You should always ask yourself this question with any marketing effort. If you do that, you will likely always make the right decisions with your marketing.
If you or the party that’s working to persuade you to invest in a marketing tactic can’t answer this question, then you should opt to decide “no.”
Applying this framework is a great way to deal with a multitude of marketing ideas (that’s the value of a framework, flexibility). Here are some quick examples:
You get a call from a Yellow Pages representative who informs you that they now offer SEO, digital marketing and other website options for your business. Ask them “How many qualified leads will I get?” If they don’t have an answer for you, you know what response you should give them (i.e. “No thanks.”)
A friend of yours suggests you advertise on a music streaming service for your business. When you contact one of the streaming music providers and their response to your inquiry of “How many leads will I get?” is “Well, that’s hard to predict,” then you know your answer is “no.”
A fellow business owner tells you about a digital marketing consultant they used to help with SEO (search engine optimization) efforts and his work seemed to make an impact. Be sure to ask the consultant, “How many qualified leads will I get?” If he (or she) can’t provide you with a reasonable estimate then don’t hire them.
You want to redesign your website (or create one), you need to ask yourself “How many qualified leads will I get from it?” If you can’t answer that question, you should step back and figure out what you should actually be doing with your site in order to generate leads.
With this framework towards marketing decisions, you should be using it to help you measure marketing as an investment, not an expense. If you treat marketing as a simple expense, it becomes a black hole that eats up valuable company resources (read: time & money). You have to think about any marketing as “How will this directly benefit my business & bottom line?“
This question also can help indicate to you when you should pile more resources into a marketing tactic. You just need to make sure you first measure the actual results and then continue to measure the results of your efforts. This continual checking is important since what once paid dividends, could shift to just being an expense over time.
If you want or need some additional insights on what marketing efforts you should take (or stop), then contact us to give you input and a guiding hand. At Enotto, we’re happy to help make sure you’re investing and not just spending resources.