How to Measure Effectiveness of Your Marketing Campaigns (Guest Post by Gagandeep Singh) December 7, 2009

Measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns is imperative to determine how successful it is. But still, most business owners don’t track their marketing campaign results and keep on spending their money, without knowing whether the campaign is effective or not. Measuring the accurate performance of any marketing campaign is very difficult but with the following tips you can easily collect enough information from your marketing campaigns to take informed decisions.

Select Metrics: First of all, you need to specify which metrics you will use to measure the success of your campaign. These are determined by the objective of your marketing campaign. For example, if the objective of your marketing campaign is to increase blog readership, then number of subscribers should be used as metric. But if the objective of your marketing campaign is used to promote your Brand, then you could use surveys as a measurement to know about the improvement in popularity of your Brand after the campaign.

Predict Results: It is impossible to predict the results of a marketing campaign unless it is completed, but you can speculate what results which you think can be achieved at the end. Many business owners just say, “we want to increase blog readership, let’s place ads.” This is a very unscientific approach which could create difficulty in measuring effectiveness at the end. Be specific with your predictions. For example, say “we will increase blog readership by 30%.”

Divide and Measure: Each marketing campaign targets various locations and uses different sources like online ads or local newspapers to promote. Divide your Marketing Campaign on the basis of locations and then divide them further in to various means of Marketing and measure the results. This technique can provide you with lot of hidden information.

Here’s an example: you are promoting a product in Place X and Y, both online and offline. After seeing the results, you conclude that online modes of marketing work better in Place X, and in Place Y, offline ads convert very well. So in the future you won’t be wasting money on Offline Promotion in Place X or on Online Promotion in Place Y.

Calculate ROI: ROI also defined as Return of Investment. It is measured by Value of Customer divided by Customer Acquisition cost Multiplied by 100. For example, if your marketing campaign costs you $5,000 and you acquire 10 customers where each customer generates $1000 in profit for you. Then Your ROI would be 10,000/5,000 * 100 = 200%. Higher the ROI, the more effective your marketing campaign is.

Eliminate Unmeasurable Actions: Each marketing campaign contains some parts which can’t be measured directly. For example, if you place an ad on a billboard, you can’t count how many people saw that billboard. To help track this, issue a discount coupon code for your customers and track the success of such ads with the help of these codes. The success of any such ad would depend on the number of times a coupon connected to that ad would be used.

Test, Tweak and Retest: Keep on analyzing results of your campaigns and then make required changes. Sometime a tiny change in headline can make drastic improvement s in your ROI. So keep on testing your campaign unless you achieve desired results.

Gagandeep Singh is an Internet Marketing Executive for Fortepromo, which helps Small Businesses promote their brand with high-quality promotional items.

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When your artist and your marketing department are at odds (guest post by Alfred DePew) November 23, 2009

I’m a writer, a writer of fiction. Fiction contains dialogue. People talk to each other in stories. We all know that. What took me some time to realize is that the conversations going on in my head about my own life were holding me back—as a writer and in my business.

About 10 years ago, I began to transition out of college teaching jobs and into my own coaching and consulting business. And all too often in the last 10 years, the Writer in me has been in conflict with the Businessman.

Many artists are in a business directly related to the art they produce. My business has nothing to do with who I am as a writer. I love my business, and I love working on this new novella. And yet these two energies still sometimes work against one another.

I went from the academic world, which promised a marginally safe living for writers and artists, into what we call the Private Sector—a kind of free fall into the market economy. Many of my first coaching clients were in my tribe: writers, painters, actors …. I loved working with them. I still do. They understand coaching principles right away. They know they’re naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. They consistently make powerful changes in their lives and work in three to six months. And they can sustain these changes. They’re some of my favorite clients.

Again and again, I hear these artists describe the conflict between the part of them that created the work and the part of them that needs to “get the work out there.”

While still teaching English at the Maine College of Art, I began running seminars for visual artists about “marketing” but which were much more about tapping the energy of what most inspired them and speaking about what they did from that place. Here’s what I noticed. In my clients and then for myself. Or I should say selves. For there are a lot of aspects to me: painter, writer, executive leadership coach, organizational change facilitator, son, brother, lover, friend. It’s easiest to think of them as roles we play in the world and to ourselves. In every marketing seminar, I heard the lament: “But I’m an ARTIST! I hate marketing.” So I began to play THERE. How to enroll the artist in the marketing department? How to recognize the creativity in marketing? How to call it something else? Sort of like putting the castor oil in chocolate milk. It kept working—but not so well.

I began to realize that these were very different functions, needing, at times, a similar kind of energy. Marketers and sales folk ARE incredibly creative. I work with sales teams all the time, and they’re inventive beyond belief, willing to take all kinds of risks.  It’s the same kind of energy we need in the studio or the rehearsal hall. But the energy is expressed in two very different roles. So I had to hold the Writer in me as distinct from the Businessman (the guy who suits up for networking events and gets on planes and talks to other guys and women in suits)—people whom the Writer part of me sometimes mocks and disdains.

You get the picture.

And that’s how we often are with ourselves. The Artist won’t condescend to speak to anyone in the Marketing Department. The Marketers dismiss the Artist as a flake. And the Accountant isn’t even allowed in the room. The inside of our heads begins to sound like a terrible episode of the Office—without any jokes at all.

So I say invite them all onto an imaginary stage and see what they have to say to one another—see how they relate to each other or choose not to. Get curious about the unconscious agreements they seem to have made with one another. Actually have them engage in dialogue—with each other, and—most important—with you. You’ve the one in charge. What kind of agreements do you want to make with these aspects of yourself now? How might they begin to work as a team? What does the Artist need from the Marketer? And vice versa? What’s at stake? Why is it important for them to work together? What can they count on from each other and from you? And how do you want to hold each other accountable?

Take some time with this. Listen. Make some notes. And most important: follow through on the agreements you make with these figures. Do what you say you’re going to do. And see what happens when the Artist part of you and the Business part of you get the chance to collaborate.

Alfred DePew is a writer, painter, and a Life Coach. His weekly column in the Vancouver Observer is called  Just Between Us (Notes of a Migrant Cultural Worker).

Relationship Matters (Alfred’s blog)

And Twitters at:@alfreddepew

For information about facilitating inner collaborations, contact Alfred at adepew@earthlink.net or call (604) 568-3621.

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Why Social Media Matters (guest post by Rebecca Krause-Hardie) November 16, 2009

Rebecca posed a question to me the other day.  It was something like this…
I know social media is important, and you know it’s  important, but how do we make the case for the value of social media – to people who think its just hype?

I think there are lots of reasons.

First, a bit of perspective: we seem to be approaching social media as if it were a whole new deal. Let’s be clear. We have all been struggling for thousands of years, how to relate to and engage one another; as tribal members, as individuals, families, clans, communities, institutions and organizations.

We have struggled as teen-agers with parental relationship controls, and peer pressure to behave in acceptable ways or be excluded. As adults we are participants in many organizations, institutions, companies, as well as community, cultural, and religious groups, that each subtly define what appropriate social behavior is and what is possible.

For thousands of years, large scale conquests across continents, wars and commerce have cross fertilized our cultures and social structures. Then, POOF, along comes the internet and social media technology tools, that have transformed the informational and social landscape of time, distance, interactive immediacy … and the possibilities for building and sustaining relationships, that are  both positive and negative.

But one thing is clear, over the centuries, through all of this … sustained personal trust, transparency, authenticity, loyalty, passion, and the value of personal relationships in our social networks – is the glue that keeps it all together.

So how does this speak directly to the value of social media today?

Here we are in the thick of it. Social media is about building and sustaining virtual networks of relationships – personal relationships – that are also built on trust, authenticity, transparency and value. When we, as individuals and organizations, invest in social media networking with our friends, associates, customers and prospective customers, there is also significant value that appreciates – to all of the participants.

Many researchers have identified a very specific group of those personal, loyal and passionate supporters, and relationships, that are the core multipliers of each of our networks. Alan Brown calls them Initiators; Fredrick Reichheld calls them Net Promoters.

Here is one analysis of the value of that relationship of trust, transparency and passion, delivered and sustained over time – Frederick Reichheld wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review called The One Number You Need to Grow:

‘Net Promoters’ – People who are wildly passionate about what we do

Enterprise Rent-A-Car was interested in understanding how people’s actions correlated with what they said. If someone says that they like to go to the theater – do they actually go, and what choices do they actually make?   In the study, they first tracked people’s initial responses to the survey, and then followed their actual downstream behaviors.

Historically millions of dollars have been spent understanding customer behavior; learning how to second guess what customers need and want. Most methods were complex, hugely expensive, marginally adequate, and frequently could not actually or accurately predict behavior.

Reichheld decided on a more direct social media approach – have a Q&A conversation with the customer – and really listen.

With the help of Reichheld, Enterprise discovered that the answer to only one survey question was all that was needed. This question is now widely used across a broad spectrum of for profit and nonprofit organizations:  That one question is:

“How likely are you to recommend my company to your friends?”

In the survey, people who answer that question with a 9 or 10 (on a scale from 1 to 10), are your Net Promoters. These people are the ones that will make the buying decision because they love your stuff (you deliver trust and real value over time), and when they passionately refer their friends to you for free, their friends are likely to act on it positively, 75% of the time.  This is an astounding return rate, especially if we look at typical results from direct mail for example with 2-3% returns.

Reichheld goes on to say that to grow your business the ratio of the Net Promoters to all the other respondents should be 75% or better.   How are you doing? You should ask the question and really listen to the answer if you want to grow. If your numbers are lower than that, your customers will be able to tell you what you need to do to change it … if you ask, and then act on it!

Personal referrals are effective 75% of the time!

We just learned from Reichheld that personal referrals are effective about 75% of the time, so it begs the question.  “What are personal referrals about?” They are about personal relationships.  We talk to our friends, and we tell them what is important to us.  We share, we trust, we value….  all the things that evolve from building social capital.  When we are enthusiastic about something we share it.   Let’s say I just had a spectacular experience with the customer service at AutoZone and I tell you about it; that will probably stick with you next time you need to pick up a part.  (Or have a headlight put in….. they did it for me instantly politely and happily!  Yay!)

On the other hand, say I have three excruciating gut-wrenching and really bad experiences in a row with Spirit Airlines (yes I did!) and I tell you about it; that may affect how you think about them too.

What does this have to do with Social Media?

Social media is about building relationships with people.  When people are making their decisions in large part based on what their friends say, then it’s important to know what their friends are saying and feeling.

If they are a passionate promoter then social media tools can help you empower them to deliver your message for free.

If they are not a net promoter, then you should be concerned about what they are saying and feeling that is not helping your cause.  What can your organization do to provide more value and to address the issues that these people have.  How will you even know what they are saying and thinking?

You can use social media tools to listen and have conversations with people. To be relevant you have to be part of the conversation.

Want some facts and figures?   Check out this video on YouTube….

Rebecca Krause-Hardie is a social media strategist, arts blogger, facilitator/trainer & project manager; helping arts and NPO’s use the web and social media effectively.  Rebecca has over 20 yrs experience in new media, business, marketing, finance. She developed and has been the Executive Producer of the award winning New York Philharmonic’s Kidzone website, now in its 10th year. www.nyphilkids.org.  Representative clients the Boston Symphony, NYPhilharmonic, Detroit Symphony, MAPP International, Canadian Museum of Nature, NYS/Arts, Caring.com and the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
She blogs at http://arts.typepad.com/
She Twitters at @arkrausehardie

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Guest post: Matthew DiMera responds to “Is bigger, better?” September 2, 2009

Yesterday, I wrote a guest post for Musicals in Vancouver entitled Some Shows are Better, Bigger. Today, Musicals in Vancouver writer, Matthew DiMera, returns the favor, and responds.

I’m a true-blue theatre-goer and there’s a special place in my heart for musicals.

I’ve seen most of the local musical theatre productions this year, and this summer Vancouver has definitely had a bumper crop.

Local theatre publicist, Art of the Business blogger, and all-around social media maven Rebecca Coleman recently opined in a guest post at Musicals In Vancouver that some local productions were missing some of the spectacle of their Broadway/touring brethren.

She’s not entirely wrong.  My first introduction to the world of musical theatre was through the touring versions that periodically graced the stages of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Vogue or the Ford Centre.

Those shows were brimming full of special effects and large-scale props and they definitely helped to make the shows the successes that they were.  My pre-teen eyes were amazed and won over by the sheer spectacle of it all.  The falling chandelier in Phantom of the Opera or the turntable-barricade in Les Misérables seemed to be inextricably attached to the core of those productions.

Those touring versions don’t stop by our fair city that much these days.  And that’s just fine with me.  Because, lately, they haven’t been delivering the goods in the way that they should or like they used to.

Last summer, I saw Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Centre in Vancouver.  It had everything one could possibly expect, dazzling costumes, snazzy sets and a distinct lack of onstage talent.  So not really everything one could want, but two out of three ain’t bad, right?

I’d like to wish that this was an anomaly, but it’s become more and more of a sad pattern.  Touring shows have become lazy, and talent and charisma are often secondary (or even tertiary).  Producers know that they can just whip out a few big-budget effects and the audience will ooh and aah in unison.

And maybe, in some places that might fly.  Thankfully, it doesn’t in Vancouver.  Our local stages are a wellspring of amazing actors, singers and dancers.  We know what talent looks like, we’ve been spoiled by it and we’re not willing to settle for anything less.

When local productions skip the flashy motorcycle entrances or the extravagant turning sets, part of me misses them desperately.  And there will always be room for critiques and hopefully improvements on the local front.  I too, found Javert’s suicide scene, in the Arts Club’s Les Misérables, to be jarringly uninspired.

But, when it comes down to it, I’d rather see local attempts than nothing at all, even if they sometimes (or completely) miss the mark.  I’ll take a good Joanne as she is, anyway I can get her (the motorcycle is optional).

When I enter the theatre, I’m happy to suspend disbelief and let my imagination fill in the holes left by the absence of multi-million dollar budgets.    Keep bringing the talent and the great performances, and I’ll be yours hook, line and sinker.

What do you think? Is better, bigger? Let me know in the comments below.

Matt DiMera is a Vancouver-based journalist and writer in his 20’s.  His current writing focuses on theatre, musicals, as well as local LGBTQ issues.  His blog is Musicals In Vancouver.

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