Читать книгу 99 Marketing Mistakes - Kenyon Blunt - Страница 13

Mistake #7

Not Tracking Results

The question I hear most from small business owners is, “What will I get from my marketing dollars?” Linking the money spent back to results is a crucial principle of my Lean Marketing process. In Lean Marketing, guessing and estimating are replaced by data-driven analysis and measurable outcomes.

Every marketer should be able to answer the question, “Will this make me money?”

The goal is to know the desired outcome of your marketing before you spend a dime. You should think of marketing as an investment, much like any other—stocks, real estate, mutual funds, etc. When you do this, replace all marketing activities that do not provably generate revenue with ones that do.

I grew up in direct marketing, trying to find out what works and what doesn’t. However, today’s new digital marketing channels make it possible to measure success more quickly. Digital marketing has real-time access to a wide variety of information. Because digital data can connect knowledge across sources such as social, mobile, and web, results are usually just a click away.

How to Focus on Results

There are several steps small business owners can take to focus on outcomes:

 Measure what’s important. Even if you don’t have much money for marketing, you benefit by focusing on those activities that generate revenue. You do this by concentrating on a few key metrics and tracking them daily. Chances are you’ll be using digital marketing, which has tons of parameters—an overwhelming number for most people looking at them. The real challenge is to narrow it down to just a vital few.

 Track the total number of leads and how many of those qualify after your marketing and sales screens. Once you’ve done that, determine your cost per lead and cost per closed sale. Add on other essential metrics. Keep it at ten or less total, and don’t include any that don’t eventually directly lead to revenue (such as the number of likes).

 Prune what doesn’t work. Results-based marketing forces you to change from marketing messages that create awareness to ads that generate results. Spending money on non-revenue-generating marketing is like spending money on equipment or people that don’t perform. It’s a waste, and it isn’t Lean. There’s also an opportunity cost involved. When you spend money on something that doesn’t work, you’re taking money away from something that does.

 Expand from your core. Eventually, you’ll want to spend about 80 percent of your marketing dollars on activities that are proven successful. Use the remaining 20 percent to test new ideas. It ensures a consistent marketing funnel that produces results. Just remember, you want to test all the time, but you need to balance the testing with results.

 Change Your Media Allocation. I’m biased here because of my background in direct marketing. But, how can you justify spending marketing dollars on things you can’t measure? To be a Lean Marketer, you need to switch your media allocation away from branding and image-based advertising to media that show results. For most small businesses, branding is a waste of money. Yes, you should have a consistent brand image. However, you don’t have enough money or time to build a brand. Focus on direct response instead.