What expectations do you set for your marketing activities? I always revert to a gardening metaphor because it is easy to communicate and helps explains how marketing works.
- If your brand has been undermarketed for years, will a few campaigns bring in revenue in months? (an untended garden isn’t going to bear fruit)
- Would switching to different tactics from inbound to outbound marketing change results by next quarter? (patience is required, along with time and sunlight)
- How long will this marketing stuff take to work? (eventually, a well-maintained garden will have fruits and vegetables that are ripe for the picking. But they won’t be ready overnight.)
Setting Expectations and Seeding The Future
Marketing professionals understand that if you expect marketing efforts to work quickly and overnight, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Some tactics are meant to bring in quick revenue, but brand building tactics often are part of a long-term play.
What’s the best way to set expectations and align everyone with a realistic approach? In my coonsulting practice, I work hard at providing clients with an accurate picture of what to expect when we test a new tactic.
As Jay Baer likes to say, “I don’t know everything, but here is what I know that is true.”
Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action
AIDA is our friend to help remind clients of the process.
- AWARENESS takes time, even if you have the right message sent to the right audience. It takes time for a prospect to trust you enough to want to go beyond that first step of knowing you exist. Think of this as planting a seed in the ground and watering and fertilizing it for weeks before you see the first shoots pop up. Awareness also takes time to sprout.
- INTEREST doesn’t happen overnight. Just because I now know your brand exists, I may have several other choices. Or, I may have an interest but don’t yet understand if you can solve my problem. Or I’m unsure how helpful you can be for me and my need. Interested prospects are closer to action, but some sales cycle are long and require patience. You have to remain in front of this audience with helpful examples that attract their attention and make them say; I wonder if those folks could help me with my problem. This part of the process is like weeding and continuing to nurture the garden. It takes consistency and patience to succeed.
- DESIRE is when awareness and interest are motivated. The prospect is now favorably disposed to work with you. This potential customer gets what you do, and maybe you have started to chat with them, so they are getting to know you. When a flower or fruit begins to emerge, it needs ripening. The bright, shiny fruit can attract clients to take action.
- ACTION – let the harvest begin. The action is that stage where prospects are engaged with you in discussions and are willing to receive a specific proposal or to make a purchase of your product. You have gotten their attention, gained their trust, given social credibility in the form of likes, reviews or testimonials and they are ready to entertain your offer. When you see the blossoms and ripened fruit on the vine, then a prospect can take action and begin the harvest.
Practical Expectations
- If we are beginning on an email campaign, realistic expectations might be 20% opening the email and 2% clicking a link to learn more. Responses will depend on the quality of the list, the copy and message, the graphics, the length and much more. Experienced professionals can make reasonable estimates for opens and click-through.
- A client who updates a website might monitor the number of unique visitors and the time spent on the site might be the metric that the investment is paying off and it meets our goal. Google Analytics is rich with metrics to monitor. Realistic expectations might be a 15% increase in unique visitors who stay a little longer and with 2% filling out a form to get more information.
- When you do a direct mail piece, and you see an uptick in traffic to a dedicated landing page, you can see that your effort drove interest through a non-digital activity. A realistic goal might be the number of phone calls, emails or incremental web traffic to your site. Or, you may even be listening for how many prospect mention the physical mailer in a phone call.
- If you retarget clients after they visit your website so that your brand is top of mind for 30 days, can you track in your lead tracking software (like Leadfeeder), that those who read an email and visited your website last month, have come back to the website again this month? A realistic goal, if you have tracking in place, is that 20% of the people come more than once to the site after being exposed to your retargeting message.
Marketing Requires Setting Expectations
Marketing teams (and consultants) need to set an expectation for success for each tactic. Ask your colleagues, what would it look like if you felt like this worked?
If their hope is a mile away from reality, maybe take some time to plant a small garden outside so everyone can learn a valuable lesson. You can’t garden or market by hoping things to be true.
What expectations have you set with your co-workers for your marketing efforts?
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Try my new chat feature on my site if you have a quick question.
Photo by Ronny Kind on Unsplash
