Save Money by Measuring Your Marketing

How often do you measure your marketing? Do you know which of your marketing activities are giving you the best return and which ones you should stop doing or change?

If you don’t measure your marketing on a regular basis, you could suddenly find that you’re spending more money than you need to on marketing that isn’t working. By taking stock of your marketing and the results you’re getting on a regular basis, you can actually save yourself some money.

Recently I looked at all our current clients and how they heard about us. We record all this information on a database, so it’s easy to access. The results were very interesting, especially when I compared them to the measurements we made 12 months ago. Back then, 47% of our new clients came via networking meetings – people I had met or who heard me speak at an event. 27% of our new business was coming from referrals, from clients and other people we know. These two marketing activities were our most successful. We also looked at exactly which networking groups where bringing us the highest number of new clients.

This time, the numbers are very interesting. Our two most successful activities have swapped places – we now find more new clients by receiving referrals from happy clients and contacts, networking takes second place. This is a great sign that we’re doing something right, if more people are happy to recommend us. (The actual numbers are 36% from networking and 39% from referrals.)

The other thing that surprised me when I compared all the numbers, was that the different networking groups that I attend are performing differently. One group that attracts very small businesses used to be a great source of new clients. While it’s still a good place to sell my books, it’s now not the best place to find new clients. Another monthly event that I’ve been going to, that is more a training event run by an association – so not even a proper networking group – has produced a number of very good new clients. It turns out that the people who attend the events are ideal clients for us.

So what does all this mean? It means that I’ll probably stop going to one networking group, while I try out a different one. Of course we’ll measure the results over time, to see what’s working best. And we’ll keep looking after our select group of clients, to keep them happy and keep them recommending us to other people!

When did you last measure your marketing?