“Mad Men” is a term coined in the 1950s to describe Madison Avenue advertising executives.
I miss Mad Men, the American period drama television series about Madison Avenue advertising in the 1960s created by Matthew Weiner. The series ran on the cable network AMC from 2007 to 2015, but its fictional time frame runs from 1960 to 1970.
I don’t miss the show for the cast of characters making horrible life choices. I miss Mad Men, set at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, for its celebration of American marketing.
“Mad Men” is a term coined in the 1950s to describe Madison Avenue advertising executives, brought to life in the popular TV show.
In the show Don Draper and the creative team sit around, staring into space, trying to come up with the big idea to pitch to a client. Once they convince the client that their idea is brilliant, it seems Don's job is done.
Now, the process for creating a real marketing campaign today is different from start to finish.
“With modern marketing, instead of taking a nap or going to a movie waiting for inspiration to strike, we look at data,” says Michelle Stansbury, the founder of Little Penguin PR, a boutique public relations company in San Diego. “We have insights into customer trends, buying patterns, sales cycles, and conversion goals. While creativity is still essential, marketing pros should direct their creativity with a strategic and results-oriented approach.”
Forget about coming up with the one big slam-bam Mad Men idea that will win the day.
“We don't take one big idea and go all-in,” says Stansbury. “We test. Instead of taking a million-dollar gamble on a campaign we hope will work, we start small and make sure the idea is driving results. We split test different messaging, graphics, and outlets to optimize the campaign before committing additional resources to an approach.
Even within public relations, while there are some components of PR and publicity that cannot be quantified, like long-term brand-building, most other aspects of a PR campaign can be measured to determine its success.
The first step is determining which metrics you're going to test before executing any specific strategy. What will you consider a success? Next, track metrics not just to provide that your campaign is successful, but to honestly learn from which strategies are proving most effective.
“Unlike Don, whose job was complete after he pitched a campaign, modern marketers are not only responsible for our ideas, we are responsible for results,” says Stansbury. “The measure of our success isn't just how much a client likes the idea or how many martinis we can down at lunch. We track results and find ways to make marketing analytics both quantifiable and meaningful.”
Here are eight great metrics to track:
1. Opt-in email addresses you obtain from prospects
2. Gross number of people who are sent emails
3. Emails actually opened (this is the net, and the percentage is important)
4. Leads generated by various campaigns
5. Leads converted and average revenue generated per campaign
6. Website page gross impressions (total number of views, not unique visitors)
7. Blog or article readers (this probably tells you which headlines work well)
8. Average lifetime value of a client (how much does a client spend with you over the course of their lifetime)
Think of marketing as a series of science experiments. You have a theory, you test that theory with a hypothesis, and the marketing campaign is the experiment that gives you results. Measure the results so you can make better marketing investment decisions.
