You’ve identified your target audience. Your message has been worked, reworked, and worked again. The creative is perfect. You know exactly what media channels are effectively communicating your brand and which ones are intercepting your consumer at the point of decision. The campaign has been launched. Now what? Did it work? Are you positive? Many campaigns are not properly tracked thus underestimating, or worse overestimating, your campaign’s effectiveness. If a football team manages to defeat every team on their schedule, but no one is watching does it really matter? Measurement is important in determining what plays worked best under what circumstances and against which teams. You watch to understand what strategy successfully made the feat possible so that it can be implemented for the future. Otherwise you are wasting your time and your marketing budget.
Effectiveness can be measured in many different ways. Numerical data like CTRs, impressions, conversions are one way. An actual increase in calls to your business, sales, or inquiries is yet another way. Perhaps you need to drill down more by gathering qualitative information through focus groups, social media monitoring, or customer surveys. Either way you must determine what is success. Set expectations for your campaigns and really analyze the results. From there make your marketing decisions based on that. Success is certainly subjective and what may be an accomplishment to one is just the tip of the iceberg to another. Do the appropriate research ahead of time and know the guidelines that will define a winning campaign effort. By simply putting in the time, dedication, and energy now, you and your brand will definitely score big. When that happens everyone wins!