand your current online presence and listen to what your customers are saying. Tools like Google Alerts, social media monitoring platforms, and review aggregators can provide invaluable insights into how your brand is perceived across the digital landscape. By systematically tracking mentions of your company name, products, or key personnel, you can identify emerging trends in customer sentiment, spot potential issues before they escalate, and discover opportunities to engage with your audience in meaningful ways. This proactive approach to reputation management allows you to respond thoughtfully to feedback, address concerns in real-time, and build stronger relationships with your customer base.

Opportunity to gain new customers by clearly understanding their habits, needs, and why they do business with you. META (Facebook and Instagram social media platforms) have robust analytics and A/B testing options to see what images and captions resonate with your customers. Additionally, analyzing competitors’ online presence through these same tools can reveal gaps in the market and help you refine your own strategies to stand out in an increasingly crowded online environment.

Views are important to analyze and understand demographic data for identifying untapped opportunities and tailoring your approach to reach the right audience effectively. When you examine who is engaging with your content; their age, location, interests, and behaviors, you gain actionable insights that transform raw numbers into strategic direction. These metrics reveal not only who your current audience is but also highlight demographic segments you may be overlooking or underserving. For instance, discovering that a significant portion of your viewers come from an unexpected geographic region or age group can open doors to new market expansion, product adaptations, or targeted marketing campaigns. Views combined with demographic analysis also help you allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring that your time, budget, and creative energy are focused on channels and content types that resonate most strongly with your ideal customers.

Engagement refers to the meaningful interactions and active participation that your consumers have with your content, brand, or platform, going beyond the passive viewing. It is not just the ‘seeing’ of your content; it encompasses a wide range including ‘likes’, comments, shares, clicks, video watch time, and other measurable behavior that they are actively responding to it. Engagement truly takes the holistic marketing approach and signals that your message resonates and creates a two-way relationship for customers to interact with and feel empowered by your brand. Customer engagement is a key sign of brand health, customer satisfaction, and content strategy success. It shows how strongly people connect with your offering(s) and indicates whether they find it valuable.

As we navigate the ever-evolving and fast-paced marketing landscape, the L.O.V.E. framework highlights the importance of learning and adapting. By leveraging data insights, seizing new opportunities, analyzing relevant views, and fostering genuine engagement with your audience, you will position your brand for sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Take time monthly to regularly assess your marketing initiatives through this lens, and you’ll discover that the most effective campaigns are those that evolve alongside your customers’ changing needs and preferences. Remember, great marketing stays flexible, puts customers first, and adjusts to change.

Jennifer Bushong, MA is the Founder of INSPIRE Northwest™ and the CEO of JBe Marketing Group, LLC., a full-service strategic marketing and communication firm in Washington State. JBe serves as fractional Chief Marketing Directors, Designers, or alongside marketing teams to implement marketing, communications, or branding campaigns using a variety of tactics. To learn more, email jennifer@jbemarketinggroup.com or visit www.jbe-marketing.com