Hello Reader,​​

When people ask me about a marketing technique and say, ‘do you think this is going to work?’ My answer is always the same.

Only testing will tell.

A lot of marketing is guesswork, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. You make an experiment, and then measure your results. Instead of wondering what works, you can let the data show you what is most effective, and what's a waste of time.

Reviewing your marketing metrics every month will help you make better strategic decisions. Your metrics are like the pulse of your business. Sometimes it's strong, and sometimes it’s weak. Sometimes it's rapid, or slow.

These metrics can inform you about the current state of your business right now, and give you the intelligence to make the right decisions, because you know the metrics that matter.

When the market changes, you will sense those changes, like how the sea changes color before a storm. If you’re not listening, you won't know that change is coming.

There's only four things you need to do:

1. Collect your data. Decide what needs to be collected, and where you're going to collect it.
2. Interpret your data. Which metrics are important? And which ones don't matter?
3. Analyze your data. What do these numbers mean? How do they compare to previous results?
4. Pivot. What different results would you rather have instead? What changes do you need to make to achieve those results?

There are plenty of marketing dashboards that will give you a whole mess of data, but I find those more confusing than useful. I like to use a simple spreadsheet to track my marketing metrics, and manually record the data I want to know. This way you can collect data from all sorts of digital services, without having to bother with APIs and webhooks.

There’s something about writing it down yourself, instead of clicking a button - it puts you in touch with your systems, so you can feel the pulse more clearly. You can use my Marketing Metrics dashboard to set up your own simple spreadsheet.

Okay, what then?

I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses that once they have the data, they don't know what to do with the data.

Here's the thing: if your data helps you make one strategic decision better, it's been worth your time to collect it and review it.

I recommend one quarterly marketing day for your business. Spend one day every three months focusing on your marketing, delegating your decisions, and setting a plan for the quarter.

This way, you can improve your lead generation strategy multiple times every year. Most importantly, you can create a container for the big, scary marketing questions, like:

• How do I rise above all the noise in the marketplace?
• How can I connect all my services to produce a cohesive message?
• How do I build credibility without sounding like a sales pitch?
• How personal should I get in telling my story?
• How can I stand out if we are all following the same formula?
• What are the best ways to convert leads into new business?
• What channels deserve the most focus and should be the core of my funnel?
• How can I get it set up so the mechanics are handled and I only have to feed in content?

If one of these questions comes up, write it down and save it for your Quarterly Marketing Day. Having a dedicated time to ask these big questions about your business will protect you from getting overwhelmed the other 89 days of the quarter.

I'm putting together a new Quarterly Marketing Day Workshop, and I'm looking for beta testers. If you would like to spend a day working with me on your business, hit reply.