Even the best marketing campaigns will need tweaking to perform their best. So how do you know the difference between a good campaign that needs a little polish and a campaign that is missing the mark entirely? It’s not always so easy to tell the difference, so here are three signs your marketing needs help.
Your messaging seems off.
The hardest thing to gauge is the effectiveness of your messaging. In part, this is because people often have no idea what good messaging should look like. A common belief is that good messaging means something catchy and cool. Unfortunately, that is about as far from the truth as you can get. In reality, good messaging – especially in the healthcare world – is about clarity. It’s about speaking in the right language to the right person.
Sometimes it’s obvious that the messaging is off. For instance, your company targets cardiologists but your marketer keeps drafting social media posts about “taking charge of your health.” The latter targets patients and entirely misses the mark.
Other times, your messaging is on-target but too complicated. For one client, I re-worked their messaging and created tools to support their sales team. After implementing this in competitive sales conversations, my client reported they doubled their ability to get meetings where a competitor was already in the mix.
When your messaging is right, you will see tangible results.
No one responds to your campaigns.
There is nothing worse than getting no response to your marketing campaigns. Yet no immediate response is not necessarily a cause for worry. After all, sales cycles in the healthcare world can drag on for months – and you can be years warming prospects up.
The issue here is whether there is any movement at all. If they are reading your information but not asking for a demo, then something is working – just not everything. Similarly, if they are engaging with your posts but not clicking through to your website, something is still working.
This could mean something is off in your website navigation. It could mean your call-to-action is throwing people. Or it could mean your campaigns aren’t cohesive enough to bring people in. That was the case for one of my clients for whom I created a comprehensive marketing strategy. Within hours of launching the new campaigns, my client reported two solid, qualified leads had already reached out to them.
The money does not come in.
Of course, the biggest issue is always the bottom line. Marketing may work “top of funnel” but you should still see the impact in the number of sales you close or the amount of funds you bring in. Increasing opens, clicks, or shares is all wonderful – but if that is all you’re getting, something is off.
To see the whole picture, you have to track results at both ends of the funnel. That means paying attention to engagement numbers but also finding a way to tie them to sales conversations and new customers. So when one of my clients reported that the social media campaign I’d designed for them resulted in the biggest engagement they’d ever seen on a post, I was pleased – but cautious. I waited until the campaign had run its course and all donations had come in before declaring it a success. Which, having raised raised three times as much funds as their previous campaign, it definitely was.
Keep an eye on your campaigns.
There is a difference between a high-performing campaign that isn’t quite there yet and a campaign that is completely off course. It’s not always easy to know which is which, so look for the signs.
Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash.