Know Your Numbers
Brian McGovern
Numbers. If you want to book bigger and better events, if you want to make more money this year than last year, you’ve got to know your numbers.
Show me an event professional who consistently and accurately tracks their vital stats, and I’ll show you an event pro who’s making money.
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” goes the saying. You can’t improve your marketing and sales process when you don’t have your facts.
Can you produce hard data answers (and not guesstimates ) to these important questions?
- Where do most of your inquiries come from?
- What percent of your inquiries develop into leads?
- What percent of leads book appointments?
- How many appointments does it take to produce a sale?
- How have your percentages trended? Are you getting better at producing and converting leads? If not, why?
You must measure every part of your marketing process. Know what your return on investment (ROI) is for every single promotional dollar you spend.
Know When To Hold ‘Em, Know When to Fold ‘Em.
Once you know which advertisements are producing the highest ROI it’s time to cut your losses and let your winners run.
When times are tough, we cut back. It makes sense to cut your most expensive advertisements … but only if you truly understand the difference between “expensive” and “lowest cost.”
A $1,000 advertisement can be more expensive than a $5,000 ad. When an advertisement produces less revenue than its price, it’s expensive. When an ad makes you more money than its price, it’s no longer a cost – it’s a solid investment.
Effective advertising (that which generates more than its price) is the equivalent of buying dollars for dimes.
Dimes for Dollars.
Here’s a pop quiz. Which is more expensive; a $5,000 ad or a $1,000 ad? Your Yellow Pages ad costs $5,000 a year and generates $10,000 in new event booking. Your ad in The Local Paper costs $1,000 and generates no business. Which costs more?
Seems obvious, but most business owners don’t seem to get it. When cash is tight they cut the higher priced / lower cost ad and continue to use lower priced / higher cost ads. Why? They don’t know their numbers.
When I create an advertisement that costs me $4,000 and generates $40,000 in new business, the only question I ask is, “How can I scale this ad campaign? How can double or triple my spend on this ad?”
But only 1 out of 10 event business owners thinks that way. Most of your competition doesn’t think of advertising as “buying dollars for dimes,” because most of them have no idea which ads are producing positive returns and which ones are losers.
Stop Guessing
Any knucklehead can grow an event business when the market is booming and demand is outpacing supply. But when the demand drops, only the smart marketers will survive.
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