A fundamental of marketing is to ‘test and measure’ the marketing strategies you employ to ensure you get the best return on investment for your marketing spend.

Most businesses are keen to ‘get more customers’ but seldom focus on the returns generated by the marketing activities undertaken.

Many advertising sales people (and they are trying to sell you something!) will push ‘raising awareness’ as a ‘goal’ for your business. Fine if it can be measured – otherwise you are probably wasting your money.

At Advice 4 Business we believe that your marketing efforts should focus on generating leads and that means you need to keep track of the marketing activities you employ.

And that raises an interesting question.

How many distinct marketing activities do you engage in?

You probably need to use 10 or more separate marketing strategies and the measure how effective they are. You’ll learn what works best for your business and what strategies are less effective.

For what works best, you can increase the activity. For example, if you consistently generate good quality leads from your direct mailing campaigns, can you increase the volume of direct mailings you undertake?

For the less effective strategies, either change the way you do things – or stop wasting your time and money! For instance, you find that you generate next to no referrals from your networking activities. What can you do to improve this? Networking is a skill set that can be improved through good training.

Ask yourself ‘why’. For example, why do you have a website? Is it to generate leads and if so, how effective is it? Maybe your web strategy needs an overhaul if the returns are disappointing – and in truth, for most business owners this is the case.

To help you measure your marketing effectiveness, we have created a ‘monthly goals sheet for marketing’ which you can download here. Monthly Goals Sheet for Marketing

Use to it to help you understand your current performance – be brutally honest with yourself and use the information to build an action plan for improvement.

Marketing is a key to business success – get it right and you’ll find customers beating a path to your door.