How do you know if your marketing is successful?

Is it name recognition? The cash register ringing? More phone calls?

There's a better answer…

Your marketing must make you more money than it costs you.

There, doesn’t that feel better?

If you spend more than you make, your marketing is failing. If you make more than you spend, your marketing is working.

Stop complicating things. It’s easy to hide behind marketing smokescreens. There’s PPC and CPM and CTR — coupled with impressions, response rates, conversion rates, and on and on.

All fine and great. But acronyms are often excuses wrapped in business school jargon.

Did you make more money than you spent?

“Well, no, but we got our name out there. That’s a benefit, right?”

That’s entering a minefield. Playing that game requires serious cashola, the kind usually reserved for major-leaguers like Apple, Nike, and Pepsi. I’m guessing most of us have significantly less marketing budgets.

For small and mid-size businesses, we need marketing that works. Not just name recognition, but increased sales. Sales greater than what we spent in marketing.

Here’s a call back to simplicity. Basic numbers, basic math.