Marketing Metrics 101

If you still subscribe to the "50% of my marketing works but I'm not sure which 50%" axiom, it's time to move your business to the next level.

Marketing must be measured. Just like any investment of time, energy or money you need to know what level of return you can expect.

Sure marketing is both an art and a science, so you can't measure everything. But you have to start somewhere.

Here are some very simple metrics that you should track:

Response Rate: the number of responders divided by the number of recipients. This metric can be used for email, direct mail, calling and event campaigns. When measuring response rates, keep this number in the back of your pocket: 1% is the industry average for direct mail response rates.

Conversion Rate: the way to calculate conversion varies by industry but it is essentially the number of new, paying customers divided by total prospects. For example, let's say you email your database about a new product or service. Responders will just call you or email you back for more information. Conversions, on the other hand, are those that actually purchase.

Traffic: if you have a retail shop, measure how the amount of foot traffic for your center, your shop and even particular areas of your store. Test how traffic changes by varying your signage and in-store messages. If you don't have a retail presence, measure your web traffic and how that changes based on your marketing efforts.

Percentage of Repeat Purchases: how many of your customers are repeat business? This is a key metric to understand since it is more costly to sell to new customers than to sell to existing customers.

Sales: measuring sales goes without saying. You should always know your sales cycle and how that is impacted by controllable (marketing) and uncontrollable (weather) circumstances. Also be sure to measure sales against all marketing initiatives so you can track how an initiative impacts sales.

The above metrics are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to measuring marketing, especially if your business is online. Really you should be able to measure every advancement of the Sales Funnel, from Stranger to Advocate.

Most importantly, be sure you track your metrics consistently and over periods of time. This allows for direct comparisons.

Finally, make sure the data you track becomes actionable. As always, think with the end in mind. Ask yourself what you would do with the data when the measuring is complete.

To move your business to the next level, the marketing you measure should ultimately enable you to allocate your resources in a more informed manner.

Great Marketing is a Yawn

Yawn and the world yawns with you. Well, sort of.

Yawning is clearly contagious. Next time you are in a room with people, feign a sleepy yawn and watch how many people yawn in return.

Better yet, set a measurement to it: count the number of people that return your yawn and divide that by the total number of people in the room. Maybe you’ll come up with a metric like 7 out of 10 (70%) people yawn when they see someone else yawn.

This would be a measurement of the contagiousness of your yawn. If yawning is truly contagious, your number might even exceed 100% since you could create a never-ending chain of yawning.

Now, take this same concept and apply it to your marketing.

Measure the contagiousness of your marketing message: count the number of people that respond to your marketing message and divide that by the total number of message recipients. This is also known as a Response Rate but it is the first step in understanding how transmittable your message is.

If the message continues to spread—like a yawn—your responder to recipient proportion might exceed 100% and you could have a very contagious message on your hands.

Is your marketing message transmittable? Can you leverage one message and have it spread virally across multiple recipients? Does your word-of-mouth proliferate?

To move your business to the next level, make sure your marketing message is as contagious as a yawn.

Objective of Event Marketing NOT the Event

Event marketing—much like all marketing—requires careful planning. Executing a successful event depends mostly on preparation.

Key areas of focus include appropriate collateral, scripts for key messages and basic logistics for the day of the event.

However, the day of the event is only part of the equation. The follow up is where the real conversions happen. To move your business to the next level, ensure that you plan and prepare for what comes after the event.

Think with the end in mind.

The day you confirm an event and put it into your calendar also map out dates for your follow up plan. This way, when you show up to the event you will know what you need to do to execute your follow up.

You will know when to send emails, what to do with business cards, how to handle prospects and where to allocate your energy.

And don’t forget that a lot of great follow up happens just outside of the event: in hallways, elevators, restaurants and other gathering places.

Growing a brand means creating relationships and awareness both during and after the event. And in order to do that optimally, spend the necessary time before.

Plan for your event but plan more for what happens after.

"Everybody Gets Tired When Nobody Listens"

A direct quote from my daughter: "Everybody gets tired when nobody listens."

My daughter is four. She made this enlightened statement between giggling on the swings and hanging from the monkey bars.

While I am certainly biased in thinking my daughter is brilliant, there is no doubt that she speaks the truth. Listening is perhaps the most important skill in both business and in life.

The application of consistent listening serves tremendous marketing benefit. From customer service to employee interactions, a small business owner must be able to truly open her ears and probe for more information.

I previously recommended that a business owner must continually question their customer comments to dig for more information. In order to extract the most information, it is necessary to put aside egos, open up the ears and let the other party do the talking.

This life skill will move your business to the next level. You will find that customers will give you great information, employees will feel empowered and the competition will struggle to match your level of service.

It is tiring when nobody listens. Think how much energy is sapped with the simple act of seeking attention.

Do yourself, your employees and your customers a favor by energizing them with your listening.

140 Characters: Not Just For Tweets

At first glance, 140 characters is extremely limiting. What can you possible say in 140 characters that delivers meaning and generates response?

A whole heck of a lot, that's what.

In fact, I encourage my clients to think like tweeters even if they are not using Twitter. Limiting your marketing message to the core basics will get you to think like a savvy marketer.

In the marketing world, less is more. The less you need to state, the more powerful the messages.

Just as Nike, Google, Jiffy Lube or any other business you can think of that communicates their core message briefly and succinctly. Efficiency is very effective.

Remember, a marketing message does not need to communicate anything and everything about the business. It simply needs to move the audience through the next level of the Sales Funnel and advance prospective consumers through the Buyer Decision-Making process.

So when you are creating your next marketing piece, think like a tweeter and truly limit your message. Dig down into the core of what you want your audience to do.

Communicate the essence--and nothing more--and you can move your business to the next level.

What I Should Have Learned in B-School

Check my transcript: I took all the right classes.

Accounting, Finance, Operations, Marketing (lots of Marketing), Economics, Statistics...you name the B-School course, I took it. I even did an "Advanced Topics in Finance" class since I thought number crunching was what I needed to learn.

However, despite all my efforts, I failed to learn perhaps the most important lesson in business: your net worth is directly attributable to your network.

Only in the years since business school have I been able to fully comprehend the importance of your network.

I will never regret my time in business school. It was beneficial beyond measure and it propelled me into a career that I love. I was challenged by both professors and colleagues. I became a smarter and more well-rounded professional. And I recommend continued education to anyone and everyone.

Nevertheless, as I look back, I think I could have benefitted from a Networking 101 class. I can envision the modules: Honing Your Elevator Pitch, Public Speaking, Managing Your Rolodex, Follow Up Techniques and Giving to Get.

I should have learned these topics in b-school, but maybe these lessons are best taught outside of the classroom. Maybe the school of hard knocks is the best way to learn how to network.

After all, it's not the economy, stupid. It's your network.

6 Levels of the Sales Funnel

Good marketers know that steering a potential customer towards a purchase takes considerable effort. Few purchase decisions happen after just one contact. In fact, it may take 10-12 marketing touchpoints to convert someone into a customer.

For this reason, it is crucial to understand the Sales Funnel. Perhaps just as important as the Buyer Decision-Making Model, the Sales Funnel demonstrates that a concerted effort is required to create a customer.

Since much has been documented about the Sales Funnel, I don't feel the need to go into great detail. However, it is important to understand Sales Funnel basics. Sales Funnel basics boils down to the six levels of the funnel outlined here:

1) Strangers: these are people that have no idea about your business. They represent the mass of potential Contacts that have no awareness and thus float around your Sales Funnel. The best Strangers are identified as your niche, or your target market.

2) Contacts: once awareness is established, Strangers become Contacts. They dip their toe in the funnel. You may know very little about them and they may know very little about you, but at least there is some awareness.

3) Leads: a Contact becomes a Lead once there is some exchange of contact information. The most successful way to convert a Contact into a Lead is via permission marketing. Permission marketing is when a Contact gives you permission to contact them. This can take many forms like web sign ups, emails or even personal calls or visits. The basic concept is that a Contact gives your their contact information and they seek some type of follow up.

4) Prospects: once a Lead has been contacted, they should be qualified. Qualified essentially means that they are either moving closer to the purchase or moving away from a purchase. Prospects are those that are moving closer to the purchase.

5) Customers: there are many ways to think about Customers. My tried and true definition of a Customer is one that pays for a product or service. Look at your database: the people that are paying you are your Customers. Treat Customers as gold because the ultimate goal of the Sales Funnel is to convert Strangers into Customers.

6) Advocates: Advocates are those that recommend your business to others. They might be the most important component to your Sales Funnel because they will fill your Sales Funnel for you. Most often Advocates are satisified Customers, but Advocates can come from just about any level of your Sales Funnel.

In all, it is important to recognize that your entire Sales Funnel requires investment, attention and much care. Successful businesses will invest in each and every level. Tending to one level at the expense of another is rarely a good idea. I've seen many businesses focus on Prospects or Customers alone and forget to fill the Sales Funnel with Contacts. Or vice versa: a business fills their funnel with Contacts but fails to convert them into Leads, Prospects or Customers. Either approach is a recipe for failure.

Focus on all levels of the Sales Funnel. Fill your funnel AND move people through your funnel at the same time.

I reommend the 80/20 Rule here: spend 80% of your efforts moving your Contacts through the Sales Funnel and spend 20% of your time filling your funnel with new Contacts. This formula should be part of your Marketing DNA and successful implementation will move your business to the next level.

6 Steps to Successful Event Marketing

Event marketing is extremely labor intensive. But if done right way, it can fill your sales funnel with highly qualified leads and prospects.

The key to event marketing, much like any marketing, is preparation. In fact, successful event marketing is directly due to the upfront work.

The following are some suggested steps to successful event marketing. You’ll see that most of the work comes before the actual event:

1) Pick the Right Event: take some time to really understand the event, the audience and the promoters. Due diligence is critical because you want to showcase your product and service to the right people. More importantly, you want to be sure the event is promoted well. Trust me. There is nothing worse than setting up your booth at an event only to watch the grass grow. A simple way to perform your due diligence is to call the vendors that attended previously and ask them about their experiences.

2) Establish a Specific Objective: set your S.M.A.R.T. (strategic, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) goal for what you want to accomplish. Think of your objective as two-fold: 1) what do you want your audience to say about your business and 2) what do you want to capture from your audience. Setting up this specific objective will directly determine how you approach the event, what you bring and how you expect to interact with attendees.

3) Negotiate the Terms: part of picking the right event comes down to getting the right terms. Most event promoters will accept any vendor willing to pay the fee. But you shouldn’t see yourself as any vendor. Besides, if you pick the wrong event and get no traffic, then your time and money are worthless. Work with the promoter to help you achieve your specific objective. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this: get a good booth location, base your event fee on the amount of traffic to your booth or get your business promoted in the event program or other avenues. Terms can make or break an event.

4) Keep it Simple: too often business owners want to post several signs, have several give aways and have time to meet with prospects. You need a hook to bring people in, but keep it simple. Think about your specific objective and work towards accomplishing that one objective. Everything else is extraneous.

5) Give, Give, Give: to really create buzz, give away your store. Literally. Sure, selling is important. But when you have the chance to target hundreds of prospects, give them a reason to remember you. The best way to do this is to give away what your business values most, namely your product or your service. This can be done without breaking the bank. Think of ways to give value for free which would then entice attendees to buy more. A presentation, for example, is a great way to do this. Give away invitations to a special presentation in which you reveal industry secrets. Once you have them in a presentation, then you can show them you’re an expert which will lead to more sales.

6) Follow Up: succesful event marketing is contingent upon follow up. Procrastinate on follow up and you'll waste time and money. Once you put the event date on your calendar, put the event follow up shortly after. Put it in your calendar now and you will do it. Don’t save it for later.

There is a lot involved in successful event marketing. So break it down to the basics, follow the above steps and move your business to the next level.