IAM2198 – The Value of Analytics in Measuring Marketing Effectiveness

Title: Transcript - Tue, 06 Aug 2024 03:41:56 GMT

Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2024 03:41:56 GMT, Duration: [00:15:43.20]

[00:00:00.10] - Gresham Harkless

Many people spend so much time in terms of building everything to have it be a finished product, when in reality, their clients that they thought would want it don't actually want it. So what you do is you build an MVP, and you basically use the data to continue to kinda improve what it is that you have. So the MVP can be as simple as a, a questionnaire. You start out with a questionnaire of this idea that you have, and then you get that data, and then you start to create it. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast, and I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast. I always talk about how important it is to build a media company. One of the next best things you could do is be on somebody else's media company. So I had the pleasure of being a guest on this podcast, and I want to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the eight business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content and a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing. So make sure, of course, that you subscribe to our podcast, but, of course, you take some time out. Check out the show notes and subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too, and get to learn about some of those eight business pillars and how you can continue to kinda leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, rock star and luminary. So this is Grant signing out. I hope you enjoy this I am CEO special episode.

[00:01:20.50] - Jean Humbrecht

You touched on a lot of different things. Right? So there's there's the social media component. There's your website. And then within the website, there's the SEO. And then there's all sorts of other different things that you can you can do to try is it really to to drive traffic back to your website or just to get your name out there? You know, the podcast, a blog, you know, all that all that different stuff that you mentioned.

[00:01:44.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. You can you can definitely do it for a lot of different ways. I I think that's the the gift and the curse of digital marketing is there's not necessarily one way that you can do it. But, again, you know, that's why I said those three questions in the very beginning are so important because when you understand exactly what success is, then you know exactly, how to to execute and you know exactly what you want the social media platforms to do, and how you can kinda leverage them as much as possible. So, for example, if somebody is is writing a book and they know that they wanna get their their book out there, and and largely because they want to do or or incorporate speaking, and consulting maybe into, their overall products and services that or services that they're providing, you're maybe going to have a different way that you approach, your marketing. Maybe you're gonna try to be on more podcasts. Maybe you're gonna share out those podcasts. You're gonna use, you know, you're gonna use, maybe Facebook ads to share out your your your podcast even more so that people can learn more about what it is that you do. But that's because your goal is not necessarily to drive direct, clients and customers, but it's more awareness. It's more visibility. It's more, hey. I am a speaker. I'm a trainer. So I would love to come to your your, your organization and speak on that behalf. So it's so important to kinda understand that because you can go on podcast for a completely different reason and be a speaker and trainer and hope to drive people to your site to set up a free consultation. That's completely different. So really understanding the nuances of what you're trying to do and what success looks like is so important because the activities can be the same, but the desired results and the goals can be completely, different in how you execute that.

[00:03:32.90] - Jean Humbrecht

Mhmm. Yeah. That's that's actually a really good point and I'm really glad that you put it that way because you might you might think to yourself You know, I don't I don't want to pay for a facebook ad or I don't want to you know pay for this or to get boosted here or there but if you have a specific goal, you know to promote your book or to get word out about something or some promotion or some big event you have You know coming up and if you already know that's your goal and you're going on a bunch of podcasts or a bunch of new shows, whatever it is Then maybe you will want to pay to boost that because you're you're trying like you have a very specific goal of what you're trying to do. It's not just paying money to Get my name out there. It's paying money so people will buy my book or whatever whatever the situation is

[00:04:20.19] - Gresham Harkless

Right. Absolutely. Yeah. It it makes so much sense. There's there's so many different ways to definitely do that. And and I think too, as a podcaster, it it's you always pay attention to the podcast that performed the best. So if you're trying to, maybe repitch that person on being a podcast or even if you're trying to pitch the next podcaster, if you can say, hey. I was on this show, and I got, you know, this much, you know, you know, likes and shares and so on and so forth, that's gonna be very interesting for a podcaster to see and to understand that not only are they having you on the show, they're gonna have a really phenomenal episode, but they're potentially also gonna increase their reach by just having you on the show. So it's also thinking about what they have in to create as many win win situations as you can.

[00:05:11.00] - Jean Humbrecht

Awesome. But that's a that's a really good thing to think about. I mean, it sounds so simple, but I didn't even think about that.

[00:05:16.50] - Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:05:17.80] - Jean Humbrecht

Is there is there anything else that you think we could or not, you could, tell everybody just to kind of sum up. I guess I guess what I'm really getting at, not really sum up, but there's there's so much you can do, and we already we already talked several times about, you know, having a focus and a target audience or a target goal. Now how would you suggest people, you know, start if they cannot figure out who their target audience is? You know? I think I think you called it paralysis by analysis. Mhmm. How do you how do you get over that fear, which I think a lot of us prob I need to get better about asking questions quicker. But I guess what my point is, you don't know you don't know what to do and you don't know how to start, but you gotta get your name out there. So what would you suggest people do first just to start doing something?

[00:06:12.50] - Gresham Harkless

Just, if we're talking about social media, literally just go and download the the app of whatever you wanna try out and do the thing that you like doing the most. So if you spend a lot of time on Instagram and you're guilting yourself because you're spending so much time on Instagram, open up that business account. Just it's usually if you already have it open, it's just probably just opening up a tab and go ahead and start and get started and get your hands kinda dirty, so to speak. Because I think digital marketing, generally speaking, is still fairly new, and there's a lot of evolution that's happening there. And there's a lot of opportunity. I think, if you are able to kind of look at things in a, in a different and unique way, but I'm a really action oriented person. And I think that if you know that you are one of the people that might, you know, have that paralysis by analysis, I think that's the best way to to do it is just kinda get your hands dirty. And then, the beauty the the biggest thing I would say, is make sure that on social media platforms is not as big a deal, but, like, on your website, for example, you have analytics kinda built into your website. And the reason that I say that is because when you're trying to figure out if this is working or not working, you're doing it based off of, you know, whether or not you have clients, you know, come through the door, which is a way you might, you know, determine success, but you're also able to look at the data and see all of that information. So make sure you understand that one of the biggest benefits of digital marketing is that you have so much data and information that you can get, from your activity to determine whether or not it's success. And I would I would say too that just, you know, take that action and understand that sometimes if you don't reach success, it's not because you're on the social media platform, you're doing everything wrong, you need to completely change everything that you're doing. Often, it could be an image that gets a better, you know, drive of results or or or clicks. Or it could be, it could be a a copy or or message or something along those lines. So understand that you have the ability to be able to kinda do things like a a b test, which are just basically changing one variable so that you can see if there is an improvement, from, you know, one thing that you do to another. So just understand and and be and and, again, have kinda have fun with it, as far as, like, how you can reach yourself reach your way to success by continuing to kinda, test out things.

[00:08:34.79] - Jean Humbrecht

Okay. That's that's some really good advice. And, I I know what Gresham is talking about. If you guys have not looked at the analytics, just for example for Facebook, you know, you can go onto your page or I can go on to my business page and I can see how many people, you know, watch this video. I can see how many people shared the video, and you know, any of my posts, you know, on my personal page or my Facebook page and all the platforms I'm sure have, you know, similar capabilities and I I know websites do too. I'm guilty about not checking that as much as I should. But, I mean, what what you're saying makes a a lot of sense, and it makes me really wanna go back and do that because I don't wanna, you know, keep spinning my wheels. It looking at the analytics, it's it's just good because it either confirms that what you're doing is working or it's showing you that you're, you know, spending time on something maybe that's that's not. And time is very valuable, so if your time could be better spent somewhere else. And then, like, you also said, it might not even be that it's it's that one particular thing you're doing. You you mentioned a a message. Right? Do you when you say message, do you mean kind of the the branding, the way that you put your message out there?

[00:09:50.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I and it could be that. It could be the copy. It could be so many different things. If we're talking about just to say, like, a Facebook post.

[00:09:59.89] - Jean Humbrecht

Mhmm.

[00:10:00.50] - Gresham Harkless

You could have and test out two different messages. One may resonate more than another, and that's really, I think one of the things that a lot of, successful, especially in in IT and and and companies like that, is they will basically just get started. There's a book called The Lean Startup, and the idea is that you create what's called an MVP, and the MVP is a minimum viable product. So you don't create so many people spend so much time in terms of building everything to have it be a finished product when in reality, their clients that they thought would want it don't actually want it. So what you do is you build an MVP, and you basically use the data to continue to kinda improve what it is that you have. So the MVP can be as simple as a, a questionnaire. You start out with a questionnaire of this idea that you have, and then you get that data, and then you start to create it, and then you create it as simple as possible. There's there's even a quote that says, if if by the time you've launched, people aren't laughing at what it is that you've created, then you've launched too late. So you spent so much time perfecting it, making it, you know, the the best thing ever that you're not really leaning on the data, re really leaning on the feedback that you get rather than on sometimes the vision that we have or or what we're trying to create, which, you know, you wanna have a balance of both. But, again, getting that feedback is is huge.

[00:11:24.79] - Jean Humbrecht

Mhmm. So I I get the main points that I'm taking from this are, you know, don't don't do everything. You know, pick something to focus on or pick something that you like if you can't figure out what to focus on. Experiment if you can't figure it out. Well, Well, the first thing I should have said is figure out who your ideal market is. But if you can't, you know, just pick something, one or two things, and try them, see how they work. Look at the analytics, because, you know, we don't all they're only twenty four hours in a day, and we only have so much money. So we wanna see if these things that we're doing are working. Being willing to change, you know, and add cinnamon to the recipe, I guess. Mhmm. Any other any other big points I'm missing?

[00:12:13.29] - Gresham Harkless

No. I mean, I think if last thing I would say, just do it. You know, just get your hands dirty and just go about doing it. I think that's the biggest thing, but I think you you you nailed everything.

[00:12:23.10] - Jean Humbrecht

Okay. Well, before you go, Gresham, I just wanna tell everybody that, I'm gonna ask you to put your contact information in the comments. And I I don't know if you talked about it in in the beginning, but you have so many resources on your website. So just before you go quickly, can you tell everybody about the different podcasts and the blogs and and, and the course that you that you offer for people?

[00:12:50.39] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. So I have and and and work on, you know, different things, and I have everything at, the site, I am gresha dot com, and I'll I'll definitely put that, in the comments as well too. But I as as I talk about, you know, creating your own mini company, central to that is really providing resources for the target clients that you're you're trying to work with. I work with entrepreneurs and business owners, so I try to provide resources for business owners. So, if you go to a site, it's it's cbnation dot co, you'll see there's there's blog posts, there's podcast, and there's video content, all either giving you the opportunity to hear a really phenomenal story from an entrepreneur or business owner, hear what they're doing, and or it could be a resource that really can make you more effective and efficient. So that could be everything from, how to leverage, Facebook Lives and and to be more effective, what exactly SEO is. And it's all created, and it's more of a a platform because I have guest posts. I have email interviews. There's there's podcast interviews. So, it's all from people that are experts like, you know, Jean, at what it is that they do, letting you know how you can level up and be better. So I think that's one of the most exciting things that I'm able to do is provide value and hopefully also help out a lot of these entrepreneurs and business owners.

[00:14:09.00] - Jean Humbrecht

Okay. Well, yeah, it's so awesome. There are so many good resources on your site. I've I've been there before, And it's actually one of the things on my to do list to to check out the new the new things that are coming out All the all the podcasts are great. And gresham keeps the podcast short, too. I think they're all about sixteen minutes and even the questions and even though there are specific questions every entrepreneur that's on there has different answers and I learned so much I could I could just advertise for Gresham all day. You guys have you guys have to go and check out the website. And, yeah. I mean, I could keep going, Gresham, but we need to kinda wrap things up. So is there anything else you wanna say to everybody before we take off for the day?

[00:14:47.10] - Gresham Harkless

No. That's it, Jean. I appreciate you so much for being on my show. I appreciate you for so much for giving me this opportunity. So, thank you for, you know, all the awesome things you're doing, and and I think you're the definition of being a media company, so I appreciate you for doing that too.

[00:15:00.60] - Jean Humbrecht

Well, thank you. But I should probably check out that, that post that you have about leveraging a Facebook live and hope that I'm doing everything right.

[00:15:08.89] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. This is Gresh again, and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I am CEO podcast. Podcast. Just like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these eight pillars to show you as a builder how you can leverage these eight pillars and really level up there so it helps to level up your business and organization. So hope you enjoyed this episode, and definitely please check out the show notes so you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guested on their episode, and, of course, learn more a little bit more about us as well too. This is Grass signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.