Marketing is the main subject of this week’s blog posts–in case you hadn’t noticed the pattern yet. One of the biggest challenges in marketing is to prove that efforts are generating results–and at a reasonable ROI to boot! We know that marketing can be used to initiate relationships–it is also about nurturing them and providing great leads to the sales side of the house. Being able to measure how much positive attention you are able to attract is key for a marketer to justify the marketing budget, and (in a recession, her role.)
Leanne Hoagland-Smith, Chief Results Officer for Advanced Systems in Chicago, IL writes that,
With the Internet, the ability to measure your marketing efforts is far easier now than ever before. Websites can include Google Analytics or their own customized statistics dashboard. Then others sites and tools provide additional metrics to measure current marketing campaigns. Even WordPress has a plug by Yoast to measure Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is a great tool for measuring the SEO effectiveness of your blog posts. I know because I have been using it for the last three years.
Inbound Marketing Measurements
Each morning, the first action I take beyond deleting all the SPAM from my email accounts is to measure my inbound marketing through more than 20 metrics. Some of these measurements include:
• Unique Visitors to my website
• RSS feed from my website
• Twitter followers
• Alexa Ranking
Additionally, I also have another 10 weekly metrics plus another 15 monthly metrics.
I am currently expanding into delivering some webinars and Eventbrite provides additional statistics as does Citrix Go to Webinar. All of this data is crucial if I wish to use my limited resources of time, energy, money and emotions to increase sales.
..These numbers allow ..me.. to see trends, what is working ..and what is not working. The time investment averages around 10 minutes each day with another 10 minutes for the weekly data capture. At the end of the month, this adds another 20-30 minutes for updating and analysis.
Outbound Marketing Measurements
During the course of the last 10 years, I have identified some key benchmarks for the more traditional marketing efforts. For example, when I speak, I usually receive a client from that presentation within six months. Lately, that statistic has changed with two to four months being the average. What has also changed due to the economy is the average sales value of that client has dropped.
Another marketing effort was something I gleaned from Robert Middleton specific to sending pertinent articles to potential customers. When I employ this marketing campaign, my first time appointment rate is around 50 percent compared to the usual cold calling rate of 25 percent. As I am selective when I do engage in cold calling, my success rate is probably higher than most…
One simple action is to always ask how a potential customer discovered you. Sometimes these prospects will tell you without asking. Just this past month, I earned my first client from a YouTube video. Efficient and effective marketing is hard work. To not measure the efforts of all those actions is not probably the smartest course of action.
The role for small business owners have expanded to include measuring marketing efforts. Without knowing the results from all marketing efforts both inbound and outbound, the small business owners to even crazy busy sales professionals are missing significant opportunities to maximize their profits, reduce costs and increase sales.
As you look at what LeAnne does in her business, what ideas come to mind? Check out the tools she recommends. Determine your own marketing dashboard. Think through how to collect data, analyze it, and make adjustments. As you begin to apply some science to the art of marketing, you can calculate the metrics of success that drive revenues and profitability. Isn’t that why we all started businesses?
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