Many online marketing campaigns do not reach their full potential because the campaign manager fails to ask a fundamental question. Consider the following example.

Imagine you called a search engine marketing agency and instead of saying “We want to improve our natural search rankings. Can you help us?” you said “We are interested in using natural SEO to generate 1000 new customers per month at an acquisition cost of 10% or less. Can you help us?”

If you asked the second, more specific question, one of the following two things would happen.

1. The SEO expert would feel like you kicked them in the stomach because while they know how to “do SEO” they have little or no idea how to use SEO to actually generate sales; or
2. You get incredibly lucky and end up speaking to someone that truly understands how search marketing works and would intelligently discuss how to integrate SEO into your marketing campaigns to achieve your sales goal.

Most marketing tasks do not exist in a vacuum. By asking your vendors (or internal staff) specific, goal oriented questions, you help them connect their work to the big picture. Also, intelligent questions help weed out team members or vendors that simply do exactly what you ask instead of turning on their brains and making smart, holistic decisions.

The Magic Question

In order to formulate intelligent marketing questions like the one discussed above, you must start with the fundamental question many people skip.

What results, specifically, I am I trying to achieve?

Duh. We already ask that question Matt. Actually, based on my experience, people often skip the this question or they ask the question and fall into one of the following traps.

1. Focusing on the means instead of the ends. First page search rankings are not your goal. 1000 new clients a month at a 10% cost per acquisition is your “real” goal.
2. Come up with a vague answer like “We want to generate more business.” Without specifics it is impossible to determine which tactics will work best. How do you know SEO is appropriate if you don’t know your end goal?
3. Assume that everyone knows the true end goal. If you don’t state your end goal clearly and remind your team or vendors about it, people may put blinders on and fail to connect their work to the larger marketing initiative.

If you, your team, or your vendors tend to talk about intermediate results and rarely or ever talk about how those results relate to or support your end goal, you can safely assume that you have not sufficiently asked or answered  the magic question.

Get clear about your true end goal and consistently ask people how their work supports that goal. You will dramatically improve your return on investment (online or off).