Visual traction is the only relevant brand and communication KPI
As a marketer there are so many exciting things that we could be working on every single day. The retailer and brands that I work with, Understand that things have to move forward or else they will become obsolete.
One thing I see every day are teams who swamp themselves with work that does nothing more than manage the status quo.
Yet, most of the things they do, aren’t visible to the outside world. And there is no or little time to spend on areas of the business that show movement, potential and traction.
My mindset today: the only KPI that really matters is visual traction.
If something doesn't move forward, at all, we have to shift our focus — do things differently — and probably just let it be.
Daily chores and projects that don’t grow and develop, aren’t things that really make a difference.
The Instagram example
We started working on our gandt group Instagram account a few months back. It’s a great platform to show potential new employees what it’s like to work at our consultancy, work on our community and maybe even gain a client or two.
Yet, our Instagram posts do not show any positive numbers in terms of engagement and follower development. Regardless of the number of followers we have today (around 100 — which isn’t much, but they are all close friends and family to our team) we either have to find traction elsewhere, or do things differently.
As long as there is growth and movement, we are doing something right. It is not on,y about the number of followers we have, but the engagement and how active our community is, count too. But if we have come to a stand still, it is time to mix things up.
Doing things differently will include exploring new content creation avenues, spreading the word on our account differently (potentially through ads), and maybe changing the responsibilities on our team.
In terms of finding traction elsewhere, LinkedIn has shown to be a stronger growth channel and one we could explore more, instead. A tough call to make, as the team can relate more to IG than LinkedIn.
Go all in on one channel?
It can be beneficial to focus a great deal of your attentional one channel for a set amount of time.
But, the answer is not a clear yes. The most important thing is to set clear revision points in your work stream. This means that you plan to work on something for a fixed amount of time/or until you have reached certain milestones, before reviewing whether or not you should continue along this path.
What I personally like to do a split my time 50-50. This means that I focus half of the attention that I have on the execution of my ke projects. Next to that I spent the addition of 50% of my time on projects where I have seen/or expect traction to develop.
This might seem like a lot of time to spend on long-term gambles. But it enables me to keep an open mind to new opportunities and not get stuck on my daily chores. I try to apply this working method to as many things as I can — and it can be tricky.
Brand building is all about showing others that things are moving
In order for us to motivate others, we have to make sure they see that things are in motion. We cannot create traction without movement and brand exposure.
- Traction = accelerated growth
- Steady growth = need for change
- No movement = time to pivot
I have asked our brand and comms team what they think of this approach — we have a big H2-focus roadmap meeting, tomorrow. I cannot wait to see how the meeting will go.
If there is one thing I have to make sure of, is that the hard work and skills of my team become visible. And from a brand and comms perspective, sales and new client KPIs shouldn’t matter, but creating visual, tangible, traction-based results for all to see.
~ Remco