What Low Carb Diet Fanatics Have to do with Interior Decorator Marketing

So…I’ve been doing “Paleo” and “Low Carb” dieting. Both of those are in quotes for a reason. While I have been doing Ok, my weight loss has plateaued. And I have stopped progressing because of those parenthesis. According to low carb and paleo rules, I can’t have dairy. But well, I need milk for my morning cafe con leche. And I don’t have refined sugar…except in espresso, because seriously, have you tried putting Splenda in that? Somehow 15 packs of Splenda (or other artificial sweetener) and the espresso is still painfully bitter. Two spoonfuls (large) of real sugar, and we’re good to go. Just so we’re clear, sugar is a very important ingredient in Cuban coffee.]

Man on a burro waiting by a "ventanita" for his "cafecito". Photo courtesy of Internet Archive Book Images(CC No Copyright)

The reality is that I’ve lost all the easy weight. To get to undeniably visible, action star-level abs, I can’t keep half-assing it. Half ass got me from pudgy to normal / fit. To get to the next level I am going to have to get serious.  I am going to need…*wait for it*…metrics! So just ordered a blood glucose meter on Amazon.

You should measure your Interior Decorator Marketing as seriously as this person measures their blood sugar. Photo courtesy of IntelFreePress(CC ShareALike)

So I told you that, to tell you this

In the same way that ignorance is bliss for my low carb dieting, so it is for our SEO, blogging, marketing, etc. We can blog every day, and tweet things out over social media, and feel great about our “marketing” just like I feel great about my “paleo”. But without metrics, we don’t know how we’re doing.

How many people are clicking through to your blog post from Facebook, as opposed to Twitter or LinkedIn? How many people convert after reading a blog post on your Interior Design Philosophy versus how many contact you after reading about the latest trends in your business. You can’t do you interior decorator marketing properly without this information. 

So enough diagnosis…what’s the prescription?

Your marketing team should start by looking at the following metrics (Some of these are specifically applicable to content and inbound marketing):

1. Overall Traffic – How many people are coming to your site?
2. Referral Traffic – Where is that traffic coming from
3. Email Collection – if you collect email addresses (and you should!!) how many are you collecting
4. E-commerce Sales – if you sell stuff online, how much are you selling?
5. Brand Mentions – How often are people mentioning your brand in social media, and in blogs etc.? You have no idea how to do this? look for an article on this very soon!
6. Coupon Redemptions – if you are using coupons or promo codes and you aren’t measuring their redemption and using different codes for different campaigns and sources, you are just discounting your services.
7. Brand Following – How many people like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, subscribe to your blog?
8. Returning Visitors – Do people keep coming back to your site? are your followers engaged?
9. Bounce Rate – Engaged visitors don’t come, view one page, and then leave!
10. Conversion Rates – are people doing what you want them to do…the Primary Call to Action
11. Leads – If your site isn’t generating you more leads, why do you have it.
12. Revenue – Ultimately you should be able to tie your interior decorator marketing directly to your revenue.

Phase 3 Profit. Photo courtesy of kenteegardin(CC ShareALike)

Where to from here?

I recommend you look at a general online marketing resource from Forbes for your interior decorator marketing metrics.

Hubspot (an incredible resource for anyone looking to learn more about inbound and content marketing) has a great article on 6 metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for your marketing.

What metrics are you measuring in your business and how do you respond to changes in them? Tell us about it on Twitter