Are there some marketing metrics which you just can’t afford to miss when measuring your campaigns?
We know you were expecting this blog to tell you what those metrics are, but it’s a bit tricker than that. There are essential marketing metrics which you should be measuring every month, quarter and year – but these will be different for every business.
So how do you know what yours are? Here are the questions you should be asking yourself…
Who are you reporting to?
Your metrics need to mean something to you, but also to the person or team you are reporting to. Cut out the jargon (or provide a glossary) and strip it back to metrics your boss, CEO or Board will understand.
- Number of leads.
- Return on investment – read more about this here – or at least the cost on marketing this month/quarter/year.
- Qualitative results from a brand awareness survey.
- Enquiry rate.
- Cost per acquisition / lead.
What do you want to know?
If you are using a lot of outdoor advertising, are metrics like ‘number of website visitors to your blog pages’ or ‘impressions on your Pinterest Page’ actually the biggest priority to spend time gathering and analysing? Go to a quiet place with a pen and paper, and really think about what you want to know about. Then work backwards and find out where you can get this information and how often you need to gather it and add it to your report for it to be useful.
- Branded organic search traffic (increase/decrease) – measures brand awareness as people type in your brand name to their internet browser to find out more.
- Direct traffic – a metric to correlate with outdoor ads or events where people have seen your URL and type it in to their internet browser to find out more.
- Leads by source – uncover your best performing channel by quantity and quality, so you know where to put more resources.
Do I want knowledge, or a pat on the back?
An essential metric is not just one which makes you look good. You need to uncover the good, the bad and the ugly so that budget and resource decisions can be made effectively. Hiding or ignoring the stats you don’t like will only show half the story so be brave and pull out the VIMs – Very Important Metrics – to your business and consistently report on them to show the results in context over time.
- Social media referrals to website – are your posts driving action?
- Domain authority – how authoritatively does Google rank your website?
- Current/lapsed customer perception data – what do they really think?
- Market research – what themes and patterns are available in journals, reports and articles?
- Staff perception data – what do they know and what do they think?
We’ll continue to talk about metrics over the next few months to help you make sure you’re measuring what matters. Check back on the blog soon or sign up for our newsletter to get all the info first.