Measuring Small Business Marketing Success: Metrics That Matter

Saturday, November 04, 2023

Measuring Small Business Marketing Success: Metrics That Matter

So, here’s a scary tale: Carla and I are at a near-by county fair – where we have two horses racing. We wander the exhibit area and come across a company selling something we’ve been thinking about buying for our home, and it’s probably a $10,000 sale.

We wait patiently for the lone guy, who turns out to be one of the owners, to finish a conversation with another guy. Carla and I ask specific questions. We answer his questions.

I fill out the prospect form, which he stupidly calls it, so that he can have his sales rep, which is what he stupidly calls him, follow-up and schedule an appointment to come out to the house and do an estimate. (No attempt made to schedule it right then and there).

We leave, with, of course, no shock ‘n awe package, no book, no testimonial booklet, no nothing.

Naturally, as of this writing, eight days have passed without the promised phone call. If it comes now, which it won’t, they’ve already ruled themselves out.

Amusement Park

Why is this a scary tale?

1. The owners of this company were entrusted by their wives with a checkbook and were able to rent the exhibit space when, instead, they needed to be chained up in a dank basement, naked, and whipped for sport.

2. The owner probably handed collected prospect forms over to the salesman, who used them to mop up the beer he spilled in his car on the way to the golf course – and the owner is too dumb and lazy to have kept copies, gotten an activity report from the salesman of calls made and results, and spot-checked him by calling a couple of the leads who did not book appointments afterward just to see if they were, in fact, called, or better yet made his rep make his calls in the office, at a desk, with a real phone, with a recording device attached.

Prospect forms

3. The health and well-being of the local, state and natural economy depends on boobs like this and they are part of a massive organization of boobs who are letting us down.

They own a dealership of this product, so there is a sales management bunch above them, also not doing their jobs. The product has an American manufacturer in a fight for its life against imports, where there are regional sales managers and a national V.P. of sales, not doing their jobs. Oh, and the manufacturer is owned by a public company too, so the nice retired school teachers depending on their stock dividend are getting screwed.

4. There’s all this damn technology that everybody’s so in love with and is constantly shoved in my face that hardly anybody uses for practical purposes.

5. These morons will complain upstream about the lousy fair and won’t want to stand out there in a hot tent for 4 days next year. And, corporate will commiserate and withdraw its coop dollars, so they won’t, and the fair will take in less money from their exhibit area and have to cut down on the 4-H budget so some nice little girl will only get a paper certificate instead of a trophy for her gigantic rabbit she raised, feeding it milk with an eye-dropper after discovering it in the woods next to its dead mother.

These despicable incompetents and sloths are ruining America, taking food out the mouths of senior citizens, screwing over 8 year old girls, letting orphaned rabbits starve, and getting away with it all scot-free. I HATE THEM!

If you want to learn what should occur in place of this evil and disgusting mess, keep reading.

Let’s imagine technology exists…the Jetsons came true. Stretch your imagination. Play along.

So instead of filling out a paper prospect form on a clipboard, I fill out a better named form on a magic pad, which instantly and mysteriously imports all my information into ClickFunnels.com. (Step 1: Got the lead)

Which instantly and automatically triggers a series of 27 day emails and a mailed thank you note with a testimonial along with a QR code to access my site anytime with a box of popcorn.

After I email the dealership owner, the regional sales V.P., and the national sales V.P. and maybe the nice old couple in their trailer home in Ocala, Florida counting on their quarterly dividend the information AND email and text the Senior In-Home Consultant (sales rep) reminders on Monday to call me. (Systems)

Or if an appointment is immediately set up via the sales rep’s schedule magically made to appear on the same magic pad, witchcraft of the highest order, a different form is completed and a different series of e-mail and a FedEx go to me, and reminders to the sales rep, and notifications of the blessed event upstream and to Horace and Mildred in Ocala. (Follow-Ups)

Now, stretch your imagination further…

Let’s imagine the owner of this dealership actually meets with his sales rep twice a week, with all the forms at the ready, and checks on what has happened with each one – and because there is a gift with appointment and the rep has had to obtain the gifts from a locked closet which the owner’s grandmother has the only key, there is truth in call to appointment productivity. (Proper Management)

And let’s go wild and say the rep knows the owner will call at least one out of ten leads who didn’t book appointments and one of ten people met with who didn’t buy just to check up and see what went wrong, and that the sales manager or regional above the dealers is holding these same kind of productivity reviews every 2 weeks and also randomly calling would-be customers.

And in a complete flight of fancy possible only under the influence of medical marijuana with a cough syrup and vodka martini chaser, let’s imagine a thing called ‘accountability and consequences’ (crazier than a flying car that parallel parks itself) and people actually lose their jobs and dealerships for failing to adhere to a fully detailed sales process or for poor productivity with it. Or better yet, it’s legal for Horace and Mildred to track them down and kill them.

On top of all that, imagine that the company actually had a decent shock and awe package with an authoritative book, a Q&A audio CD, testimonials, fancy guarantee certificate and discount card the guy at the booth put a deadline date on, for me to take home – maybe even listen to the CD while driving home, so between that and the DVD arriving by FedEx and the emails, when the really crappy rep got to the house the sale could be closed by that really crappy rep. (Deal Closed)

Okay, open your eyes and stop the silly day-dreaming. That’s marketing.

And if you are a small business owner without a process, you are doomed to ashes like 99% of others that came before you. Just because you can get in front of a customer doesn’t mean you can close the deal. Just because someone walks by your shop, doesn’t mean they’ll come in.

There are simple ways you can target your customers. Go to unobvious places where your customers are and your competitors aren’t. I talk a lot about this in my monthly NO B.S. Newsletter which you can access for FREE by going to nobsletter.com or joining one of our monthly challenges or webinars we host.

Small Business Marketing Metrics You Can Use

Small Business Marketing Metrics You Can Use

Now, here are a few metrics you want to track as a small business owner for your marketing success:

1. Awareness Metrics:

  • Brand Awareness: The degree to which customers recognize or recall your brand.
  • Website Traffic: Total number of visits to your website.
  • Traffic Sources: Where your website traffic is coming from (e.g., organic search, paid ads, social media, referrals).
  • Social Media Followers: Total number and growth rate of followers on various platforms.

2. Engagement Metrics:

  • Social Media Engagement: Total likes, shares, comments, mentions, and other interactions.
  • Email Open Rate: Percentage of recipients who open your email.
  • Email Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links.

3. Conversion Metrics:

  • Conversion Rate: Percentage of website visitors who take a desired action (e.g., sign up for a newsletter, make a purchase).
  • Cost Per Conversion (CPC): How much it costs to acquire a conversion through advertising.
  • Landing Page Conversion Rates: How well your landing pages turn visitors into leads or customers.

4. Customer Metrics:

  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Total marketing and sales spend divided by the number of new customers acquired.
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The total net profit from a customer over their lifetime relationship with your business.
  • Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who stop using your product/service over a given time frame.

5. Revenue Metrics:

  • Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated from ads divided by the cost of those ads.
  • Marketing ROI: (Gross profit from marketing efforts - marketing spend) / marketing spend.

6. Ad Metrics:

  • Ad Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of ad viewers who click on the ad.
  • Cost Per Click (CPC): The average amount paid for each click on an ad.
  • Cost Per Mille (CPM): Cost per 1,000 impressions.
  • Ad Conversion Rate: Percentage of users who click on an ad and then complete a desired action.

7. Content Metrics:

  • Content Engagement: How users interact with your content (e.g., time spent, shares, comments).
  • Lead Generation: Number of leads generated from content offerings (e.g., downloadable pdfs, webinars).

It is essential you track all your KPIs in the order they should be tracked. I know a lot of small business owners who never track and never dial down on what to fix. I know close to ZERO businesses who are successful that do not track.

So there you have it, these are your metrics and how to behave with such metrics when it comes to growing your business. Should you have any questions, concerns, or want a deeper understanding on how you can use these metrics, I highly recommend joining our NO B.S. Newsletter for FREE and get $19,997 in Bonuses while you are at it.

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