Engineers create things. They invent things. They improve things. Without engineers we’d still be pushing carts uphill with mules. At Kirkpatrick Creative we think about advertising like an engineer would. Our Mantra is “If it can be measured, it can be improved.”
Engineering great advertising is all about one thing. Data. Knowing the right data to collect. Knowing how to interpret what is collected. And knowing what decisions to make based on the data.
That is why we track everything. We track which stations leads come from. And which shows leads come from. And which break leads come from. And we measure everything on a cost per lead basis.
Why Cost Per Lead?
We measure everything on a cost per lead basis for one simple reason. It is the only metric that matters. How popular a show is, or its cost per thousand price, is meaningless if that show doesn’t produce leads. Leads are the lifeblood of your business and our clients’ businesses, and without them there is no business.
Cost per lead is also the only metric that produces consistent data. Engineers love consistent data and so do we.
Shows in different markets at different times on different stations can and will have different ratings, viewership, and response rates. But all things being equal, they should have similar costs per leads. This is how we take what works for one client, test it for another, and build success faster in the aggregate for all of our clients.
It’s Moneyball advertising. Engineered advertising. And it works.
The 80/20 Rule of Advertising
Software engineers know that 80 percent of computer bugs come from 20 percent of their code. The same is true for leads. 80 percent of your leads come from 20 percent of your ad buy. The key to improving results is finding what 20 percent is working for you and buying more of the same types of programming.
Application of the 80/20 rule, combined with a scientific approach to testing new ads and programming, can double and even triple the number of leads you generate with 20 to 30 percent less budget. We realize it sounds unbelievable. How could you produce more leads with less dollars? But it works.
Television Ads Equal Website Visits
Television is changing. We all see the way the Internet is reshaping our living rooms. We watch shows on multiple screens and surf with the TV on. But television drives leads to the Internet.
Don’t believe me without verifying it. Check your analytics. If your numbers are anything like our clients’, you get more traffic when television ads are running.
That is why it is more important than ever to have a website that converts traffic into leads.
Recently, we noticed that 33 percent of the conversions on one of our client’s sites came from attorney profile pages. We looked at those pages to see how we could improve them. We made some very minor changes to the contact form on those pages and immediately saw a 2 percent increase in conversions. How would you like to get 2 percent more leads with very little effort and almost no money?
Like an engineer, you have to analyze the data to find where you can improve efficiency, and make targeted changes to improve the outcome.
Keeping an eye on your data and always aiming for improvement works.
Thinking about advertising like an engineer works. Engineers don’t rely on hunches. They don’t use guesswork. They make decisions based on data and so do we.