We all want results in our businesses. Whether that’s more leads, more sales, bigger margins, better profits, we’re all in business because we want to achieve.
But do we all know (and not just guess) how we get our results? How do we know what actions and activities lead to what results and outcomes?
Take my business as an example. In order to continue offering membership benefits, we need members (this sounds really obvious I know but bear with me!).
To attract new members to MINT, we need to meet, talk to and get to know people.
We have all the wonderful marketing tools at our fingertips to do this.
We have social media, we have a website, we use digital marketing platforms and traditional marketing such as networking or chatting randomly to a person in a cafe (yup we do!). Our marketing plan revolves around how to meet more humans who need what we can offer.
But tracking outcomes, “What Leads To What” is the only way we know if any of it works.
Here’s another example…
In November we released our 2022 business planner. A non-member bought a planner, which is primarily aimed at members. The same person then attended a taster session and had their new planner with them during the session. The planner had lead that person to want to know more about MINT. And the taster? Well that couldn’t have been a more perfect end to a marketing funnel as it lead that person to becoming a member.
Sales don’t ‘just happen’.
We don’t meet someone and sign them up to MINT on the spot… it takes time and the things we do lead to the next thing and the next thing and the next until eventually all of those things add up to a sale. For us, a new member!
Each month, as a team, we reflect on our marketing activities and work out, as best we can, exactly what activity led to what outcome and this impacts on all the marketing we do. It’s never going to be an exact science because, in the words of a well-known supermarket brand, every little helps…
This month, I took it to the extreme, spending hours looking through all the old photos from 2014 onwards and spotting people from funded training events and networking who are now members. I started mapping out who I met where and how they ended up being in our community.
As we open our Business Hub in Consett later this month, I reflected on the wonderful people who’ve snapped our hands off to join us in the building. The people who have made me realise that our decision to buy a disused pub in the heart of the town isn’t just about what it will do for MINT, but what it can do for our members.
The friendships and collaborations of the MINTies joining us in the new building all date back further than MINT as a business itself.
Michelle and Ian, whom I met at a local networking group, and Moira, who came to various events I hosted through my previous business Digital Sparkles. The power of the relationships we’ve built over the years has really hit me.
But those relationships had a starting point.
And knowing the starting point means we can do more marketing activities that work for our businesses.
Every single member of the MINT team also came from somewhere. My co-director Paul and I have crossed paths so many times over the years (????). Suzanne is one of my best friends forever. Pete and Alan were original bootcamp members. Laura is a long-time member and collaborator (??) and even Holly, our Kickstarter-turned-apprentice we got to meet because her mom is a MINTie member.
So, I’ll stop writing this now and go and pop a schedule of networking events into the calendar across the North East, because you never know who you’ll meet! Your next customer, supplier, collaborator, business partner, employee, employer??
#ExcitingTimes
And here’s just a tiny sampling of some previous exciting times featuring some of our current members, friends and the MINT team.
