Contrary to what some may think, marketing is never just a flash of creative genius, then flawless execution. It’s constant iteration. It’s monitoring what’s working — and more importantly, what’s not working. Marketing means constantly changing directions until you find the strategy that produces returns.
Repeat after us: Advertising is an investment. Not an expense
But if you invest in the stock market, do you just throw your money in and never check to see how it’s doing? Of course not. You monitor regularly to ensure your money is growing. And if you fail to see the return on investment you’d hoped for, you move onto a different investment.
The same is true for marketing.
You might have a great idea for a campaign that you believe will draw in tons of your ideal customers. But you can’t just roll something out and then hope for the best. That’s why measuring and analyzing results from your campaigns is so important. Track how many leads come in from various campaigns, listen to customer feedback, and pay attention to website analytics.
For example, are you getting hundreds of hits to a new landing page you’ve built for your new product, but not many actual purchases? Maybe it’s time to tweak the copy, or the call to action on the page. Maybe it’s time to have your web developer switch up the design of the page a bit to make the “purchase” buttons more obvious and easy to get to. According to your metrics, people are finding their way to the page, they’re just not buying. So it’s up to you to cut what’s not working, and figure out what will.
Again, advertising is an investment. It’s not just an expense, where you exchange money for a finished product. Advertising involves constant monitoring, tracking, and iteration to get the most bang for your buck.
