Tweet

Measuring and Tracking Your Marketing Effectiveness

Written by: Nancy Arter

Article Overview: This article speaks to the importance of putting a measurement system into place so that you can prove your marketing campaign effectiveness. It cites some recent research and gives some initial steps to begin considering so that you, too, can implement effective tracking.

Measuring and Tracking Your Marketing Effectiveness

I hate to admit if for all of cyberspace to know but . . . I guess we are kind of geeky. And, now, we have reason to be proud of our geekiness!

There have been countless studies on how few companies really have a handle on how their marketing campaigns truly perform. And, in the frenetic pace of life that exists within most companies today, marketers simply move on to the next campaign without fully understanding what occurred in the last one. This is pure craziness . . . and definitely where that geekiness comes into play.

Vtrenz has recently written a whitepaper on this very subject and some of the statistics noted within it are astounding. For example, "38% of marketers say that new marketing campaigns are rushed to market based on the limited intuition of a few people." What??!?!?! The paper goes on to talk about the fact that the very nature of many marketers is that they are more drawn towards the sexy, creative, right-brained part of marketing, rather than the "boring" left-brained analytical part of it. As strange as it may sound, this boring stuff is the very thing we live for! Let's face it, without the power of analytics, how are you ever going to know -- beyond a gut feeling -- how your marketing campaigns are actually performing? You can't know unless you close the loop and measure each campaign's performance.

Vtrenz also tells us that most companies are struggling with measuring the financial impact of marketing campaigns, and, in fact "42% of them say that their company's ability to measure financial returns from marketing programs is a long way from where it could be."

We're not saying that it's easy to put measurement systems into place, however, it really isn't that hard and it doesn't have to be expensive.

Vtrenz cites five first steps of getting this measurement system in place:

* Define marketing ROI and obtain agreement from the Leadership Team
* Create a closed-loop process through your marketing systems
* Draft marketing ROI plan and include sales in the thought process
* Monitor implementation for areas of improvement
* Incorporate ROI findings into the planning process

Now, we're not saying that a lot of thought and time doesn't go into this. In fact, it does. However, we'll argue any day of the week, that without some way to track the effectiveness of your marketing programs you are doomed to failure. Some time or another, you are going to be asked about the dollars that you are spending on your campaigns, how what you are doing is increasing sales or bottom-line profitability, or some such question. If you can't provide proof of the success that you are creating through your marketing programs, management scrutiny will increase, your budget will be cut or worse.

It is incumbent upon all of us direct marketers to take a scientific approach to what we do on a daily basis to increase profitability. If you are struggling with putting a measurement system into place, take a look at this whitepaper (just send an email to us at info@rrwconsulting.com and we'll send it to you). It will give you the insight you need to get started on this process and at least provide an outline that you can share with your Leadership to get them to buy-in. We predict that you'll come out smelling like roses.

Related Articles
  Measuring Effectiveness of Your Team
  How effective is your Advertising?
  Small Business: Tracking, Measuring and Testing For Success
  How to Stop Wasting Money on Your Marketing
  Social Media Principle 10 – Measure and Evaluate

Article Tags: analytics, countless studies, craziness, cyberspace, financial impact, first steps, frenetic pace, geeky, gut feeling, intuition, leadership team, marketers, marketing campaigns, marketing programs, marketing systems, measurement system, measurement systems, new marketing, vtrenz, whitepaper
Referred by: http://www.internet-search-marketing.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: What is your Business? - We are running a Online Marketing Firm and we have some good clients to which we are offering a complete Digital Marketing strategy like Search, Mobile Marketing, Branding and Design. I think in Online Marketing company online presence can be a wining factor for the success of the company.
Re: Let’s talk about the ways of marketing your products, servic - I agree with some of the others who responded it depends on what your selling... but to answer your questions here are some of the methods I use. Forum Marketing Yahoo Answers (I need to use more of) SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Bum Marketing or Article marketing P-P-C (Pay Per Click) Marketing Online Directories Hope this helps.
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Hi, Online Marketing would be a great title, and having sub categories would make it even better, there would plenty of categories to choose from, Social Media, SEO, Article Marketing and yes even Affiliate Marketing to name just a few, great looking site btw Jeff, take care, Carol
Kevin's Case Study #11 - A New Forum Category? - Hi Everyone, 2009 is a new year and I'd like to create a new forum category to jazz things up! In the past, there's been some interest voiced about adding a "Social Media Marketing", "Online Marketing", "Internet Marketing" or "Online Promotion" category. I'll implement [u:1g2tv6tf]ONE[/u:1g2tv6tf] of those new categories, but can someone first tell me what the difference would be between the existing "Marketing" section and one of those new options mentioned above? Thanks
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Five Daily Marketing Habits to Increase Sales

12 Principles to Spark Innovation

Starting a Business with Bad Personal Credit

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.