Just like Dorothy and Scarecrow wandering in the woods, those of us who are responsible for marketing our companies effectively are concerned about many different things. From our daily blogging activities, to conversations on social media, developing more calls-to-action, creating new whitepapers and case studies, infographics, reports to management, to the promotion of our next event. There is a LOT on our plates!
Keep your eye on the prize: Return on Investment (ROI)
With this constant hubbub of activity, it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, all that really counts is ROI. Your metrics need to measure everything from web traffic to lead generation to sales, and many data points in between. This is easiest if your analytics system is a single system, that reaches across all these different areas and presents summary views and charts, as well as more detailed data.
Here’s a quick list of some high-level things you need to track.
- ROI – This is your golden egg. Dig in and see what your cost-per-lead and cost-per-sale are. How are these numbers changing over time?
- Traffic data – How many visits and visitors did you drive to your sites?
- Conversion data – How many leads did you get and from what sources? How much of that traffic is converting?
- Follower/fan data – What is your social media reach? How many people are in your various networks and how are they growing?
- Social interation data – How are people interacting with, sharing and re-sharing your content on social networks?
- Content performance – How is the content you’re producing driving interactions?
- Inbound link data – Measure the mozRank, check trend lines for your competitors.
- Keyword success – Look at more than just where you rank. Track and measure the health of long tail keywords. Are they generating lot of traffic and conversions? Is this changing over time? Are there other long tail keywords that you should think about including?
- Branded vs non-branded – Compare % of search traffic and conversions for brand and non-brand keywords.
- Click-through rates on email – How engaged are your users with your content? This is your true north. With email and lead nuturing, you want at least a 5% click-through rate.
The beauty of regularly measuring and analyzing your marketing is that it takes the guesswork out of what to do next. Rather than making blind decisions about whether to continue with a particular program or focus on one channel more than another, your analytics can give you the insight you need to make that decision intelligently.
Of course, you can always repeat with me, “Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!”
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