17 Dec The easy way to measure your marketing results (Step 1)
Wax Marketing mug to the first 5 who ID this photo
I got so many questions about my last post “7 Steps to Bigger Marketing Muscle in 2010” I thought I’d give you some detail on each one of the steps. Measurement seems to be really tricky for people – but it’s actually pretty simple. Once you have some basic measurements in place and you feel a need to go deeper, visit KD Paine’s measurement blog – she’s the real guru. I’d love to hear specific examples of how people are measuring their own results, so comment away! Here’s my quick and dirty take –
- Identify the five things that lead to more sales. It could be phone call volume, website traffic, conversions, # of proposals you’re writing, etc. Make sure that these are things that you know DIRECTLY RELATE to sales. Put each one in a column on a spreadsheet as a measurement category. (For more on measuring your digital footprint check out “Tools to Measure Your Digital Footprint” )
- Find a way to keep track. The web stuff is easy, that’s done for you. The squishy stuff is harder. For example if you’re a B2B services firm you know that inbound phone calls – or referrals – greatly increase your chance of sales. To measure those, just make a check somewhere every time you get one. Add them up each month. (This does NOT have to be a complicated thing folks!) In your measurement spreadsheet write down how you plan to perform the measurement.
- Once you have your five categories and the mechanism for measuring each category, figure out the frequency of measurement. E-commerce businesses probably want to measure weekly, maybe even daily. B2B or professional services firms could be monthly. I wouldn’t go any longer than that.
- Now here’s the hard part – make sure you’ve got a control in place to ENSURE you are keeping track, especially if it’s something that is not tracked electronically. Put a daily reminder on your calendar if you have to and remember – if you lose track you’re lost.
Finally, figure out how long it should take to see results. Pretty much the longer your sales cycle, the longer it will take your new marketing muscle to appear. If your average sales cycle four weeks, you should see improvement in your categories in about that time. If it’s a day then you better make sure your marketing tactics are improving results pretty quickly.