With fears about the economy impacting everyone's bottom line, small business owners who don't already obsess about ROI are likely to find themselves digging deeper into their data in the coming months. Chances are good they'll start with metrics like conversion rate, cost per lead, time on site and pass along rates. Those are all good, but I can't help but think they're overlooking one that's absolutely essential.
The Failure Metric
I wrote about the likely hood of failure when it comes to viral campaigns this past summer, and pointed out the valuable lessons you can learn from them. In that article, I explained it like this:
Launching a viral attempt gives you the chance to see how your audience reacts to your message. You can run searches to follow the conversation, taking note of the good and the bad. You can segment your analytics to see which types of sites sent the most visitors to the campaign and which types of sites sent the most engaged visitors.
Based on the data you gather from these attempts, you can fine tune your campaign, your message and even your launch points to increase the chances of your next campaign succeeding.
The Failure Metric Holds Value Elsewhere
Now most people can pretty easily see the value of looking at failed viral campaigns, but a lot of us overlook the value of our other failed campaigns. Whether it's an email campaign, a paid search campaign, an organic search campaign or even a new social media attempt like a blog or participation in a forum, things are bound to go wrong every now and then.
Rohit Bhargava writes about this very thing in a post last week on the "soft metrics" of social media measurement. Under the "lessons learned" metric, he explains:
Sometimes failures can be the best thing to happen to a social media campaign. Doing something wrong gives you the chance to learn from your mistakes and perhaps even make your next campaign much more successful. The problem is that most metrics would record a campaign like this as having no redeeming qualities. That's not quite true and though most marketers know it, many don't have a way to share it.
Don't Just Shut Them Down, Learn From Them
I know it's going to be tempting to cut your spending in the areas that don't appear to be delivering over these next few months, but don't forget to take the time to really look at those campaigns first. Find out what parts of them worked and use that knowledge to build your next campaign. Find out what parts failed and see if you can figure out why. Look at feedback on your blog, on social media sites and from customers. If a product or campaign bombs, ask them why...and be open to the response.
Marketing budgets are about to tighten. The good news is the companies who manage to create and run campaigns with positive ROI will be able to grow and expand their campaigns due to less competition in the market place.
Embrace the failure metric in your campaign planning. It could be the key to leaping ahead of your competitors and coming out gold when these tough times are done.
|
Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, the Social Media Faculty Chair for MarketMotive and offers small business social media strategy & consulting. Jennifer enjoys the challenge of finding unique and creative ways to connect with consumers without spending a fortune in marketing dollars. Though she now prefers to work with small businesses, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children.
Search marketing information for small business owners.
Fetching the best small business news.
A friendly place to share small business ideas and knowledge.
Small business support through education, resources and community
The directory of the best small business sites and tools.
Copyright © 1998 - 2019 Search Engine Guide All Rights Reserved. Privacy
FreeFind Site Search Engine - FreeFind adds a "search this site" feature to your website, making your site easier to use. FreeFind also gives you reports showing what your visitors are searching for, enabling you to improve your site. FreeFind's advanced site search engine and automatic site map technology can be added to your website for free.
Buy UPC Codes
Get your products listed online!