Crack the code: how to successfully measure your marketing efforts

By Alex Koenig •

When I first started my career my boss told me: “we need to set goals and targets for you”, and I immediately felt a surge of anxiety. “Oh no, they’ll see right through me!”, “Do I really know what I’m doing?” are just a couple of the thoughts that ran through my mind as imposter syndrome kicked in. My boss could sense my mood shift and put me at ease right away. He assured me that goals aren’t to measure whether I’m good or bad at my job, instead they’ll keep me focused and help us learn what’s working and, more importantly, what isn’t. We were a small marketing team and needed to focus our efforts on initiatives that had the highest impact. And when I was feeling overwhelmed by my to-do list, I just had to think of my goals and prioritise whatever got me closer to them.

This experience is common among small businesses. Many express feeling overwhelmed by their marketing efforts, trying various tactics without clear results. At CoLab Marketers we always go back to our mission of doing more with less, and if something isn’t going to work, figure it out quickly (a.k.a. Fail Fast, thanks for that one Mike!). 

Here’s a step by step guide on how we measure marketing impact in small businesses:

  1. Set quantifiable objectives

    Before we start any project we agree on quantifiable objectives. No matter how big they are, we write them down and work on a plan and timelines of how to achieve those goals. 
  • An example would be: we want to grow our social media following by 20% in 6 months. 
  1. Track time and cost

    Next, build a report to monitor and track time and cost spent on individual marketing initiatives. For example:
  • 1 hour/ week on email marketing
  • 1 hour and £200/ month on paid ads
  • 1 hour/ week on organic social media
  1. Monitor performance regularly

    A report allows us to monitor performance. This works best when it’s done on a regular basis and visualised in charts and graphs so you can easily see trends. In this case, it would highlight something like:
  • How many people are opening the emails? How many people are clicking through the emails? Is our social engagement spiking when we send emails?
  • How many people are clicking on the ads? How many people end up following the account?
  • How many new followers does the account have? How many likes and comments do the posts have?
  1. Optimise based on data

    From there we would optimise what’s working and what isn’t. If it’s not obvious already, doing the report on a regular cadence (whether weekly, monthly, etc.) makes it easier to spot the ebbs and flows and adjust accordingly. For example:
  • High email open rate and click through rate = this is working, continue sending meaningful emails. You could consider increasing frequency but keep a close eye on the metrics (specifically unsubscribe) so you can re-adjust if needed. 
  • Low click-through rate on paid ads = adjust the ad caption or image, or stop them all together.
  • High engagement on social media = look into increasing post frequency and building on that engagement. 
  1. Review and adjust goals

    Repeat steps 2-4 and do a regular review of your goals, businesses change and so do its objectives, make sure what you’re working on is having a positive impact on your bottom line.

    It’s important to note that some initiatives will take longer than others to build, for example SEO is usually a 3-6 month minimum before you start seeing an impact, whereas paid ads might yield a quicker return on your investment. This will vary by business and industry, yet another reason why measuring is so important.  

If you take anything away from this blog, it should be that goal setting should be a priority and that this shouldn’t be scary. Goals will help you stay focused and get the most value for your time and money invested in marketing. If you still aren’t sure where to start, we specialise in doing marketing audits and building reports to help you track and measure what’s working and how to optimise what isn’t. 

Get in touch to learn how you can make the most of your marketing efforts and finally see marketing as an investment, not just a cost.