Lick the screen when your commercial comes on TV, chew on that advertisement in the paper, gnaw on one of your Facebook fans…or don’t do any of those things, especially the biting, because that’s not what I’m talking about and you’re not a teething toddler. One of the most important aspects of marketing is measuring and tuning. In much the same way that a chef tastes as she cooks, you should be making sure your marketing is appetizing. Sample the quality of the output and adjust accordingly. Chef Gordon Ramsay, of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, has to tell most of the ham-fisted chefs on his show to taste the food they are preparing. He usually admonishes, “Are you so [expletive deleted] arrogant that you can’t taste your [expletive deleted] food?!” It doesn’t matter how good you think your marketing is or what fancy agency or expert you have in charge; if they aren’t measuring and fine-tuning then they aren’t doing their job. Even the best chefs taste their food; it’s compulsory. And sometimes all it needs is a dash of salt, but sometimes that can make a world of difference. Marketing is a chronic, always present, habitual process because it must be monitored and modified. No chef is above tasting, no marketer above monitoring/measuring or modifying.
The Web, in fact, greatly simplifies the measurement and monitoring process in some ways. For example, Facebook, Google AdWords, YouTube, your Web site (which should have monitoring tools) all provide enough insights to determine if what you’re doing is working or not, if anything else.
Google AdWords most likely provides some of the most detailed metrics one will care to scour over. CTR (click through rate), CPC, (cost per click), and CPM (cost per thousand) all help you decide if what you are doing is effective, and are just a few of the many bits of data, details and measurements available to those operating an AdWords campaign. The great thing about AdWords is that you can distinguish in essentially real-time if any modifications behaved in a positive manner. A quick check of the CTR and you’ll be able to tell if that dash of salt did what it was supposed to do.
Cheers to tasty marketing!
On a related note, David Meerman Scott, new marketing guru, author, blogger and speaker had a rant about ROI, at one point explicating, “What’s the ROI of putting on your pants in the morning?” Needless to say, it’s worth a listen. Click here to hear it. I feel ROI has contracted a daunting reputation in its frequent, excessive usage, and I didn’t bother mentioning it in my post on purpose. One reason being; online efforts, especially social media, have intangible benefits unseen in metric-riddled dashboard read outs. Blogs, a powerful social media presence and so on are developed over time. Remember, you’re effectively developing a friendship with people online. It can’t be bought and it will not be acquired overnight, or even in a month for that matter.
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