Do You Really Need To Measure Results In Marketing?
Things that get done are things that can be measured. If you are unable to measure something you are unable to manage it. This why it is shocking that so many entrepreneurs fail to use metrics to track results. There are two reasons that entrepreneurs aren’t measuring results.
Measuring and keeping track of results takes time and that takes the entrepreneurs away from the work they love, work that solves problems or produces results immediately. The problem is that it does not look like metrics has an immediate payoff. We have all seen reports and charts that don’t change a thing about what people do. This leads to the second reason.
People are always looking for shortcuts. Entrepreneurs are usually very good at discovering the loopholes and exploiting opportunities that no one else see’s, so they figure that any metrics that they put in place are not giving an accurate picture of what’s really going on. So what’s the point? Especially when it takes them away from the work they love to do.
If you want your company to grow you have to know what is working and what is not. This means you have to measure and track your performance so that you can manage better. Here are a couple of tips to measure better.
Don’t waste time measuring things you don’t plan to act on. So design your metric with some action in mind. You need and acceptable range and some sort of action associated with each measurement that lands outside that range. If you don’t have this you are wasting your time on the measurement. Everything you measure must have a purpose associated with it.
You must have competing metrics to avoid unintended consequences. For example sales v profit: it is great when sales go up but not if you gave such huge discounts to get the sale that you don’t make any money. How about price v. value; buying the cheapest (or offering the cheapest) is not always the best value, but you also don’t want to overpay. The key is to measure both.
There is no correct way to measure. It depends on you and your business and what results you want to see. If you invest time designing metrics properly and only measure things you are going to act on, you will go a long way toward making better decisions.
Jackie Gordon is an Entrepreneur. Learn how and what to measure at My Lead System Pro. Know what to say to make a sale with My Lead System Pro.