Is your corporate metabolism a bit sluggish? Are you dragged down by the weight of meeting-itis? Do you need more energy and resources to respond to the ever-increasing demands of your customers?

Well I wish I could tell you about the next magical black box, with the persuasive infomercial that promises you miraculous gains without any of the hard work required. If you bought any of these gimmicks before and are tired of their sugar-coated promises and lackluster results, then maybe you are ready to get on the marketing optimization fitness plan.

Here are four exercises that should help you on your way. Don’t worry if you don’t execute perfectly on the first try; the key to this plan is to continuously improve day after day.

Exercise 1: Tweet VP

In 140 characters or less, tell me the value of doing business with you. What makes you different than your competitor? This is like writing your unique value proposition or unique campaign proposition, but you are limited to the number of characters, as if you were going to post it on Twitter. If you do a good job of this, you could lower your bounce rates by putting this on every landing page.

You should revisit this regularly and try to improve the power behind each word.

Exercise 2: Reflexive Response Time

Choose one of the following:

A.) If you are an e-commerce retailer, take 10 mystery shoppers and time how long it takes from customer order to fulfillment. Then have each of them contact customer service via e-mail, phone, and Twitter/FaceBook and time how long it takes for them to get a resolution. How did you perform? Were there any breakdowns in operations? Did each channel respond equally? How can you improve? How did you compare to your competitors?

B.) If you are a lead generation business, take 10 mystery shoppers and have them complete your lead generation forms. How long until they got their first real response – not an automated one from an e-mail auto-responder? Keep in mind that a lead loses its effectiveness by six times in the first hour. Now have these “leads” well-prepared to respond to a sales person’s questions. How long does it take for them to get a real price for your product or service? Then have these leads break into groups and ask tough questions by phone, e-mail, and Twitter or Facebook. How did you perform? Were there any breakdowns in operations? Did each channel respond equally? How can you improve? How did you compare to your competitors?

C.) If you are a publisher – pick a unique story line. How long does it take for your article to be researched and published? How long does it take until they get promoted and socialized on each of the social sites that you participate on? Have some pretty specific new information or corrected information to the article ready and ask your team to revise their article. How long does it take for it to be revised? Have “subscribers” ask a question each by phone, e-mail, and Twitter/Facebook. How long did it take to respond? How did you perform? Were there any breakdowns in operations? Did each channel respond equally? How can you improve? How did you compare to your competitors?

Exercise 3: 25 Interesting Things About You/Your Customers

You may have seen this pass-along on Facebook a while back as people started to list 25 interesting things about themselves. Do the same thing for your business and have several people involved in your business do the same. Then find the most interesting ones and use them on your about us page. This will enhance your credibility by adding transparency into your company.

Exercise 4: Metrics Madness

Have each of your team leads in a meeting room with you as you open up your marketing dashboard with your KPIs (key performance indicators). Go through each one and ask them what the team’s plan and role is as each one of those metrics changes by 20 percent up and by 20 percent down. Do they have clear action items? How long would it take for them to respond? Do you have too many KPIs or are your KPIs not clear enough? Can they prioritize these changes effectively?

There are plenty of other exercises you could perform on your way to becoming a marketing optimization fitness fan. Living the lifestyle that performs under pressure, responds to changes rapidly, and serves your customers and business in real-time fashion is just one way to improve your corporate metabolism fitness levels.

What else are you doing to stay fit?

Dr. Ralph Wilson from Web Marketing Today interviewed me at Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference in Chicago:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And you had the choice of GM or Toyota to invest in. Which would you have chosen?

50 years ago GM had all the marketing muscle, the innovative cars, the great distribution and Japanese cars did not enjoy the reputation they have today? 50 years ago you would be sure that GM was the sure bet.

But what changed?

Dr. W. Edward Deming!

In 1947, he came to Japan to help the distraught economy and he taught them the priceless principles of Total Quality Management or Kaizen (the continuous improvement process). Deming went around the country lecturing engineers, managers, and scholars. Deming’s message to Japan’s chief executives: improving quality will reduce expenses while increasing productivity and market share.

Who needs innovation when you can continuously improve on other people’s innovations.

Keep in mind the world is a lot faster than it has ever been in the last 50 years and it won’t take 50 years for your competitors to get a huge advantage over you by leveraging a continuous improvement process.

Are you improving the quality of your marketing to reduce expenses while increasing productivity and market share? You can Trim the Fat effectively if you have the right processes in place!

I hear one big question over and over again when I speak: where do I trim the fat from my online budget?

If you aren’t being asked to do more with less, then just wait. You will.

Online marketers that have well-monitored stews of traffic on their site are hesitant to do anything other than add to the traffic pot. The thought of shifting or slashing online budgets and risking traffic is surely keeping many marketers up way past their bedtimes. They feel like their marketing/traffic mix is some house of cards and the most delicate of movements will send traffic and conversions into the ether.

However, when I talk a little deeper to many of these marketers, I find their conversion rates are pathetic. Truth is, many are justified in being afraid. But often many fear the wrong problem.

Most sites I analyze don’t have traffic problems. Only very small startups or small businesses that barely crack 1,000 uniques a month should be concerned about traffic. What happens to the traffic once it hits a landing page or clicks deeper is more troubling.

No online budget doesn’t have some fat to trim. Recently, a prospect assured me that their spend was efficient and they doubted I would find anything they could afford to cut. I should have made a bet with them.

After a little digging, I learned they spend a fair amount on secondary search engines and obtaining a small return. I convinced them to cut the spend on the secondaries and allocate a portion of the budget for landing page optimization. Many of the visitors were bouncing despite coming to the landing pages after searching for keywords revealing some intent.

If you have traffic that wants to buy, why not shift efforts or budget into to ensuring they do exactly that on your site?

This may seem elementary, but often even the smartest online marketer can get into a comfort zone and miss seeing fat that has been right under their nose the whole time. Many just have never had to dig deep enough.

What If…

If you believe you can’t afford to cut any of your budget, then think differently about the traffic that comes to your site. To think differently, you often have to put yourself in a less comfortable place.

What if you had to cut your marketing budget in half immediately?

Ponder that question. Look at your budget through this lens. Look at your metrics. No matter how wise you think your spending is, you’ll find some things that you can do without.

Perhaps you buy some terms for little more than comfort. Perhaps you should have given up on or modified campaigns a long time ago. Maybe a resource is overcharging and underperforming.

Now that you see it’s indeed possible to cut some things, you’re likely starting to see some things that are “untouchable.” Some marketing efforts are your big performers and can’t be cut under any circumstance. What could you do to improve the results from those efforts? Or is it all about getting more traffic?

Now that you’ve pondered a painful cut, let me give you another 10 percent to spend. Now you have 60 percent of your original budget in hand. Maybe you can put something from your old budget back in? Or now that the slate is clean, is there something else you suspect would give you a greater return than a tired old line item?

A budget cut is one way to shake up the status quo. Just because you have always bought something doesn’t mean you have to buy it again.

Consider cutting terms that are expensive and ineffective in terms of conversion. Mostly, these broad terms don’t reveal customer intent. You can use Steve Jackson’s spreadsheet to determine how well your terms are doing.

Looking for Little Opportunities

Are you hunting for whales and missing smaller fish? Sometimes, a minimal effort can pull several small fish in the boat at pennies on the dollar.

Maybe a few real-time searches on social media would help you find active buyers today. Maybe doing PPC (define) for long-tail terms might pay more than buying the pricey but easier broader terms. For example, if you sell exclusive models and aren’t doing well organically, maybe a little budget spent on SEO (define) would help.

Looking at the Long Term

One of the biggest opportunities is finding customers early in their buying process. Build a relationship with customers before they’re ready to buy. Look for opportunities to market to these types of customers; it’s usually cheaper because your competitors are only looking for those customers with their wallets out now.

Shifting on Dime

Be smart and nimble. Successful online marketers can shift tactics on a dime and are never territorial or idealogical. Do what works. They know that something that worked today may not work tomorrow. Or vice versa.

Cutting budget or making changes is never fun. But it doesn’t mean you can’t get better results.

How did you handle a recent budget cut? Let us know.