If you’re a business owner – or in charge of tracking the effectiveness of a substantial marketing budget – I invite you to read on…
Are you always lost in a mess of Google Analytics reports and have no idea what it all means? Do you receive good report cards from your marketing team but don’t know why or how you got the leads? Over the next several months my mission is to prove that you will benefit from hiring a marketing professional whose job is to properly communicate these items to you. Also, you’ll learn about the increased benefits if this person has an information technology (IT) background.
It seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many small to medium-sized business owners will hire someone that only knows the bare minimum to handle their marketing. This marketing employee will sell their campaign ideas, set them up quickly without much thought, and then send a high-level report with little to no communication on what the data means. Yet, the most important job of all is being able to effectively communicate these technical data points, metrics that track attribution, and layers of user behavior within those campaigns. The successful candidate is someone who already has hours of training, certifications, and most importantly… patience.
Did I lose you yet?
If not, here are some other key factors that prove the point:
- The success of your marketing campaign is 100% dependent on the proper implementation. Setup and continual testing are key to a successful campaign. Wouldn’t you rather trust this area of your business with someone who is detail-oriented and data-focused rather than only sales-minded and creative?
- To properly track the results of a marketing campaign, you must first set up Google Analytics. Each campaign should have a variety of filter implementations, IP exclusions, conversion goal tracking, and so on. The person telling you that your campaign is ‘doing great’ should be the same person that sets up and continues to track it.
- Common scenario: You’re spending $1000/month on your marketing campaign and the person “running it” told you it would “be the perfect solution for your business,” but then you find out that they have no idea what happens behind the curtain in said campaign. Would you trust your business initiatives in the hands of someone who has only an “opinion” on what’s working and no proof?
Digital Marketing is as much of a technical, detail-heavy, and data-driven service as IT and development. The campaign executor must be well-informed and each step must be properly positioned in order to produce your ideal conversions. If your marketing team isn’t doing these things, you may be paying someone to tell you what you want to hear without the actual results.
All-in-all, do the research and spend time finding the right fit for your marketing team beforehand. Doing so will save you from failed campaigns and money loss in the long-run. Start with a marketing analysis from our in-house Strategist to take a look at your current business standing.
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