How To Know If Your Small Business Marketing Is Working
My son is not even four weeks old yet, and somehow he is already teaching me about how to know if your small business marketing is working. That may sound a little strange. He obviously cannot talk yet. But in just a few weeks with him, I find that he is actually pretty good at communicating.
It’s not my ideal form of communication. Especially not at 3:00 in the morning.
He cannot say, “I’m hungry.” He cannot say that he needs his diaper changed or that he wants me to hold him differently (or that he wants mom to hold him instead). He cannot explain what has him so upset.
Instead, he cries. Sometimes he screams.
It is then my job to figure out what he wants.
I might get him a bottle. Maybe I change his diaper. I might change how I am holding him. Sometimes we go into his room where he likes looking at all the stuffed animals.
I do something.
If he keeps crying, that was not what he wanted.
But if he starts calming down, hopefully stops crying, I probably found what he wanted.
He’s never told me what to do. But he does tell me if what I did worked.
Your customers and your target market communicate with your business in much the same way.
Website traffic, leads, phone calls, and sales can all tell you something about how your marketing is working. We can help you look at those results, figure out what seems to be working, and identify where it may make sense to make a change.
Your Customers Probably Won’t Tell You Your Marketing Is Working
Odds are not very good that a customer is going to call your business one afternoon just to say, “That was an excellent marketing campaign.”
They probably are not going to send you an email saying, “Your latest blog was really helpful.”
You probably will not get a message saying, “You have been doing a great job on social media lately. Keep it up!”
It would be nice if they did.
Your customers may not even know exactly which part of your marketing caused them to contact you.
Maybe they have seen your company come up in Google several times. They might have read one of your blog posts a month ago. Then they saw one of your Facebook posts last week. Today they needed the service you offer, searched for your business, and filled out your quote request form.
They probably will not explain that whole process to you.
That does not mean they are not communicating.
You just have to listen for a little bit of a different form of communication.
Look at What People Do, Not Just What They Say
Customers will not tell you that your marketing is working. Instead, you’ll need to pay attention to what else might be going on.
Are more people filling out your quote request form?
Is the phone ringing more?
Is traffic to your website going up?
Are more people visiting the service pages you really want them to see?
You can also look for:
- More email inquiries
- More sales
- Better quality leads
- More repeat customers
- More traffic coming from Google
- People mentioning Facebook or another social media platform
- Customers mentioning a blog post or page on your website
- Improvements in revenue and profit
Ultimately, your profit and loss statement can be one of the best places to see if your marketing is helping the business.
Each one of those actions is your market communicating with you.
It is a lot like when my son starts calming down.
You did something. You changed something. And they responded.
That response gives you information about what you should probably keep doing.
If They Aren’t Communicating, Maybe Try Something Different
There is one big difference between feeding my son and marketing a business.
When he is hungry, I know pretty quickly if the bottle was the right answer.
Marketing almost never works that fast.
A blog post you write today might not bring in a lead tomorrow. It could take weeks or months for that post to start showing up well in Google.
Someone could see several social media posts before they ever visit your website.
A person could visit your website many times before calling.
This is why you should keep track of the marketing activities you are doing.
A change made to your site three months ago could be connected to the leads coming in today. Without a record of your past activities it is much harder to know what worked.
Don’t forget, marketing takes time to work. That does not mean you should keep doing the exact same thing forever when it clearly is not getting results.
And it certainly does not mean you should stop marketing altogether.
Instead, make small and intentional changes.
If a campaign is not working, change the message.
Try a different heading on the landing page.
Change the offer. If 10 percent off is not getting much attention, maybe try offering a set dollar amount instead.
If Facebook is not producing much, see what happens with Instagram or another marketing channel.
If a landing page is getting traffic but no one contacts you, take another look at the page. Is the information clear? Does the page answer the questions your customers are probably asking? Is it easy to find the contact form?
You can do the same with your SEO and blogging.
Try another topic. Target a different keyword. Add more useful information to an older article.
You could be talking to the wrong audience.
Your marketing should involve testing something, listening for the response, and making changes based on what you learn.
Your Market Is Talking All the Time
My son does not use words to tell me what he wants.
It sure would be nice if he did sometimes.
But he still communicates with me. Constantly. I just have to listen to the signals he gives.
Your customers do the same thing.
Every phone call, form submission, sale, new website visitor, repeat customer, lack of response, and improvement in your P&L tells you something.
Good marketing is putting your message out there and listening to what happens next.
Sometimes the response tells you to keep going.
Sometimes it tells you that you need to try something different.
Either way, your market is talking.
You just have to learn how to listen.