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3 Reasons to Love Measurement Plans Test & Learn WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR CONTENT MARKETING, THE LAST THING YOU SHOULD DO AFTER CREATING YOUR CAMPAIGN IS SWITCH ON THE AUTOPILOT. HERE'S HOW YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR FLIGHT PLAN ON THE FLY. O N C E A C A M P A I G N goes live, no matter how many leads it is bringing in, there is always room for improvement. The solution is that there is no exact solution—instead, you should experiment, experiment, and experiment more. » CHOOSE A SINGLE KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR (KPI) TO IMPROVE. Don't get overly ambitious with your experiments—each tweak should be related to only a single KPI. If your goal is to increase appointment requests and sign-ups for your newsletter, that is two experiments and can stretch you thin. » CREATE A HYPOTHESIS. An experiment's hypothesis is just a single sentence that states the test and the desired outcome. A successful hypothesis will make it clear what you intend to change, along with the outcome you're hoping to see. » RUN THE EXPERIMENT. Work with your marketing agency or internal team to set up and launch the experiment. Your team members should have one or several tools that let them test content for performance. Once the experiment has run its course, return to your hypothesis to see if it held true. What determines a successful test is not whether your hypothesis was true: It is whether you learned something. Your agency should always be moving forward and focusing on new changes. The key is that you should keep asking questions and be willing to act on the answers. For more marketing insights and ideas you can implement today, visit our From the Experts blog at truenorthcustom.com/blog. SUCCESS IN YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY STARTS WITH KNOWING WHAT TO MEASURE BEFORE YOU START. W H E N Y O U ' R E I N V E S T I N G T I M E , energy, and money in a marketing campaign, setting up for success starts early. A measurement plan means you go into the campaign understanding your key performance indicators and which variables matter most to you and your team. Here are the top three reasons we at True North Custom love measurement plans: » MEASUREMENT PLANS ENSURE campaigns are aligned with desired business outcomes. The ultimate goal of any healthcare marketing campaign should be tied to a business objective, such as increasing orthopedic patient volume or decreasing avoidable emergency department encounters. The measurement plan starts at the inception of the marketing plan and helps synchronize everything else that flows from that objective. » IT MAKES YOU THINK about what's really important. Explicitly tying metrics to the business objective and goals forces everyone to think about what metrics matter most. Are page views going to tell you if you succeeded at increasing orthopedic patient volume, or would the submission rate on a "Request an Appointment" form be a better indicator? » EVERYONE INVOLVED KNOWS what success looks like from the outset. Answering the question "Did the campaign work?" is part of being a marketer. Having a measurement plan from the start means that everyone will know what outcomes are being monitored and what targets define success for the campaign. For more marketing insights and ideas you can implement today, visit our From the Experts blog at truenorthcustom.com/blog. 10 INSIGHT V11N3 TRUENORTHCUSTOM.COM insight FROM OUR BLOG

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