See if you can answer these 4 questions, then we’ll grade your paper:

• Do you have a written marketing plan?
• What’s the annual profit value of your average account?
• How much revenue was your website responsible for in the past 12 months?
• Do you know what your closing ratio is?

Finished? How’d you do? Let’s review…..

Do you have a written marketing plan? No? You just wing it, right? Rather than mapping out your trip and planning in advance for a successful journey you just set out and take whatever road comes along. Well I guess if you don’t know where you’re going one road is as good as another. Just remember, you’ll end up somewhere, it just won’t be where you really want to be. If you don’t have a written, carefully thought through marketing plan then this question cost you 25 points and a much smaller retirement account.

What’s the annual profit value of your average account? In other words, do you know how much profit your average accounts are puttingin your pocket annually? If you don’t know this number then you can’t possibly calculate the maximum amount you can spend to acquire a new account. Gotta know this one so if you’re answer was “no” then subtract another 25 points and get out the cryin’ towels.

How much revenue was your website responsible for in the past 12 months? If you don’t have a solid web analytics program (and I don’t mean software) in place then you don’t know. Only through a consistent program of measuring how many visitors you get, where they land on your site, how long they stay, what they look at, from where they leave and dozens of other measureables that can lead you to actionable information can you know whether or not your website is pulling its’ weight and profiting your business. No analytics program in place, deduct yet another 25 points. If your reason for saying, “no” is that “your customers don’t use the internet” please subtract another 10 points for being woefully out of touch with the rest of the world. And if you answered that your website is “just an online brochure” subtract yet another 5 points for being ignorant.

Okay, final question. Are you still in the game or have you flunked out already?

Do you know what your closing ratio is? In order to improve revenue you have to know how to improve your sales effort. In order to do that you have to know each sales rep’s closing ratio in order to determine where improvement is needed. What gets tracked gets improved.

Each of these simple questions are vital to the health of your growing business in some critical way. It’s up to you, the owner, to determine the answers. Call us if you need some help improving your scores.

Related Posts:

• Local Directories and Why You Need Them!
• A Basic Traffic Strategy For Your Website
• What is Page Rank?
• Directories Explained
• An Argument For Small Business Web Analytics (Dallas, TX)
• Top 5 Things To Know About A Marketing Plan (Dallas, TX)
• Where Can I Learn Something About Web Analytics? (Dallas, TX)
• The Best Date To Begin Your Marketing Plan (Dallas, TX)
• What’s The Most Important Page On Your Website? (Dallas, TX)
• Are One of These Answers Responsible For Your Poor Website Performance? (Dallas, TX)

Phillip Crum is the Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasure located at 2414 Arbuckle Court Dallas, TX 75229, and is committed to the idea of helping small business owners do a better job of finding their next customer or client. He and his two sons,Tyler and Preston, also own a Sir Speedy Printing franchise and employ those additional capabilities in the overall marketing services menu of offerings. Phillip can be reached at 214-213-7445, or pcrum@MarketingMeasure.com.