May 12, 2025

Doing More of What Works Sounds Obvious. Firms Rarely Do It.

Ask a firm what marketing angle gets the best response and most cannot answer with real data, because nobody tracked which angle was used for which outreach in the first place.

Why this simple thing gets skipped

Tracking which specific angle or hook was used in each piece of outreach, and tying that back to whether it got a response, requires a small amount of structure that feels like unnecessary overhead in the moment a note is being sent. The value only becomes visible weeks later, when there is enough data to compare angles, and by then, the tracking that would have made the comparison possible was never set up.

What tracking actually requires

Tagging each outreach with the specific angle used, a recent filing event, a shared industry challenge, a referral mention, and recording the outcome against that tag. This is a small, mechanical addition to an existing process, not a separate project.

What doing more of what works looks like in practice

If outreach referencing a specific, recent public filing event consistently outperforms outreach built around a general industry trend, the firm should shift its research effort toward finding more filing-triggered opportunities and spend less time on generic industry outreach. This is a resource-allocation decision, and it is only possible to make well if the tracking exists to show which angle actually wins.

A small pilot to prove the value before scaling it

Firms unsure whether the tagging effort is worth it can test it on a single month of outreach before committing further. Tag each note with its angle, track outcomes, and see whether a clear pattern emerges even at that small scale. Most firms that run this small pilot find the pattern visible enough within a month to justify making the tagging a permanent, lightweight part of the process going forward.

What a negative pilot result actually means

If the small pilot does not show a clear pattern, that is itself useful information, it may mean the sample was too small, the tagging categories were too broad to distinguish real differences, or genuinely no single angle is outperforming the others yet. Any of these outcomes is more informative than not testing at all, and each points to a specific next adjustment rather than a dead end.

Where this leaves a firm

None of this is complicated in principle, which is exactly why it gets skipped under deadline pressure. The question worth returning to before treating measuring marketing return honestly as settled is what a careful reader would actually notice if the firm got it right. On the point raised above under “why this simple thing gets skipped,” the answer is usually specific rather than clever: most firms cannot say which outreach angle actually performs best, because it is untracked. Firms that build this expectation into how they train new associates find it easier to sustain once experienced staff move on, because the standard lives in a documented habit rather than in one person's memory. The gap between a firm that talks about measuring marketing return honestly and a firm that actually practices it shows up over several quarters, not in any single engagement, and it tends to show up most clearly in the small, unglamorous checks that a client never sees directly but benefits from anyway.

It also helps to name, plainly, who is responsible for keeping this working once the novelty of a new tool wears off. Someone should own the point raised under “what tracking actually requires,” check it periodically rather than assume it stays true on its own, and be the person a colleague asks when a new situation does not fit the pattern described here. Put simply: once the winning angle is clear, shift research effort toward finding more of that opportunity type. That kind of ownership, named and specific, is a small addition to a firm's process, and it is usually the difference between a good idea that is followed for a month and a standard that actually holds up over a year of real client work.

None of this needs to be elaborate to be effective. A short, dated note in a shared file, reviewed at the next quarterly check-in, is usually enough to keep the responsibility from quietly disappearing when the person who first cared about it moves on to something else.

VIPMarketing Editorial