The Marketing Process That Drives Real Growth

As W. Edwards Deming once said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” This hits home when you’re navigating the world of digital marketing. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the options. Many businesses just throw their hands up and outsource everything to an agency, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I’m guessing you’re here because you want to build that expertise in-house. When you understand the process, you can own your and use agencies more effectively, telling them exactly what you need.

If you can’t measure what you’re doing, you can’t manage or improve it. This is especially true as you scale your marketing efforts and expenses start to climb. Now is the time to build a system to measure, manage, and optimize everything you do, from organic social posts to paid ads. This approach is fundamental for any or looking for sustainable growth.

The Struggle to Measure What Matters

Early in my career, I was talking with the CEO of a high-end landscaping company. He was skeptical about social media marketing and grilled me on how I could possibly measure its effectiveness. This was a company that spent a fortune on ads in glossy local magazines. When I flipped the question and asked how he measured the ROI on those print ads, he had no answer.

The great thing about digital marketing is that almost everything is trackable. The trick is knowing what you want to measure and how to measure it. Sometimes it takes a bit of creativity, just like it did for marketers before the internet.

Think about the first coupon, which Coca-Cola introduced back in 1887 for a free glass of its drink. The goal was brand awareness, and it worked—by the start of World War I, one in nine Americans had redeemed one. But it was an advertising pioneer named Claude Hopkins who saw the coupon’s true potential. He realized that if you knew where a customer got the coupon, you could figure out which ads were working and direct your money and energy there. Before him, companies just spent money and hoped for the best. Some people still take that approach to their , which is both costly and misguided when there are so many ways to see what’s working.

A Century-Old Framework for Modern Marketing

After World War II, an American professor named W. Edwards Deming introduced his ideas to a rebuilding Japan. His teachings were central to the country's industrial revolution, helping companies like Toyota and Panasonic become giants of high-quality, low-cost manufacturing. He was so influential that the Japanese emperor awarded him the Order of the Sacred Treasure, a prestigious honor.

I first learned about Deming’s work while at a semiconductor manufacturer in Japan. He adapted a concept from his mentor, Walter Shewhart, into what’s now known as the Deming Circle, or PDCA cycle. It’s a simple but powerful framework for continuous improvement.

Here’s how it works:

1. Start by clearly defining your goals and creating a hypothesis for what you think will happen.
2. Execute the plan and implement your work.
3. Study the results and compare them against your original goals and hypothesis.
4. Based on what you learned, make changes to improve the process. Then, the cycle begins again.

This cycle of continuous improvement—often called —is the engine that drives success. Whether you're working on , social media, or paid ads, your efforts are only as good as the process you use to manage and optimize them. I’ve found this framework so essential that I named my company after it.

From “Scientific Advertising” to Digital Strategy

Long before Deming, Claude Hopkins was using a similar method, which he detailed in his 1923 book, . He was way ahead of his time, testing different headlines, ad copy, and marketing letters on a small scale. He’d measure the results of each version and then launch the full campaign using only the one that proved most successful. He treated marketing like a science.

Over a century later, we’re doing the same things, but now we have the tools to do it faster and easier. The temptation with digital marketing is to just jump in without a plan. But a real involves a more deliberate approach. Working through the PDCA cycle means methodically testing your ideas to build a strong, effective plan. This is how you turn a promising employment—by building a system that delivers predictable results.

You make a plan (your marketing strategy), you execute it, you check the results against your expectations, and then you act on those findings to create the next plan. This applies to everything:

• Experiment with new topics or republish older posts with updates.
• Test different lead magnets.
• Identify your top 20% of performers and experiment with better incentives for them.

Once this PDCA mindset becomes part of your team's DNA, you’ll always be experimenting and driving for a higher ROI. It’s the foundation for building and sustainable businesses.

Your Marketing Is Only as Good as Your Data

The PDCA approach relies entirely on data. Without it, you’re just guessing. You need a process to collect data from all your marketing efforts into a single report that makes it easy to see where you should shift resources for the greatest impact.

A funnel-based approach is often the most effective way to organize this data:

• Focus on bringing new eyeballs to your brand. Track metrics like search engine visibility, organic website traffic, social media follower growth, impressions, and engagement rates.
• Nurture that interest. Here, email and paid media are key. Measure email list growth, open rates, and click-through rates. For paid ads, track your spend, cost per click, and cost per conversion.
• This is where you see the results. Track conversions by channel to understand where your customers are coming from and what it cost to acquire them. Don’t forget advocacy metrics, like tracking the impact of a brand ambassador program.

Creating a strategic dashboard with this information is like sitting at a mixing board at a concert. You can see what’s working and adjust the levels—your budget and focus—to get the best results.

A Real-World Example of PDCA in Action

Ikecho, an Australian pearl jewelry company, is a perfect case study. Originally a B2B wholesaler, they pivoted to a direct-to-consumer during the pandemic. But they were operating in the dark, with a disconnected view of their performance. Their ad spend was actually higher than the income it generated.

They decided to adopt a data-driven approach, similar to PDCA. They created a comprehensive report that gave them a clear view of their entire marketing funnel. Founder Erica Miller focused on using these insights to optimize everything from their social strategy and to their ad creative and website.

As she put it, “Transforming a business is an ongoing process... You’ve got to keep a close eye on your real-time results. And, of course, use the insights they provide to keep on refining your next step.”

The results were stunning. Within 12 months, social engagement was up 176% on Instagram and 873% on Facebook. New website visitors grew by 25%. Their return on ad spend (ROAS) went from negative to over 12x on Facebook. Most importantly, their overall retail revenue more than doubled.

This is what happens when you stop guessing and start managing your marketing as a process. Whether you're just or running an established , the PDCA cycle provides the framework to manage the complexity and turn your marketing efforts into a clear, predictable engine for growth. It’s how you transform a and beyond.