The automaker began re-evaluating its Facebook strategy earlier this year. According to the Wall Street Journal, General Motors determined that while free marketing works on the site, paid ads don’t.

Note from Pat: Nice to be able to identify and redirect 25% of your under-performing advertising spend, don’t you think?!

Oh, and note that the other $30M “…finances the design and upkeep of GM’s other promotional activities on the site, which don’t appear to net Facebook a dime.”

So much for “Social media is Free!!”  And I bet we can look forward to Facebook figuring out a way to get a piece of that money.

See on news.cnet.com

To the business owner, I remind you that you created the position because you recognized the need for expertise you don’t have as well as the desire to focus on more important issues.   So make sure you hire someone that you truly believe can get the work done on their own – then give that person the authority to do their job.

I’m not suggesting you ‘turn them loose’ – you need to understand what they are doing, why and how to measure success in order to build trust.  But you need to figure out when to step in and when to trust.  After all, their success allows you to focus on other matters that are critical to the overall success of your business.

That’s where the creative brief, also known as a strategy statement, comes in.  (More on this in a minute.)

To the marketing director, you need to communicate effectively.  Learn how to prove your value.  And that’s more than getting that email out by 5pm tonight – it’s showing progress towards the business’ key goals and objectives.  It’s showing improvement in areas like new customer acquisition, customer retention, average order size, cost per sale.

You need to drive profitable revenue – and in most cases that isn’t the same as ‘Likes’ on Facebook.

You need to present the owner with ‘if we invest X, we will generate Y’ – and then you need to come back after the campaign is in market with ‘we invested X and produced Y’.

Building this level of trust takes time.  And one of the best tools you can use to help make this happen a simple document called a ‘strategy brief’, or ‘creative brief’.  It forces you to concentrate on the strategy instead of getting lost on the colors and fonts or worrying about the copy should read “…this…” versus “…that…”  Then, when you see the proposed creative, you focus on whether or not it achieves the instructions laid out in the brief…and you can let the audience tell you if you had the right strategy or not.

Take a look at this, from the folks at True Digital.

The premise of the show is that there is a restaurant that’s in financial difficulty and Robert comes in to take a look, make suggestions and help the business turn around.

And over time you start to see the same issues pop up…

Always ask your customers for feedback – and respond appropriately. 

Always ask former customer why they left – and respond appropriately.

I lumped these two together because they’re both about understanding your audience.  When you watch an episode, you will typically see Robert ask the owners what went wrong and the owners, typically, don’t have a clear answer.

They don’t know why people eat at their restaurant.  They don’t know if people liked  the experience.  They don’t know why people fail to return.

Robert likes to turn to social media – local food bloggers and customer review sites like Yelp! – in order to get this type of feedback.  I would also suggest that you talk with your customers – in person and through surveys.

Robert likes to turn to social media – local food bloggers and customer review sites like Yelp! – in order to get this type of feedback.  I would also suggest that you talk with your customers – in person and through surveys.

Ask.  Listen.  Understand.  Modify.  Implement.  Repeat.

Secret Shop.  Typically, the wait staff has problems.  But the owner is blind to it because they’re focusing on other things (or nothing).

Here’s the deal.  Call your business and pretend to be a potential customer.  Ask questions.  See if your staff has the answers – or how they respond when they don’t.  You will find opportunities for improvement – and that’s a good thing.

After all, you want to find these issues before a customer does!

Eat your own  food.  This one is my favorite because I love to cook and I learned at a young age that you need to taste your food as you are preparing it.  And then you need to sit down and eat the entire meal.

Why?  First, it’s quality control during and after manufacturing.  Second, it allows you to speak in detail to how the product was created and the ingredients used in its creation.  Third, how do you tell your customers that you don’t even use your own products?!

But on Restaurant Impossible, a common problem is a chef that doesn’t taste the food during preparation and a serving staff that has never eaten the food.  They get asked questions that they can’t answer and they serve (as Robert calls it) crap.

Know your costs.  Know your cash cows, dogs.  One of the more common questions Robert asks is “What are your food costs?” and “What meals make you the most money?”

I haven’t seen any restaurant owner answer those  two questions on the first try – and as a marketer, these a key questions that need to be answered.

How can you offer a promotional discount if you don’t know your margins?  How can you identify the product to feature in promotions if you don’t know your best seller?

How can you offer a promotional discount if you don’t know your margins?  How can you identify the product to feature in promotions if you don’t know your best seller?

Another lesson is that you need to explore your costs on a regular basis.  In episode after episode, Robert shows the owner how to cut food costs while improving quality.  Imagine if you could do the same?!

Finally, if you know how well your products sell, you can start making decisions about those that aren’t selling at all.  You want to leave the cash cows alone but the dogs might need a new home.

On the show, a typical problem is a menu with too many items – and that costs time, effort, energy and money to offer.  So if they aren’t selling, stop offering them.

In your own business, you might have the costs of the materials to make the product as well as the cost of marketing and attempting to sell and support the product.  What if you dropped your Bottom 10% of products/services?  Could you redirect the resources tied to that product/service onto other products/services and see a greater return?

True story.  I used to work with a start up company that launched with about 2 dozen products.  Each product had to be designed, produced and tested in order to be sure it would work.  Then there was training the staff on how to manufacture the products as well as how to service and sell them.  And then there was the marketing costs.

The total cost was about $1M – and after 12 months, it was clear that 5 of those products should never have been made.  That was $5 million in investments but by shutting them down and redirecting the resources to the top 5 products, the company produced double-digit increases in sales.

So next time you find yourself with some free time – check out Restaurant Impossible.  It might just help you improve your own business.