You will be able to make a clear continue, change or stop decision on a channel using your plan's numbers.
Every month for half a year, Priya and her business partner had the same argument about Instagram. He thought it was a waste of her Sunday afternoons. She thought it was about to start working. Each month they looked at the numbers, each read them their own way, and nothing changed. Six months and about fifty Sunday hours later, they still had no decision.
The argument went round in circles because they had never agreed, in advance, what "working" meant. This lesson gives you three decisions you can make about any channel at a review, continue, change or stop, and the thresholds that tell you which one applies.
Continue when the leading numbers from lesson 6.2 are moving towards the goal, even if the lagging numbers haven't caught up yet.
This is the decision people most often get wrong, because sales lag behind. Suppose Priya's Google listing brought 9 enquiries in the first month, 14 in the second and 18 in the third, against a target of 20. Enrolments for the term are still below goal, because many of those parents are booking trial classes for next month. Judged on enrolments alone, the channel looks weak. Judged on enquiries, it is clearly heading the right way.
Continuing means holding steady. Keep the same work, the same rhythm, the same budget. Don't add changes to a channel that is improving, for the reason covered in lesson 7.2, Run it in 90-day cycles: you would lose the ability to tell what is working.
Change one thing when the planned work is getting done and the leading numbers aren't moving. The broadcast goes out every month and replies stay at two. The listing is updated every week and calls stay flat.
When activity is real but results are flat, the channel may be fine and something you are putting through it may not be. There are three usual suspects, and you change one at a time.
The message is what you say. Perhaps the broadcast lists open dates when parents care more about what their child will learn next term.
The offer is what you ask people to do and what they get. A free trial class is a different offer from a discounted first month, and each appeals to different families.
The audience is who sees it. A broadcast list full of families who left three years ago will reply less than one made up of current parents.
Pick the suspect that seems most likely, change it, and give the change at least a month before judging it.
Stop when you have given the channel the time and money you agreed at the start, the work actually happened, and the leading numbers have not moved.
Stopping feels like failure, so people avoid it. They give a channel one more month, then another, often because of what they already put in. But the hours and money you spent are gone whichever way you decide. The only question is whether the next month's hours would do more somewhere else.
Stopping a channel is not the same as deleting it. Move it to your "Not now" list from lesson 5.4 with a note on what you tried, and spend the freed hours on the channel that is working or on a test from your test budget.
The decisions are only clear if the thresholds are written down before the review, when you are calm and have no stake in the answer. Set them for each of your two channels, using its leading number.
Here are Priya's example thresholds for her Google listing, which has a target of 20 enquiries a month:
Continue if enquiries rise month on month, or reach 15 or more by the end of the second month. Change one thing if the planned updates happened every week but enquiries stay between 5 and 14 without rising for two months running. Stop if, after three months and the agreed hours, enquiries stay below 5 a month.
She wrote a similar set for her WhatsApp update, based on referrals from current parents.
Then write each decision on the plan when you make it, with the date and the reason. "March review: continue Google, enquiries 9, 14, 18. Change WhatsApp offer from open dates to a referral reward, replies flat at 2 for two months." Next month, when someone asks why you changed the broadcast, the answer is on the page. You don't reopen the same debate every month, which is what kept Priya and her partner stuck on Instagram for half a year.
Once they set thresholds for Instagram too, the decision took five minutes. Three months of steady posting, enquiries from Instagram at one or two a month, below the stop line. They moved it to "Not now" and put her Sunday hours into the referral test.
In the activity below you will write these thresholds for each of your two channels. Base the numbers on the targets you set in lesson 6.1, and make the stop line one you would actually be willing to act on.
Write the continue, change and stop thresholds for each of your two channels and add them to your one-page plan.
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