Connect Social Media

Every day we discover new “analytics” tools that allow us to measure visitors and blog posts and the number of articles that were read…and more tools are being added daily.  In a way it seems we’re simply creating more work for the marketing department - more tasks, more reporting…leading to more meetings to discuss our reports, with questions and suggested revisions…and well, the question I ask is “What’s it all about, Alfie?”

Are we making all this too complicated?  The ultimate goal of any marketing program is to generate awareness for our products and services, which should in turn lead to more customers and sales. I know in our own small businesses as we’ve interviewed direct mail companies and the like, they can always show how much coverage you get, i.e. how many homes (and where) your pieces will deliver too, but my question is always “how much will it make our sales grow?”  When I ask “what kind of sales and bottom line results are your users getting by using your direct mail service” I typically get blank stares.

I know I’m at risk of oversimplification, but really - isn’t it all about one thing:  did our sales grow or did they not?  Are we getting more customers into our file?  Are we collecting more email addresses of real people to market our products and services to? Are we selling more ads at our site, because we now have more traffic that’s targeted for our niche?

Those are the questions we should be asking.  That’s the way to measure the impact of our social media and SEO programs.

What are your thoughts?