The numbers game is futile (sometimes)

According to the ‘back-end’ of our website, the only marketing recommendation required to improve our SEO was to publish another blog post. There are plenty of stories to tell and opinions to share – but plucking them out of thin air to suit an artificial schedule seems futile. I can play the numbers game by writing a blog, I can write ten. I can send emails to thousands of people, give out business cards like confetti at a trade event and drive big numbers to our website – all of which would be pointless without the potential to add value. Content for the sake of it is just slop.

I’ve spent the best part of my career marketing business-to-business products and services and this is the first company I’ve worked for that isn’t dogmatically anchored to hitting arbitrary numbers and wedded to the notion that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

For a start, that notion of only being able to manage what you can measure is (for want of a better word) bullshit. One of the earliest known sources of the phrase describes it as a ‘costly myth’. Many metrics have value – but there are plenty of things that are impractical or near impossible to measure are still important and still need managing.

Thankfully, the team here understands the value of concepts that are tricky to quantify. For example, innovation, creativity, behaviour and relationship building require the synthesis of complex inputs, followed by judgement and skill to manage effectively. I don’t have to answer to a C-Suite full of Excelophiles who have built a career on weaponizing statistics. I don’t have to spend 80% of my time estimating how I can generate ROI with the remaining 20% of my time. We don’t have investors and analysts demanding unreasonable growth rates that distract executive focus from delivering great products and services for our customers. We don’t even have HR to encourage the application of outdated KPI’s driven by SMART objectives (don’t get me started) that prioritise box-ticking over customer focused endeavours.

From a marketing perspective, we fall outside of the B2B norms insofar as volume of eyeballs and unqualified leads don’t automatically translate to volume of business. Developing a lateral flow test isn’t an impulse purchase, so persuading those who aren’t already looking to get involved would be a ridiculous long-shot.  We’re one of those companies for whom quality is everything and high volume is just an uncomfortable noise.

We rely on awareness and reputation to provide a steady flow of manageable business. As long as people find us when they are looking for the services that we provide – and the pipeline looks healthy, we’re good.

We still have pressure to perform. We have objectives, priorities and processes and wouldn’t be ISO certified if we managed everything on the blind assumption that ‘everyone seems to be doing ok’. We’ve just got enough flexibility within our quality management system to enable us to do what’s right at the right time and not be forced by the agenda of human or digital dictators with a penchant for a graph.

The result of my frustration with a programme that told me to improve my metrics by writing a blog, inspired a blog. I have more up my sleeve that I will share when I’m good and ready.

Thoughts welcome.

Richard