Feb 6, 2013
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Software: Major Marketing Key
When business owners think of marketing, the almost never think of software. We use the word software to represent one of the 5 pieces in the marketing success formula for small businesses (and it applies to all businesses). When we say “software”, we mean the use of software to –
- Scale and Automate
- Generate Granular Reporting
- Produce Business Intelligence
- Create cohesion and synergy between marketing pieces
The Language of Marketing
Accounting is the language of business as they say. Have you ever thought about how this applies to marketing? Do your regular accounting reports give you any detail about your marketing efforts? How are you reporting on marketing endeavors? How do we “account” for marketing activities? Better yet, does Quickbooks give you marketing reports you need? Such reports could be items like:
- Leads In
- Lead Sources
- Estimates Out
- Source of Deals Closed
- Traffic to Website
Likely NOT
So knowing your numbers is key and accounting for those numbers is hence the “language of marketing”. So, we ask questions like –
- What is working?
- Why is it working? What parts are making it work?
- For how long will it work?
- How can we optimize it?
Long Lasting Marketing Success
Marketing Reports are key to marketing consistency and longevity. Each time you find something that works and you have the details of why it worked, then you know where to focus.
In marketing managed (and in our marketing managed formula) we talk about software as the last piece of the marketing success formula. Primarily this piece refers to marketing reports. What those reports contain differs from business to business. However, it usually contains things like:
- Search Engines: This report gives business owners a detailed view of search engine traffic and statistics to help you understand how you are performing with the top search engines and the keywords you have chosen.
- Social Media: This report gives business owners granular details about how social media is affecting marketing efforts and which social media platforms are producing the best results.
- User Behavior: This report gives you an idea of calls that have come in, what users are doing on your website and other user behavior to help you make sound decisions with your marketing campaign.
- Projects Completed – List of projects completed in a 30 day span that show progress made in marketing materials or endeavors.
- Marketing Team Members – Feedback and Gut Feelings from those on the ground
- KPIs
Other Things to Consider:
As your marketing efforts feed sales eneadvors, be aware of how some of the following KPIs could greatly enhance your reporting back to your marketing department:
- Leads Produced
- Lead Sources
- Estimates or Proposals Given
- Leads Closed
- Source of Deals Closed
- Conversion Rate and Churn Rates
- Sales Percentages: close rate, estimate delivery rate, average length of sales cycle and more
Robust Marketing Reports
for Small Business
Robust Reports is a comprehensive reporting system from Innovation Simple designed to give clients a 360° view of their marketing.
This system incorporates Key Performance Indicators that a marketing campaign for a small business would need and integrates with other systems which allow Innovation Simple to extend the reach of the reports.