Yesterday I was talking with a new client who wasn't sure if her marketing is working.  She said this:

“I’ve invested in tons of online classes, implemented the step-by-step marketing strategies and NOTHING IS WORKING. I’m completely frustrated and feel like I’m spinning my wheels.”

Ouch.

So much time. So much money. Such disappointing results.

Can you relate?

You know what? It’s not her fault. Marketing is hard – it’s part science and part art – and a lot of it just cannot be taught, but must be experienced instead.

I actually view marketing as a giant science experiment. Great marketers know the rules and then break them to see what will work even better. And after more than 18 years in the professional, real-life lab (including Fortune 100s to solopreneurs), I’ve discovered there is no ‘killer marketing formula’ that will make sure your marketing is working every time. 

There’s no step-by-step system that will solve everyone’s marketing problems!

Instead, I teach that good marketing is simple, strategic and uniquely tailored to YOU and YOUR BUSINESS. You must know your message, positioning and so much more to get the most out of each marketing formula.

So all those step-by-step online marketing systems are great as a starting point. But it’s still up to you to figure out which parts will work for your business (and which parts you just need to ignore).

But how?

There are a number of ways that marketing pros do this, but one of the easiest is to simply track your efforts and results.

Start Small

Often when I talk with clients about tracking their results, they immediately go into overwhelm.

•         I don’t know how to track things.
•         I’m not technical.
•         I don’t even know WHAT to track.
•         Where do I even find numbers to track?
•         How do I know if the numbers are right?
•         Do I need to know Google Analytics? Some other super-sophisticated (and spendy) system?

I will admit that I’m a bit of a marketing nerd and can go incredibly deep on all sorts of analytics… but honestly, you don’t need to start there.

Instead of worrying about sophisticated marketing tracking, let’s focus on metrics that will answer these three questions:

1.       Are the things I am doing to grow my business the RIGHT things?
2.       Is new business (bottom line results) coming from my efforts?
3.       Am I improving my results over time?

1. Am I Doing The Right Things To Grow My Business?

To begin tracking this, simply write down a list of all the marketing activities you’ve engaged in over the past month.

This list can include anything you’ve done to actually tell people about what you do such as:

•         Sending a personal email to a contact
•         Running ads
•         Creating a YouTube video
•         Attending a meetup
•         Etc…

Just write out a list of every place you’ve spent time and/or money to get the word out about you + your business in the past 30 days.

2.  Am I Getting New Business From My Efforts?

Now, take a look at that list of everything you did in the past 30 days and put a check mark next to each one that resulted in a new client.

What if none of them did? That’s ok (and great to know).

There are simple tests + tweaks we can run to decide if it’s a marketing effort you should actually even engage in (I’ll talk about that a bit more in another blog post).

What if you’re not sure where your new clients came from?

You have two choices here. Either 1) take your best guess or 2) ask your new clients what brought them to you.

Don’t overthink this one – we simply want a quick snapshot view of where your new clients are coming from.

3. Am I Improving My Results Over Time?

You probably won’t be able to answer #3 in the first month. It’s really important to build your understanding of how much time + money each activity is taking AND what that means in terms of new business.

As you build your tracking muscle each month you will quickly see what is improving and what isn’t.

For example:

Month 1:

Activity – personal email to LinkedIn contacts (email version 1)

# emails sent – 100

# new clients – 1

Month 2:

Activity – personal email to LinkedIn contacts (email version 2)

# emails sent – 100

# new clients – 3

There are some simple tests you can run to drastically improve your results, and I’ll talk about that more later. For now, simply start tracking so you have a good understanding of what’s working for you.

 Want more help?

Find out what marketing funnels can do for your business! I invite you to find out what kind of marketing funnel is right for you and your business. Take this fast and free quiz, then you can layer your personality, and your secret recipe on top of the right marketing funnel that is really going to support what a sold out business means to you.