There are few truths in an uncertain world, but here is one of them. Without leads your business will go under. No exceptions.

Gone are the days of throwing your name into the phone book of your choice in your area, putting your number on the side of a truck and watching the phones light up. In today’s ever evolving world, the complexity of marketing SEEMS to grow every day.

Notice the emphasis on SEEMS.

We have found that the influx of new and shiny marketing tools often leads to a couple of things. Mixed results and/or frustration. Lots of frustration. This seems to be multiplied when it comes to the wild world of internet marketing.

Take inventory of your current online marketing efforts. This includes your Social Media presence, your email activities, your website and any other digital marketing you may be doing. Put them in hierarchy of importance to you. That metric is determined by you and your goals. You could rank them based on performance, with emphasis in investing more into the high performing areas, or you could rank them based on the areas in which you are personally interested or want to see more testing. Any metric you use is fine to create this list, but you must have metrics. Which leads me to the next point.

You must measure results.

With all areas of your marketing, tracking results is a cornerstone of success. Fortunately, one of the great aspects of online marketing is that there are typically TONS of data points to review. Sometimes that data can be a little daunting. Clicks, likes, shares, impressions, views, visitors, CTR, bounce rates, organic traffic, keyword rankings, open rates, unsubscribes, etc. You get the point. Each one of these metrics is a real thing and tells a very important story. Not the whole story, but an important one nonetheless.

A lot of online marketing reps will convince you of their success by pointing to these metrics. If you find yourself in a conversation with a sales rep that promises that you will get at least 100,000 impressions each month by using their service, great. What does that mean for your bottom line? Unless those impressions are converting, those impressions mean absolutely nothing. By converting, I mean an “impression,” i.e. a person, actually clicks your advertisement and visits your site. Further, they contact you, or “convert” into a lead. That is the only metric that matters. If your online marketing is producing a ton of impressions or clicks or visits but very little in the way of actionable leads, then something is broken in your lead funnel.

Now that you know what to look for and what to measure for success, here’s what an effective, integrated funnel looks like:

  • Offline Piece (Postcard, Letter) – Send to your own customers and prospects.
  • Email – This goes to your current customers that you have emails for.
  • Social Media Post – Place on Facebook/Twitter etc., and possibly assign a budget toward boosting posts.
  • High Performing Landing Page – This can be a part of your existing site or a separate page.

These parts will be consistent in look and offer. They will all point to the same place – your website, which will contain a high-converting landing page that makes contacting you EASY. That’s it. If that funnel sounds too simple, and you want to add to the complexity, that’s fine. Add whatever online media components you want to the list, but keep the message consistent (message integration), and send it back to that high-performing page on your site that converts.

If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed or confused about any of your marketing efforts, take a step back and think about marketing from the basics. Ask yourself, “Are these marketing dollars making my phone ring?” If that answer is anything other than, “Yes,” you need to reevaluate and optimize. Optimization is key as you work through your marketing plan, and in theory, each campaign should perform marginally better than the last and turn into a marketing machine.

Need help with campaigns that are proven to produce both online and offline results? Email [email protected] or call 800-489-9099.