Technology Marketing by Tatum MarketingJust another WordPress weblog

Not too long ago, marketing practitioners had everyone convinced that marketing was not measurable. Marketing specialists, execs and experts felt no pressure to prove their “magic” worked.

Those days are gone, and the people who are in charge of spending your marketing investment should be able to show you solid results or at minimum show you they’re working on figuring out how to measure it.

To be fair, some aspects of technology marketing really are hard to measure – and those are exactly the tactics and programs I suggest you avoid.

Sometimes marketing efforts take a while to show results. Until then, you can measure activity just to be sure things are really getting done.

Successful marketing programs have quantifiable objectives; and, if you read this blog with any regularity, it won’t surprise you to read that I believe marketing objectives should be based on revenue goals.  For more information on setting sales-based marketing goals, take a look at How Many Leads Do You Need?

We have repeatedly found that establishing clear and measurable marketing objectives does wonders to focus everyone’s thinking and actions. Often within weeks of establishing these objectives, our clients see the number and quality of inbound leads increasing.

What kinds of things can you hold marketing accountable for?

Traffic generation, inquiry generation, and lead conversion rates for starters. Software trials, online demos, webinar attendance, press and blog coverage are also predictable and measurable. There’s a nearly unlimited number of things you can measure. So much so that I also caution you not to go overboard.

Start slow and measure only things that have a direct effect on sales and only things that you intend to do something about. But set real objectives for every marketing program you undertake and stay on top of it.

Going back to Tech Marketing Fundamental #1, if you focus your marketing efforts on creating sales opportunities you’ll find yourself utilizing direct response marketing methods. This means that each of your marketing programs will have a specific call to action – and therefore a measurable result.

The bottom line is, successful marketing requires that you know what’s working and what isn’t.

What are you measuring?

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