Six Indispensible Measuring Tools for Marketers

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.

John Wanamaker, US department store merchant (1838 - 1922)

We’ve come a long way since the late1800s. Frankly there’s no excuse not knowing the effectiveness of all your advertising. These days we can measure virtually everything. And I’ll be bold enough to say that if you can’t measure it you shouldn’t do it.

In the age of internet and sophisticated telecommunications, marketers are able to accurately measure the effectiveness of all types of marketing activities. Even a good old-fashioned questionnaire can reveal lots about who is responding to your campaign.

Measuring success is vital to marketing planning and driving more from your marketing dollar. If you don’t know what’s worked before then you’re flying blind.

Test and Learn.

Sure, some marketing activities don’t work very well, perhaps for a variety of reasons.  After all marketing is not an exact science. The key point is to figure out what did work and what didn’t. Then you can do it better next time.

Here are my top six measuring tools:

1.       Dedicated telephone number for campaigns. As a minimum, make sure your call centre records the number of in-coming calls during the campaign period.

2.       Unique codes on letters. You can measure responses right down to an individual level. At the end of your campaign you can perform geo-demographic profiling to build an accurate picture of your responders. This works particularly well in direct marketing.

3.       Landing pages and online forms deliver accurate reporting for internet or email campaigns.

4.       Internet analytics packages will help you profile a number of aspects about your internet traffic. Even if your marketing activity is off-line, you can often attribute a spike in internet hits to a particular campaign by looking at the date range.

5.       Individually coded coupons can be used for driving traffic to stores or exhibition stands.

6.       Simple questionnaires can be conducted by telemarketing or in-store staff. They can ask and record the answer to one or two simple questions at the till or at the end of a telephone call. There is some margin for error in measuring success this way, however it will give you a starting point.

AND FINALLY:

Share your learnings. Don’t forget to write up campaign reviews and keep them in a central place for your marketing colleagues to view and learn from one another. Marketers often move on, and it would be a shame for this information to be lost.

What’s your top tip for measuring your marketing activity? Type your comments below and let’s share and learn!