Making Marketing Decisions In The Right Way
Real estate agents commonly make the mistake of basing decisions on assumptions rather than fact.
The following is an example: You believe that you have just come up with a fantastic method for marketing promotion.
You use the idea without a tracking mechanism that allows measurement of the promotion results.
You end up assuming that it works when business happens to end up coming in.
So now because you assume that your business method is working you keep on investing in it even though you don't know for sure if it is honestly effective.
To put it bluntly, if I don't have a way to actually judge my marketing results, than I am not willing to put even one single penny into it.
There's two reasons for that.
Clearly I want to know if my promotion is effective so that I don't spend lots of time working on something that doesn't even give me any results.
The second reason is that I want to know how effective the marketing promotion is if it is working.
I need to be able to compare it to my other marketing efforts to determine where my resources are best spent.
I also want to be able to test variations of the promotion and see if I can improve the response rate.
An improvement in response rate adds directly to the bottom line because it doesn't cost any extra.
Here is an example.
Let's say I was testing a new print advertisement.
I would make sure the ad had a way for prospects to respond.
I would also make sure that those responses could be tracked.
For the ad, I could set up a unique phone extension which would include a system for recording all messages.
Another option I could give readers is to visit a web page.
Of course the ad would have a unique web page that could be tracked.
I could count the leads produced by specific ads in both instances.
If I choose to test a different ad, I would give it an extension or web page that is different from the previous ones.
It enables me to review both and decide which yields better results.
If every one of my ads has its own ID number than I can track people's responses to see exactly how effective each ad has been.
All of your marketing attempts should be able to track your work in this manner.
This will help ensure that your decision is fact-based.
You will find that it is more rewarding to make decisions based on facts rather than on assumptions.
The following is an example: You believe that you have just come up with a fantastic method for marketing promotion.
You use the idea without a tracking mechanism that allows measurement of the promotion results.
You end up assuming that it works when business happens to end up coming in.
So now because you assume that your business method is working you keep on investing in it even though you don't know for sure if it is honestly effective.
To put it bluntly, if I don't have a way to actually judge my marketing results, than I am not willing to put even one single penny into it.
There's two reasons for that.
Clearly I want to know if my promotion is effective so that I don't spend lots of time working on something that doesn't even give me any results.
The second reason is that I want to know how effective the marketing promotion is if it is working.
I need to be able to compare it to my other marketing efforts to determine where my resources are best spent.
I also want to be able to test variations of the promotion and see if I can improve the response rate.
An improvement in response rate adds directly to the bottom line because it doesn't cost any extra.
Here is an example.
Let's say I was testing a new print advertisement.
I would make sure the ad had a way for prospects to respond.
I would also make sure that those responses could be tracked.
For the ad, I could set up a unique phone extension which would include a system for recording all messages.
Another option I could give readers is to visit a web page.
Of course the ad would have a unique web page that could be tracked.
I could count the leads produced by specific ads in both instances.
If I choose to test a different ad, I would give it an extension or web page that is different from the previous ones.
It enables me to review both and decide which yields better results.
If every one of my ads has its own ID number than I can track people's responses to see exactly how effective each ad has been.
All of your marketing attempts should be able to track your work in this manner.
This will help ensure that your decision is fact-based.
You will find that it is more rewarding to make decisions based on facts rather than on assumptions.
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