“If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”
— Lord Kelvin
Though this famous quote by Lord Kelvin was about thermodynamics, it can be applied to virtually anything.
Especially marketing.
A client came to us a while back wanting to hire us for an “aggressive new client acquisition” campaign.
Now, before starting any new marketing efforts, we always take our clients through an extensive discovery session to find out where they are, what they’re doing, what’s working, what’s not, etc.
After going back and forth for a while, we broached the subject of her current advertising campaigns.
She was advertising in 3 magazines and said 50% of her business came from these publications.
I felt something was a little off with that assumption, because I’m very familiar with advertising returns. So I asked her was she doing any call tracking. To my ‘surprise’, she wasn’t.
I asked how she came to the conclusion that 50% of her business was coming from these magazines. She said, “I’m sure of it.”
Hmmm.
So, I asked to track her inbound calls for the next 60 days and she agreed.
We started on a different campaign, but during the first 30 days, she got a surprising result from tracking her inbound calls:
NONE of her new business came from the magazines.
Zero. Nada. Zilch
30 days later….her call volume went up from the work we were doing, but only 2 calls came from the magazines.
90 days into tracking calls and we found that she received 4 inquiries from the mags and had one potential client…but none of them actually turned into business.
Interesting.
We revisited the conversation about the ads and she was visibly frustrated to find that she wasn’t getting anything from her existing advertising. (Side note: I think she was more upset about the fact that she was wrong.)
She had been spending $2,800 per month for the last 11 months with not much to show for it.
Bummer :-/
The good news was that we now knew the truth about the situation and weren’t guessing anymore (like most business owners do).
The outcome:
We stopped all advertising with the mags which immediately saved $2,800 per month ~ over $30,000 per year in dead advertising.
Even if we didn’t do the campaign we were doing, we still brought huge value to the table by saving her $30k per year.
This came as the result of one simple thing:
Tracking
We’re often asked how we’re able to guarantee results. Simple —
We do what works and don’t do what doesn’t…
And, how do we know what works?
We track……..everything.
We are a direct response marketing company, which means when we do a thing, it gets a return. If we can’t track it, we won’t do it…ever. That’s what branding and PR is for.
Take Away / Action Item
TRACK EVERYTHING YOU DO
As Lord Kelvin said, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”
THE best thing you can do for your business is track and record every single callthat comes in.
Try this:
Start a Google Doc or Excel sheet…(heck, get a yellow legal pad if that’s your only option). Track every call you receive, every event you attend and every marketing effort for the next 30 days. You will be surprised to find out what’s working and what isn’t. Just knowing this empowers you to make better decisions about where you spend your time and money.
Antonio is a “cool” dad, part-time super hero, and business strategist with Money Mouth Marketing, a results-based marketing firm. Money Mouth Marketing is the only firm in Georgia who guarantees a minimum 3x ROI for it’s clients (Yes, we’ve checked). To grow your business, grab this free report on the 3 things you can do right now to generate immediate income: www.moneymouthmarketing.com/3x
