Many Great Ideas Die Off Because of Bad Execution
We have worked with 1,000’s of companies and have come to find a common pattern, everyone wants a higher ROI, must have no idea what to do. The common problem seems to be bad execution. Here are 5 tips that we know get a higher ROI every time these practices are in place.
5 Direct Steps You Should Do to Increase ROI
1) Tracking, Tracking, Tracking! It cant be overstated but this is the step, step 1 that almost everyone, every company completely gets wrong.
You can’t manage what you do not measure. If you are trying to increase ROI, you actually have to measure it. The more detailed your tracking and reporting, the more optimizations that can be done. ROI is a qualitive metric expressing the ratio for every dollar spent to how much is made.
It is really surprising, but most get the ROI formula completely wrong. The majority of the companies that we have done assessments for have no ROI reporting in place nor a system. Many leaders complain they are getting low ROI. Conversion tracking is incredibley important and needs to be configured to track all revenue generating behaviors that customers take i.e. phone calls, form submissions, chats, texting, appointments scheduled, and purchases. These are the main, most important conversion goals to track. Others that might also be important are downloads, subcription signup,…. There are many vanity metrics that are completely irrelevant to the ROI discussion, such as # of visitors, social media likes,
The common reason why so many get this wrong is they DIY it or they outsource to an untrained, unqualified person that can install the code but has no idea what to do after.
Test, Reconcile, Strategize
Companies that have well defined testing strategies, know what it means to reconcile their data and to strategize on their next test. The more split testing you can do, normally the better you can execute. But you don’t follow step 1 correctly, nothing that you test will be down well. Again, most companies completely get their tracking wrong, with partial setup, and partial reporting.
So they make decisions based on half the data.
2) Test, Test, Test – it is the fundamental way to improve ROI. Setup a control group, and at least 1 test group. Segment your audience and start testing different offers. What you will find is the more testing completed, the more you learn what works and what doesn’t.
If your marketing team is not testing your keywords, ads, landing pages, you have bad execution. If you do not have enough data, you have bad testing execution. If you are not tracking the most important revenue generating events, you have bad setup. All too often bad execution starts from the top of an organization and rolls down hill.
The quickest way to improve ROI, is to turn off everything that doesn’t generate a return. We normally identify these customer groupings in as few as 100 clicks. Turn off and pause low ROI segments while at the same time increase traffic in the highest performing segments. This works every time and always increases ROI
3) Reconcile your data. Why? Because it is crucial for success.
It also means you probably have really good reporting, which means its important to ensure accuracy. Without accuracy you are just dumb luck guessing.
There is no auto pilot setting. If you set it and forget it, don’t expect any ROI. Surprisingly, most companies allow their marketing teams to rarely perform updates, rarely check on performance, almost never perform reconciliations to ensure accuracy.
When you reconcile, you find what is causing bad results. When you identify bad ROI, you can fix it. You can setup a specific test to improve or you can simply pause and stop the bleeding.
Know Your A,B,C's | Always Be Converting and Always Be Closing
4) Focus on sales, nothing else matters. But dont focus on loss leaders!
Double down on the best performing channel is a tried and true recommendation that I hear most experts preach. Double your budget, double your effort, focus on what drives sales. If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense.
Too often people spend time optimizing for the complete wrong metric. Here is an example that increased transactions but had a detrimental impact on Revenue, Conversion Rate and Average Order Value. Dont double down on loss leaders. You will double your loses!
When you focus on sales, revenue should go up. But if you focus on the wrong sales,
Get Help
Get help earlier, get help often. Expert consultations work great and should be a regular part of your execution. Peer reviews are great for team building and help your members grow when they share their work and get a peer to provide insights. One of the easiest ways to get help is from your competition.
Surprisingly competitors give away their trade secrets all the time. A comprehensive review of your top 5 competitors comparing and contrasting to your company is a great way to gain insights. A comprehensive review is more than just reviewing their website. Studying their ads, keywords, landing pages and even calling and secret shopping. Some of our best ideas come directly from our competitors. We just execute better than they do.
