What are ‘Outcomes’ in Marketing?

No marketing effort exists just to exist—it’s always seeking to inspire a feeling and action in target audience members. Whether that action is visiting a website, subscribing to a newsletter or buying a product or service, marketing is the road sign leading customers there.

In evaluating whether a given marketing tactic or campaign works, it’s critical to know the difference between outcomes and results:

Results

Short-term reactions to a campaign or tactic

• social media clicks
• website or landing page visits
• email opens and click-through rates
• inquiry form submissions.

Outcomes

Specific results that affect the business’s bottom line, long-term

• sales increase on a promoted product or service
• creating a new touchpoint in the customer journey
• better-qualified leads that are easier to convert
• increase in repeat purchases

Outcomes in Practice

To apply outcome-based marketing to your business, customer relationship management software and basic web analytics are non-negotiable musts. You need to track customer behavior as accurately as possible to identify patterns and opportunities.

With the right measurement tools in place, we then ask, “What business outcome matters most to you, and why?”.

Once we have a specific, measurable outcome for a client, we build our marketing strategy, timelines and key performance indicators around what will achieve that outcome.

After our marketing solutions (website, SEO copy, social media campaign, etc.) are launched, Leadline closely monitors the right data points to see what is moving us toward our outcome. Anything that underperforms is pivoted ASAP, ensuring we generate immediate results and the desired outcome.