The beginner's guide to knowing if your marketing is working
Not sure if your efforts are working? Here’s how to track your marketing progress before the leads start rolling in.
Welcome to a free edition of Start Up To Grown Up: Your source for ideas, insights and tactics to take back control of your business and scale it sustainably and profitably by Heather Townsend, award-winning author of The Accountants’ Millionaires’ Club and Founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club
I was recently asked the following question:
I don’t have a business yet, but I want to understand more about marketing.
The stuff I write about marketing is typically geared to small businesses that are at the stage of scaling.
But what if you are new to the game or starting a new service or offering for your clients? It could take a while before the leads come through. How do you maintain enthusiasm and momentum when the leads are clearly not rolling in? How do you ensure that you are not throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater?
This is what this article will explore:
How do you know when your marketing is working before you start signing up new clients?
Leading vs lagging indicators
Lagging indicators are typically outcomes, such as enquiries generated or clients signed.
Leading indicators are typically activities, such as posting four times a week on LinkedIn.
At this point, when your marketing is still just potential and promise, you will need to measure both your leading and lagging indicators. Your aim is to understand the unique pattern of actions you need to consistently do to generate a lead. There is a much-touted statistic that it takes 7–14 touchpoints before a lead becomes a client.
McKinsey, in their 2024 B2B buyers survey, revealed that B2B buyers now use an average of 10 channels to find their new supplier, up from 5 in 2016.
Forrester found that 82% of customers view five or more content items from a supplier before making a purchase
Rollworks found that 77% of B2B buyers would not even speak to a salesperson until they had done their own research.
Once you know your unique pattern of actions, you can refine them to do less and achieve better results. However, you can only do this if you track your leading and lagging indicators.
Given that you may not have many leads coming through, what are the signs that someone is getting interested? Or that your marketing is working? What are these earlier-stage lagging indicators that show progress?
Let me give you a relevant example. I joined Substack in August, and after an initial flurry of friends and business contacts subscribing, my subscribers stayed static. Yep, crickets. My ego is such that I regularly checked my subscriber numbers, hoping to reach that tipping point where I would be found and magically, organically grow my following. Yes, you guessed it, my subscriber numbers remained pretty much constant. Damn it. After a month of waiting to be found, I decided to make more consistent use of the Substack Notes function. Funnily enough, when I am present on Substack Notes, my Substack subscriber numbers start to tick up.
I now know that there is a strong correlation between subscriber growth and my activity on Notes. However, this may not be the case for you.
Your marketing funnel
A good way to identify earlier-stage lagging indicators is to consider the marketing funnel.
Your marketing funnel is a visual representation of your client’s journey from discovering you to becoming loyal clients. This journey is often referred to as the buyer’s journey.
The stages of the marketing funnel are:
Awareness: Your prospect learns about you and what you do.
Interest: Your prospect considers whether you can help them.
Evaluation: Your prospect assesses or trials what you do.
Decision: Your prospect becomes a client.
Loyalty: Your client stays and buys more from you.
In this article, we are primarily considering the first three stages of the marketing funnel. I.e. when your marketing is working but hasn't yet produced a lead.
For each stage of the funnel, how will you know that your marketing activities - such as pressing publish on a Substack article - are working? And how do you ensure you're not doing the marketing equivalent of shouting on top of a mountain where no one can hear you?
Typically, for awareness, lagging indicators tend to be around engagement with your content. For example:
Number of followers you have
Visits to your website
Number of ‘likes’, comments, or reactions to your content
At the interest stage, you may notice more people wanting to talk to you. These may not be your ideal clients - they could be someone in your network who might introduce you to your ideal client.
At the evaluation stage, prospects actively check you out with purpose. They might:
Sign up as a subscriber, whether on Substack or another mailing list
Buy a low-priced product, such as your book
Join a webinar you are running
But I don’t know what works?
I’ve heard this a lot from those new to marketing or launching a new product or service. At the start, the only thing you have is potential and promise. What you must do is take action. Most of those actions are unlikely to bring in a lead. Unless you track what you do, how will you know what really works?
Too often, people early in their marketing journey adopt a scattergun approach, essentially chucking jelly at a wall and hoping something sticks. Is it any wonder this can feel disheartening?
I always recommend that early marketing activities are done with purpose. This means not spreading yourself too thinly. That’s difficult when it seems like everyone around you has a great way to help you sign up five new clients in five days if you just buy their stuff.
To do your marketing with purpose, here are my suggestions:
Decide on your preferred content medium. Do you like writing, talking, or creating videos? For me, it’s always been writing first and video second. This is why you’ll notice I don’t (yet) have a podcast. Choose your preferred medium and make it the hero and mainstay of your marketing activity. This doesn’t mean you can’t switch things up or repurpose content into another medium. For example, I use video sparingly to complement my writing and repurpose articles into video snippets.
Choose your social media channel. Select one to focus on. If you like writing, Substack is a natural home. If you prefer video, TikTok or YouTube might be better. You can use more than one channel. For instance, we prioritise LinkedIn and Instagram for The Accountants’ Growth Club. For our How To Make Partner audience, LinkedIn comes first, followed by YouTube, with TikTok launching in 2025.
Truly commit to your chosen channels and content types. Yes, you can have experimental projects on other channels (e.g., TikTok in 2025 for us), but aim to be consistent and create relevant content for your primary channels. Don’t try to be all things to all people. As you will end up appealing to none.
Stay focused on your ideal client
I spend over 50% of my time helping small accounting firm owners attract the right type of clients. As a result, I often encounter the belief that a “whatever your needs, we can help” philosophy is key to generating leads for good-quality clients. Bluntly, if you’re trying to serve a broad market with diverse needs, you’re effectively serving no one. This all-pervading belief is a myth. If you want to get better at marketing, narrow rather than broaden your marketplace.
Early in your marketing and business journey, pick a small marketplace to focus on. I often use the metaphor that lead generation is like fishing. You are far more likely to bring a fish (or two) home for your supper if you shoot fish in a barrel than cast a fishing rod into the ocean.
Of course, your niche doesn’t have to be industry-specific, like accounting firm owners. You could focus on a job role (e.g., programme managers), a life stage (e.g., new mums), or an audience pursuing a goal (e.g., giving up smoking). The key is to choose. Every time I’ve narrowed my focus and defined my ideal client, my marketing has become more successful.
Ensure your audience is motivated to buy what you are selling
Let me give you an example of why this is important.
20 years ago, I worked at BDO, which was then in the top 5 firms in the UK, surrounded by ambitious professionals striving to make partner. It was clear that reaching partnership was the ultimate goal for many. But as I got to know these individuals better, I realised something crucial: they didn’t just want the title. They wanted to know how to make partner and still have a life.
That insight became the title of my second book, How to Make Partner and Still Have a Life, and shaped much of my business strategy. I built my marketing around the promise of balancing career progression with personal well-being, helping people rise without sacrificing their health, relationships, or sanity.
But even with that clarity, I struggled to convert my knowledge into paying clients. And I mean really struggled. For years, I was trying to sell the idea of work-life balance, but I wasn’t hitting the mark. People appreciated the concept; my followers were growing day by day, but my bank balance was a testament to the fact they weren’t rushing to buy.
Until one day, a Canadian approached me with a specific problem: he needed help preparing for his partnership panel interview. Unlike many leads I’d encountered before, he was eager to work with me - and willing to pay well for my services. In fact, he didn’t flinch when I gave him a punchy fee quote.
That moment was a turning point. I realised I’d been focusing too much on selling the concept of balance and not enough on addressing the pressing, tangible needs of my audience. Yes, they wanted balance, but their immediate focus was on making partner.
From that day, I reoriented my business. I specialised in supporting professionals during the critical 0-3 year window from senior fee earner to partner. By addressing their most urgent priority - achieving partnership - I quickly built a six-figure business.
The takeaway from this story is that you can build a following who love you and your content. But unless you are selling what they are motivated to buy, your follower numbers won’t pay the bills. Given that you may not have sold anything yet, it pays to do some desk-based research. Is there anyone else selling what you are? This is always a good sign. Are people keen to have a chat with you based on the services you sell? That's another good sign.
Your action this week.
Create and commit to your marketing plan. You deserve to be seen, heard and most importantly bought from.
You touched on the biggest problem most small businesses have:
“…focusing too much on selling the concept of balance [whatever] and not enough on addressing the pressing, tangible needs of my their audience”
I’ve been guilty of that in the past until I realized:
it was outside of industry-specific
it was a common pressing, tangible need
Which is, the need to have something small to sell that starts building trust and loyalty.
I love giving small masterclasses. They’re are fun and fulfilling for me while being profitable.
That’s what I know small business need — a masterclass that give juicy tips and tactics without overloading the attendee.
Thanks a bunch for giving me the opportunity to confirm that I understand marketing @Heather Townsend.
Always getting back to basics of marketing at the beginning of the year is healthy. That is also good for my poker game — refreshing the basics.