You work hard at your business to earn money, and often that hard earned money makes its way to your advertising budget.  Making sure that your advertising works to improve your business is crucial, and this leads to the all important tracking metrics – measuring the success of your ad campaign.  One of the most common mistakes made in this arena is confusing response with results.

While tracking results can be tricky, tracking response is rather easy.  Results have an impact on your bottom line.  Responses indicate that people were exposed to your ads, but not whether those ads motivated them to make a purchase or made an impact on their opinion of your business.  If you’re clear on the difference, try this experiment.  Purchase some billboards in your hometown and put nothing on them other than a picture of your face.  The entire billboard is nothing more than you smiling.  It won’t take long before your family, friends, co-workers etc. will begin to comment that they’ve seen you on a billboard.  That is a response.  It accomplishes nothing, but it is a response nonetheless.  (This, by the way, is not a dig on billboards, which are fine ways to advertise.  It’s just an easy example.)  Anheuser-Busch (specifically Budweiser and Bud Light) count their ad budgets amongst the largest in the US, and their share of domestic beer sales reflects this.  Do you think anyone has ever placed a 6-pack on the counter and said “I love those new TV spots?”  The point of this is that just knowing people saw yours ads isn’t enough, they have to react to them.  If you can track this, or better yet hire an ad agency to help you, you can get the most out of your ad budget.

My parenting style is not to everyone’s taste, I am strict, direct, set high expectations, yet not unrealistic, and as a working mom I am not available for every milestone or achievement, so when I am with my children I try to be extremely nurturing and focused to make up for all the time I’m away.  As I considered my parenting style it became quiet obvious to me that my professional style was parallel – and that not only was I raising 3 children, I am and have been raising dozens of client over the past 13 years as well.

As a small marketing and interactive firm, we don’t get Fortune 500 companies calling us to participate in an upcoming agency review. In fact, it is a rare occasion that we get an opportunity to work with a well seasoned company with a dedicated full-time vice-president of marketing or even a director of marketing who understands the agency’s role as a support to their goals and objectives. Most of our clients are newcomers to the advertising, marketing, and interactive arena and we spend much of the first year or two in a teaching mode.  While they aren’t in an infant stage, as they aren’t completely dependent on us, they are more in a toddler stage.  Our clients can do a few things for themselves, but are easily distracted and easily upset when we say “no” to some of the things they want, and like many toddlers even after being told “no” they will attempt to do it themselves and later understand the consequences. Unfortunately just like toddlers, those lessons learned don’t usually apply to new wants and wishes.

While I do miss the days before I became a parent and business owner, when I was living in Atlanta and later in Nashville, working for large agencies in production and account management and some of my clients were, Marriott Hotels, Swiss Hotel, BellSouth, The Home Depot, Turner Communications, Cox Communications, Northside Hospital, Northside Realty, Opryland Hotel, Baptist Hospital,  just to name a few, I take great pride in seeing my “toddler” clients grow and am glad to see many of them, just as I am personally glad to see my son, reach ”early adulthood” where they appreciate Blue Olive’s rolling and guidance in helping them reach their goals of brand recognition and revenue growth.