3 Questions That Will Make Bad Marketers Poop Their Pants

Man… there are some jokers out there who will take your money.

If you’ve been around for a while you know what I’m talking about.

But how can you tell? Sometimes they seem so legit. Luckily, we’ve put together three questions that will reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

#1: How Will Your Tactics Drive Sales AND Build My Brand?

Ready to watch a bad marketer squirm? This one will get them.

Pure direct-response types will only want to focus on sales.

Pure content folks will say brand is all that matters.

But the truth is, building a brand without sales is a waste of money; but focusing on sales alone without thought to how people experience your business is not a long-term plan for success either.

There are a few exceptions. If you are brand new or in a survival situation, just go get those sales until you’re on stable ground. And if you’re Coca-Cola, keep rolling with those polar bears.

If you are somewhere in the middle, meaning you want to grow your business and provide an experience that your prospects and customers will enjoy, then you need to focus not just on what tactics you use, but how you use them.

#2: What Holes Do You See in Our Overall Customer Value Journey?

Here’s why this question will make most marketers pucker up: most of us have our “pet tactics” that we like to rely on to drive results, and while those tactics may work really well for their specific purpose, there is no single tactic that can encompass an entire marketing strategy.

This question forces us to acknowledge that our favorite tactic cannot be all things for your business.

Maybe you have a killer in-house team that is keenly aware of all the moving parts and small actions that must happen for a stranger to become a customer and a customer to become a raving and referring fan. If so, pat yourself on the back and proceed to Question 3.

But if you’re like most small businesses, you’ve got someone who runs your website, maybe someone helping you with social media, an ads team, maybe an SEO guy… but there is no one strategy that keeps everything and everyone working together.

This is how money gets wasted, or at least left on the table. Don’t keep someone around if they can’t explain how they fit into the big picture for your business.

Map out your Customer Value Journey and understand who is responsible for each stage. Once you get this Journey fine-tuned (and everyone working from the same playbook), you will have found your blueprint for predictable sales and will be able to confidently answer these questions:

How will we drive awareness and engagement?

How will we continue to get back in front of people that engage?

How will we convert those people?

How will we keep the people that convert excited and moving up our ascension ladder?

How will we get our customers to say nice things about us?

#3: How Will We Measure Your Effectiveness?

The question may come up eventually… Why aren’t we selling as much as we planned?

Is it the ad copy?

Is it the offer?

Is it the follow-up email sequence?

Is there too much friction on our sales page?

Is it <gulp> the product?

You can’t optimize what you don’t measure.

Good marketers live by data. They know their return on ad spend, they know how much traffic they need to get a lead, and how many leads they need to get a sale. They know their cost per acquisition and their average lifetime customer value.

When something isn’t working, the data will tell them where to get busy.

Good marketers will smile when you ask them this question. You should get a very specific, clear answer. In fact, you may have to ask them to shut up. If you don’t have someone who’s excited to answer this question, that’s a red flag.

Beware of Vanity Metrics. Only measure data that matters for your business and is tied to a specific stage of your customer value journey. There is no need to try and get a bunch of Facebook likes if they don’t really do anything for you.

It’s also worth asking how you will have access to the data and how accountability will work.

So there you go. These three questions are a pretty good litmus test. If you find a marketer than can confidently answer all three, it’s a good sign.

Want to ask us? Bring it.

Or… Sign up for the 90-Day Scale or Bail Campaign and see what Gravity Digital can do for your business in just 90 Days.