Why Your Marketing is Not Generating the Results you Need

Last week, I was discussing my article “The One Word Killing Your Sales” with the General Manager who inspired it. He asked me in a slightly joking tone, what I thought the one thing holding back or “killing” his marketing was. It took me a minute and then I said: “Results”

Now it was not the word he was looking for. I am sure there are many buzzwords he had heard or thought I would say, but in thinking of conversations I have had regarding marketing over the past year, “Results” is the word most demanded, discussed, misunderstood and fought over I could think of.

My company, PCG, works as a marketing agency mostly in the automotive vertical. We work with dealerships to help generate more qualified shoppers and create more sales opportunities. Yet one of the main points of discussion every month is this concept of results.

Dealerships work on a monthly cycle for sales. All of the clichés are true, “From Hero to Zero” when a new month begins. “Only as good as your last month” and many others. Due to this; both agencies and dealerships must accept this reality: a good deal of marketing takes time to show good results. Explaining this in a clear way can sometimes be challenging.

Everyone interprets the numbers different ways.

One vendor may consider a conversion one thing and another agency does not agree. A client may be excited to see the number of pages visitors are viewing on their website going up, yet if the multiple clicks are due customers finding it is hard to locate what they want, then it is not a result to be excited about.

Let me share this example. There was a campaign where the dealer invested $500 and generated 25 opportunities. A pretty good result. Yet these opportunities only resulted in the sale of one car by end of month. Now in discussing these results, the manager did not think this was successful. He focused on only one sale out of 25 opportunities. “These opportunities are not good. We only sold one.”

I agreed they had sold only one car, but we had put a longer-term strategy in place to follow up with those who did not buy immediately. Over the next 60 days, 5 more cars were sold. Now if we only focused on the first month, the results did not look great. But after time, they excelled.

There are two parts which must work in unison where this concept of short- and long-term results can co-exist. First the agency must explain both short- and long-term goals and secondly the leaders of the business must trust the agency’s plan. Both sides must be clear on the intent of the agency’s marketing efforts, or the full strategy they have in place. If not, it can cause confusion and emotions to impede long term success.

This is not always as easy as I have just written. Trust me it isn’t. PCG has been working with the industry, leading the charge for vendors to standardize marketing metrics so everyone is on the same page. Click to download the PCG Engagement Project PDF

Until that time, dealerships and agencies have to be clear on what metrics are being measured, presented, and classified as short- and long-term results. Then they must be monitored and communicated. If we only focus on providing short term results, we lose out on building up longer strategies to keep a relevant marketing messages in front of the right audience at the right time for them.

Remember; results are a combination of actions that impact outcomes and we must look at the full cycle to make confident decisions.

If I can be of service, please let me know. I appreciate you reading this and hope you would share it with your network of people. It would mean a great deal. 

Glenn Pasch is the current CEO of PCG Companies as well as a writer and National Speaker. He also has helped create the PCG Digital Marketing & Lead Handling Audit