Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Week 8 - Measurement Key to Success

Last week we saw how making small, incremental gains in a range of areas can have a massive impact on your bottom line. But take a step back; the only way to surely know whether you have improved is to start measuring everything you do.

What you don’t measure, you cannot possibly manage!

Most businesses simply do not measure. How can you get additional leverage if you do not know where you are starting from? You might have heard a business owner say “television does not work for me, but sponsorship does”. Next time you hear that, dig a little deeper, why did they say that television didn’t work for them? What did they test? What was the call to action for the people watching the commercial? How was that call measured? How do they know that sponsorship worked better? More customers? How many more and what was the cost of getting each of those customers?

Think of the last call you made to get help at home. How many of the companies that you called asked where you heard about them? None, 1%? This is the most basic form of measurement but very few businesses are using it.

Look back over your last 12 months of marketing programs. Ask yourself some hard questions:

1. What did each initiative produce in terms of leads?
2. What was the quality of those leads?
3. How many resulted in an actual sale?
4. What was the cost of the initiative and therefore what did each of the leads and sales cost you?


Unless you can answer each of those individual questions, you have room to improve your measurement systems.

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