I have a weather app on my phone. It is powered by one of the most robust computers ever assembled: IBM’s Watson – the computer that played in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions and won. However, the other night, my championship weather app told me there would be a 100 percent chance of rain during the night. "Good," I thought. My lawn could really use the rain, so I did not bother to water it. The problem is that a 100 percent chance of rain does not guarantee that it will rain; rather, it indicates that it is extremely likely.So when I woke up the next morning, I was surprised to find my lawn was dry as the Sahara and my app had failed me.

Is marketing like my weather app? Is it making promises it can't keep, and when you question whether 100% means what you thought it meant, you get the runaround from your marketing team? They say things like, "Well, we cannot always predict what customers will do" or "At least you got good brand exposure." Here is the bottom line with marketing: all marketing is meant to increase your sales. If you cannot draw a line from your marketing to the cash register, you need to either take a closer look at the results of your marketing or tighten the screws on the way you evaluate it. Let’s take a look at both.

Take a closer look

Many times, businesses go about doing their marketing without any measurement tools in place. That is a crying shame because so many tools exist. Many of them will seamlessly track marketing campaigns and log your success: from target market, to interested prospects, to first-time customers, to repeat customers, etc. A good CRM system will do this if you take the time to input the information. I often bring this up with business managers. Many times I get a stern reply, "Who has time for that?" My response: anyone who wants to make money from their marketing.

The other component in marketing that is often missing is goals. How do you know what to shoot for if you don’t know where the finish line of success lies? What kind of marketing goals should you set? They need to be tied to your sales goals. Maybe you want to add another $5 million in annual gross sales to your business. How are you going to accomplish this? First, start with a little evaluation. How much does the average customer pay for your products or services in a year? Let’s say, on average, each annual customer transaction is $2,500. You would need 2,000 more customers to hit your sales goal. Next, how many prospects who have shown some interest in your brand actually follow through to the sale? Let’s say 10 percent do so. Simple math would tell you that you need to get your marketing message in front of 20,000 prospects in order to meet your sales goal. Does everyone you send your marketing to become an interested prospect? No, so what percentage responds to your marketing? Let’s say 25 percent do. Now we know that if we target the right group of people, we need to get our marketing in front of 80,000 people to meet our sales goal of increasing revenue by $5 million. These are the numbers you need to start building your marketing goals.

Tightening the marketing screws

Here is where we need to be honest about what we are doing in marketing. Many times, marketing methods will not get your brand in front of the right group of people – your target market. If you know who is more likely to buy from you, you need to find marketing mediums that appeal to that group. Don’t waste your marketing dollars on mediums that will not have a return on your investment. Also, don’t get caught up in smoke and mirror numbers that are meant to make a medium look better than it really is. A social media reach may not be the target group you are seeking as customers. Look at the numbers. If your marketing mediums don’t align with your target, change the medium.

Also, take a close look at your messaging. Are you appealing to the correct people? Are you enticing them to take a deeper look at your brand, or are you trying to be more creative, funny, or provocative than the next guy? Sometimes marketing just gets too cute for sales... which is the point of marketing.

Take the guessing and hoping out of your marketing. Do yourself a favor and establish marketing goals. Measure your success. Get rid of the mediums that will not work for your target market and take a close look at your messaging. Remember that sales are the desired goal of any marketing campaign, and it should be more reliable than my weather app.