Rewriting the Rules of Measurement

By Amanda Galley

 

Analyzing campaign metrics and identifying returns has become a moving target during the pandemic. As I was preparing an outline for a client review yesterday, I found myself a little sad at rethinking the term YOY (year over year) for my narrative. During the heaviest days of the quarantine, our Wahl Media account and digital teams performed daily and weekly evaluations of our campaign metrics and results, and little has changed as 2020 rolls on.  These measures are critical because consumer activity is changing quickly and, as marketers, we have to adapt. Below are four key concepts for rewriting your rules of measurement.

 

  1. Listen: The human element is more important now than ever. Establish ways for your marketing team to listen to your customers. Evaluate your social channels and content to understand how your customers feel and the changes they are experiencing. Use your social platforms to conduct surveys or post questions. Create promotions around this to incentivize response, or use social listening to seek out specific keywords and look for reactions.  Check out this great report from Accenture which focuses on the human reactions to COVID-19.
  2. Test & Analyze: Let’s face it. Here in New York State, our world changes every two weeks. This changes the decisions we make and how we spend our money on a weekly basis. The way I shopped for groceries last week, when restaurants were closed, was different than this week, when we can now go out to eat at our favorite spot. Consumer sensitivity is at an all-time high, and our responsibility as marketers is to avoid being tone deaf to the market. Your attention to messaging needs to take the same track. Messages and creative that landed last month may not have the same meaning today. A/B and pre-testing will give direction to your team and ensure relevance to your audience. Google Marketing published this article about which areas of measurement they’re focusing on.
  3. Understand your industry reality and adapt: Every industry is facing challenges, both positive and negative. It’s our job as marketers to understand the reality. Our superpower is to bend the reality to the advantage of our brand, making it palatable to our consumers. This involves reading the uncomfortable metrics and numbers and finding ways to adapt your plans. Media consumption has been turned on its head! Dig deep into your data and understand the changes your team needs to make and develop a plan to adapt. Facebook offers solid thoughts on this concept in this article.
  4. Do it now: Urgency is critical in our current environment. The experience of the last few months shows us that consumers are not waiting to make decisions. Your reaction time and project length needs to be exponentially faster and more efficient. Divide up your team to assess areas of need and empower them to develop solutions. Areas to think about include your technology, brand message, media mix, and website capabilities. Bynder produced an excellent report with more on this concept.

 

The world is changing just as fast as our ability to measure it. With thought and action, your team can understand your consumer’s needs and work to meet them with your brand’s capabilities. The Wahl Team is right there with you. We’re proactively working to address measurement changes, and we continue to deliver strong campaign results for our client partners.