“What gets measured is what gets done” is a business saying that remains as relevant today as the day it was first spoken. Businesses measure lots of things; sales, profits, costs, returns, market share, customer retention, the list could be endless. Another business saying that used to be muttered in marketing departments was, “Half of the money spent on advertising is wasted, I just wish I knew what half.” Fortunately these days we have many metrics at our disposal the measure marketing effectiveness. And when we know what is most effective, we tend to do more of it. It gets done.
So what do you measure in your business related to marketing? I measure:
- Customer inquiries/month (email, phone, in person)
- Bookings, new contracts, sales/month
- Website and blog visits/month (+ basic demographics of who is visiting, where they’re from)
- Page visits, time spent
- Acquisition (how did they find me?)
- Email newsletter opens, shares
- Email new subscriptions, unsubscribes
- On ramping and funneling list numbers for offers
- Views and shares of boosted and sponsored social media content, correlated back to website analytics, since I’m always chasing people to “owned” media properties
I’m not a numbers wonk. I didn’t much care for math. I somehow got an “A” in university statistics despite finally figuring out two months into the course that “knot 5” meant “0.5” when spoken by my very British professor. I had been thinking, “If it’s not 5, then what the heck is it?” True story.
You get it. Numbers don’t necessarily come as naturally to me as letters and writing. But I certainly understand the importance of numbers. They help me understand if what I’m doing is working, and by default if I should do more of it, or change the approach.
A couple simple tools for acquiring the listed information above are Google analytics and MailChimp. If you don’t have Google analytics on your website, it would urge you to do so. It’s absolutely free, and relatively easy to set up. Once you’ve signed up, simply embed the piece of code they send you in the header of each page on your website. Or give it to your website guy or gal to set up. Or google search one of many videos on how to do it. Honestly, it’s not hard to do, but will make understanding how your website is used by customers incredibly easy. MailChimp, or similar programs like Constant Contact will not only create a database of customers that you communicate with, it will also allow you to monitor how effective your electronic touch points by email are with them. The basic MailChimp account is free. Constant Contact runs you about $20 a month. And of course Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn all offer you analytics if you pay to sponsor or boost content on their platforms.
But at the end of the day, all measurement leads back to the desire to increase awareness, increase engagement, and ultimately be chosen. It’s basically about getting others to know, like and trust you.
Which is why I believe so much in the power of one on one communication in person and by a weekly newsletter, as well as through this blog. It’s about building customer trust and intimacy, as well as search and recognition. Did you know that I had four potential new clients contact me and set up in person meetings just this past week as a direct result of receiving marketing ideas from the last several months through this newsletter? In three cases we’ll be meeting on setting up a strategy for 5-pillar media marketing (owned, rented, earned, embedded & paid media) for their companies. In the other case, it’s a potential speaking gig around the same topic.
What works for me may not work for you. Your business and our customers might be quite different. But I do know that if you are measuring the results of what you’re doing, and taking action to do more of what is driving engagement and sales, and eliminating what isn’t, you’ll be way further ahead then the guy wondering which half of his advertising budget is actually working!
So, what do you do that you know for sure drives sales? How do you measure and keep track of results? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
