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How to Review Your Own Marketing Every 90 Days

About 20 minutes

"How do I know if my marketing is working?" is a question owners ask a lot. The answer is simpler than it sounds. Count a few things that matter to you, write them down, and look back every 90 days. You do not need a dashboard. This guide shows you how, and ends with a way to plan next quarter in about 20 minutes.

Why 90 days

A week is too short to see a pattern. A year is too long to wait. A quarter is long enough to see what is working and short enough to change course. It is also the length of the plan we recommend, because changes in search can take weeks or months to show. Google's own advice is to wait a few weeks before deciding whether a change helped. For more on why, see What a Real 90 Day Plan Looks Like, With a Sample.

Step 1. Pick what matters to you

Choose three or four things to count. Pick the ones that match how your business actually earns money. Some examples:

  • Phone calls
  • Messages
  • Bookings or appointments
  • Quote requests
  • New faces in the door

Keep the list short. Fancy dashboards can wait.

Step 2. Write them down once a week

Use paper or a notes app, and pick the same day each week. It takes two minutes. If a week was unusual, like a holiday, a closed day or a slow stretch, add a short note beside it so you do not read too much into the number later. Your Google profile can supply calls, website clicks and directions. Go to business.google.com and select Performance.

A short list you keep up beats a big report you never open.

Step 3. Ask people how they found you

Ask every new customer one question: "How did you hear about us?" Ask at the counter, on the phone or on your intake form, and write the answer down, even when it is just "a friend." If someone does not remember, that is fine. Do not push.

Over a quarter, those answers tell you a lot. You may see Google, Facebook, Instagram, a neighbor or a drive by showing up again and again.

Step 4. Look back every 90 days

Set a date, and put it on the calendar. When it comes, look at four things:

  1. Your weekly numbers. Are they up, down or flat across the quarter?
  2. Your "how did you find us" answers. Do you see a pattern?
  3. Your posts. Which ones got the most response?
  4. Your business. Did anything change, like a new service, a holiday or a staff change? Marketing is only one reason numbers move.

Then decide three things: what to keep, what to drop, and one new thing to try. Write them at the top of a fresh page. Here is a page to copy:

Quarter: [dates]

Numbers at the start: [calls, messages, bookings]

Numbers at the end: [calls, messages, bookings]

How people found us: [the top answers]

Best posts: [what they were about]

Keep: [one or two things]

Drop: [one thing]

Try: [one new thing]

Plan next quarter in 20 minutes

Once you have looked back, planning the next quarter is quick. Five steps:

  1. Look back (about 5 minutes). Scroll through the last quarter. What did you post? What got a reaction?
  2. Keep what worked (about 3 minutes). Circle the posts and ideas that brought people in.
  3. Pick three themes (about 4 minutes). Choose three topics you can talk about all quarter. No more than three.
  4. Pick a pace (about 3 minutes). Choose a rhythm you can hold in your busiest week.
  5. Write month one (about 5 minutes). Draft the first month of posts now, so you are not scrambling on the first day.

A small plan you follow beats a big one you drop. For a simple pattern to copy, see A 90 Day Posting Plan You Can Copy.

A January checklist

The new year is a natural time to start a quarter. Three things to do:

  1. Update your photos, so people see what you look like today.
  2. Set your first month of posts, so you are not scrambling.
  3. Book a time on your calendar to review how the quarter went. Put it in writing and give it a date.

These take an afternoon, and they make the whole year calmer.

For the weeks in between

You do not have to wait 90 days to check on things. For a quick weekly look, see Check Your Own Marketing in 30 Minutes a Week. To judge one specific change, see How to Tell If a Change to Your Marketing Worked.

Check your work

  • You have three or four numbers you track.
  • You asked new customers how they found you.
  • A review date is on your calendar.
  • You wrote down what to keep, drop and try.

If you would rather hand this off

Reviewing your own marketing works, and plenty of owners do it well. If you would rather not, this is the cycle we run for our clients: plan, do, check and adjust, every 90 days. We write and publish your posts on schedule, and at the end of each quarter we look back at what worked and plan the next one. See our 90-Day Plan FAQ, or get started.