Marketing Measurement

I recently attended a marketing seminar. The presenters were experts in small business marketing. I learned several new tactics that I plan to deploy in the next few days. I'll blog about those as implemented & I'd love your feedback!

I recieve informational emails and product offerings from Dan Kennedy.
Most of you may know of him. He's a legend in writing marketing copy and information marketing. His style isn't rah rah and sometimes he takes a pretty in your face approach. (His business partner even calls him grumpy!) Well, right after this seminar, I received an email from Dan about marketing effectiveness.

For all the flash and new ideas, not one of the speakers really pointed out the most important point in any marketing gameplan. Dan did. Here is it... so simple that I felt kind of lame for not making this the first part of my marketing plan.

Measure and Accountability = Sales/Revenue ONLY

Web hits don't count, phone calls or cool publicity in the paper, or great product reviews or subscribers to your blog - at the end of the day if you aren't coverting traffic into sales you HAVE to change what you are doing.

Of course, I'll take all the publicity I can get and would never turn down the chance for an interview or local coverage etc. because I think it will help bring in sales... but from now on, I'm going to MEASURE how an increase in traffic translates and work to improve conversions. Improving your web copy, offering referral discounts, asking for the sale...critical components that Dan hammers time and again in his material all help to make the people who check my website go from browsing to buying.

I encourage all of you to check out your current marketing efforts and see where the revenue comes from. Challenge yourself to increse your ratios and watch the profits rise!