Most business owners know that marketing is important. They know they need a website, a presence on the main social media platforms, an email marketing campaign, search engine optimization (SEO), advertising, and great content. However, they often measure success by the wrong metrics and end up confusing activity with results.
A business can publish content every day, constantly post on social media, run paid ads, and gain thousands of followers without generating meaningful revenue. Another company might produce far less content while generating a steady flow of qualified leads and sales. That’s because certain activities don’t produce measurable outcomes that translate to sales.
Professional marketers focus on results
The biggest reason businesses hire professional marketers is to gain access to experience and expertise you can’t develop by watching a few YouTube videos. Professional marketers know what moves the needle and what doesn’t. While business owners see work being completed, like blogs being published, Facebook posts gaining traction, and an increase in website traffic, professional marketers see it differently.
Professional marketers ask:
- Is the target market visiting the website?
- Are those visitors requesting quotes or contacting the business directly?
- Are those visitors making a purchase or signing up for the email list?
- How much does each lead cost to acquire?
- What campaigns produce paying customers?
- What percentage of leads become sales?
- What is the maximum dollar amount we can spend to acquire each lead based on lifetime customer value?
An experienced marketing team knows that website traffic is only valuable if it converts into sales.
Vanity metrics create a false sense of success
Social media platforms are designed to reward engagement, whether or not it leads to sales. They display likes, comments, shares, reach, impressions, and follower growth because these numbers encourage people to continue using the platform. However, without a strategy that turns this activity into sales, these are just vanity metrics.
If you publish a single video that gets 500,000 views, it won’t generate much business if it’s not reaching the target audience most likely to buy. On the other hand, a business that only gets a few thousand visitors each month might outperform its competitors because it’s generating a higher percentage of customers who are ready to buy.
While collecting followers and publishing popular content is often a key part of marketing, success should always be judged by whether or not it helps to reach targeted business goals, not by popularity.
Untargeted traffic doesn’t matter
Website traffic is one of the most frequently misunderstood metrics in marketing. Many business owners assume that any activity that generates more visitors is beneficial and will lead to more sales. While gaining additional traffic can create more sales, that’s not always the case.
If you’re already generating 20,000 visitors per month and your current conversion rate is less than 1%, you don’t have a traffic problem – you have a conversion problem likely rooted in targeting the wrong audience. Instead of spending more time and money generating more untargeted traffic, it’s better to either work on converting existing traffic or target a different audience.
Search intent also matters for traffic. Someone searching for “how to repair a roof leak” isn’t looking for a professional roofer. However, someone searching for “roof replacement near me” wants to find a roofing contractor. If you’re running a roofing business, you want to generate traffic from people who are actively looking for your services.
High-intent audiences who are looking to buy now are the most profitable. It’s worth pursuing leads who aren’t ready to buy, but they need to be dropped into your marketing funnel properly and then nurtured over time through email.
More content doesn’t equal better marketing
Content marketing is an excellent strategy but it needs to be done strategically. You can’t just publish a ton of content and hope for results. Publishing content every week just to “stay active” doesn’t produce results. There are plenty of businesses that only publish content once a month, and they get big results.
The key is to publish high-quality, authoritative content that positions your business as the go-to expert that will rank in the search engines and produce leads. When you publish fewer, higher-quality pieces that solve real customer problems, you’re more likely to get results than tossing out a bunch of surface-level, general articles on a schedule.
Focus on business outcomes, not marketing activity
Marketing activity doesn’t automatically produce results. Your goal for marketing should be to generate more customers, revenue, and long-term growth. Don’t measure success by how busy your marketing team is on social media. Make sure your team is performing tasks that contribute to meaningful business outcomes. It’s the only way to ensure every dollar you invest in marketing supports your long-term success.
