How measuring marketing activities is like going to the gym
I just spoke with a Personal Trainer at my local gym to give me guidance on how to shed a few unwanted pounds. The reason for that is because I am stuck on a plateau. I am not overweight (by much!) but I need to shed a few pounds and I have tried many, many options. What he recommended to me was Metabolic Coaching.
If you don’t know what this is, I will give you a brief explanation. When you workout, your body conducts it’s own heart rate and can be measured into 5 zones. Your first two zones are where you burn fat the longest and the last 2 zones are where you burn sugar. If you are looking to drop some fat (like me!) your workouts should keep you in those first two zones the longest so you are burning fat and not sugar during your exercise. However, each body is different and to know this you must take an Active Metabolic Assessment. With those results you will know exactly what zones are best for you to stay in based on your personal heart rate.
I did not know that.
This is my first week of an 8 week plan of cardiovascular training with a specified treadmill workout to hit my ultimate goal of dropping 15 pounds. How is this like measuring your marketing activities?
Good question.
Let’s start with some questions. Are you plateau’d in your marketing? Are you struggling to find leads or growth with a business product or service? Are you busy doing marketing activities that you have no way of measuring?
Just like going to the gym. In this case, inbound marketing is like a Personal Trainer.
What you need is a plan and measurement. Before that, however, you need a goal and it needs to be measurable. Ever heard of SMARTgoals? Many of you have, but just in case, it means:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
Once that is in place, you need a plan and the inbound marketing method most known is the Hubspot method. Partners of Hubspot are specialists at developing strategies using SMART goals so that you can hit those goals. Your CEO will love you for it! The reason I sought out a different method to losing weight was because I could spend countless hours and sweat in the gym and not have a way to measure any progress. I needed a plan. So what marketing activities are hard to measure?
3 most widely used marketing activities that are hard to measure are:
Direct mail pieces – You buy a list, you mail the them out, and you expect a response. How many were read? Who read them? How many were trashed? What is your lead to sales ratio?
Newspaper ads – You have the ad designed and sized for the spot in the publication, you purchase your length of ad, and you buy the publication to see how nice it looks in the end. How many saw the ad (this does not include how many read it)? If someone took the time to read it, why is that? What are their interests? What part of the ad worked and what part did not? Was it the title? The tag line?
Brochures – You take the time to write great copy about your service. You talk about your features and benefits. You pick the right colors, images, design concepts and take it to print. Where do you put these? Where does your customer find your brochures? What part of the brochure talks about what the customer is going through? Is there a story they relate to? Do you have enough space to put all your content in one brochure? Enough marketing spend?
I am not advocating that these activities are not effective but they are hard to prove their worth. What is true, is that you will pay for a spot of real estate, it will have time limitations – meaning it will expire, and once the ad is over you have very little way to measure if your message resonates with your prospect.
What if you went to the gym and a Personal Trainer told you there is another more logical (and lower cost I might add) way to generate drop weight. Would you be interested? Of course, who wouldn’t? Dropping weight is not easy and it takes time and hard work. This is no different. Having a plan that ties together with your goals, is specific and measurable, and resonates permanently in digital spaces merits a conversation.
Inbound marketing for many is new but it is changing the way companies develop their marketing. To be informative and to educate customers about your products and services is not achievable in small space ads, limited time slots, and untrackable methods. You need a permanent space online; one that customers can come back to and reference again and again and again. As many times as they need. In fact, you need to be giving it away. That’s right, offer your visitor something free in exchange for a piece of their information – like an email.
How many times have you gone to a restaurant and seen the jar with the pile of business cards? You get a free meal if they pick one of those cards and call you, right? This is no different but you are offering information the customer finds relevant and educational.
Why do all of this?
Because you are trying to build trust, loyalty, expertise, and recognition for being customer-centric. Inbound marketing campaigns can only be deployed using sophisticated software with built-in analytics, multiple tools in easy to access areas, and thought leaders in the industry to support your questions and challenges. Hubspot is one of a few in the market that are paving the way for inbound to be the primal method of marketing.
Want to know more?
Please contact a Tulsa inbound marketing consultant or outsourcing firm, preferably one associated with a support group that is a leader in the inbound community. You will find the process simple, methodical, and one that holds accountability and action.
