Efficiency vs Effectiveness in Sales & Marketing

Hi Folks,

Many entrepreneurs I work with mistake efficiency for effectiveness in sales & marketing.

Online marketing (social media, google ads, SEO, etc) are usually efficient, easy to automate and you have analytical data automatically generated and nicely formatted for your perusal… are they effective?

“Traditional”, or offline marketing (print, salespeople, strategic alliances, direct mailers, referral, etc) are usually less efficient, you need to train people, deal with people, create your own analytical data, automation needs effort and additional training… are they less effective?

Do not confuse efficiency for effectiveness, here is the most common mistake which affects the business negatively:

Entrepreneurs, seduced by the promises made by online or social media consultants, are reluctant or outright refuse to spend time working on their offline strategies until or unless they have something in place to replicate the automated generation of analytical data or the ease of automation they saw in online strategies.

Sometimes, they want to short-cut the process and jump the gun by investing in a CRM (customer relationship management) solution, which costs tons of money, to ‘automate’ strategies they have not yet created or tested.

Here is the bottom line on any strategy:

Cost per Lead, Cost per Sale and Lifetime Value.

These figures determine whether a strategy is Effective. An Effective strategy is one which generates the most profit at the lowest cost, inclusive of lifetime value.

Any strategy, offline or online, can be efficient if you choose to spend the time to work on it, after it’s been proven to be effective through testing and measuring.

(Trust me, the numbers might shock you. What was “cheap” might turn out to be very expensive, vice-versa.)

 When a strategy is Effective, you then make it Efficient by systematizing it, online or offline (this is where investing in CRM may help).

To get effective, you need to work ON your business, continuously learn and upgrade yourself (before you upgrade your team).

Have a profitable week ahead!

The Familybiz Works Team.

ps: Need help to evaluate whether your strategies are efficient and effective? Register NOW for our FREE Business Optimization Clinic, valued at RM750. We guarantee you will get at least 1-2 ideas you can implement immediately, even if you do not engage our services. 

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