Is your marketing a religion or a business?

I was talking with someone a few days ago (who will remain nameless) who has been investing what (to me) is an enormous amount of money on their Web site. I asked what was prompting such a massive investment, and was told, “We believe that the Web site is driving a lot of business.” Being a smart consultant, I did not let out an audible sign of shock, because that tends to scare clients away. But I did find myself asking when marketing became a religion based on doing what we believe in instead of a business that runs on return on investment.

Image by . SantiMB . via Flickr

I know that might sound flip (and I guess it kinda is), but I am trying to bludgeon you over the head with a point. Too many of us treat our Web sites as something that must exist. They exist because everyone has one or because the boss wants one or because a customer asked for one once. And then some of us start pouring money into our Web sites because it looks dated or because a customer complained about it or the boss said it looked embarrassing compared to the competition.
But mostly, we spend money on our Web sites because we believe that they make us money.
And that belief is likely well-founded. But the problem is that we don’t generally know how much money. And if we asked ten different people how much money, they’d probably be all over the map as to how much. Which makes it plenty difficult to know how much money we should invest.
And most of the businesses that fall into this trap do so for an understandable reason. They sell offline. And they have no idea how many people that start out on their Web site end up as paying customers. It’s such a common problem that tomorrow I will explain a few different ways to bridge the gap between online and offline.
In the meantime, think about your business. Are you investing in online marketing because you believe that it makes money? Or do you really know that it does? What could you do to connect the dots? More tomorrow…