Social media, blogs, podcasts, and websites are great tools for building brand awareness and driving traffic. But between all the likes, comments, and shares – we’re often left with two big questions: where are we driving traffic, and is our traffic converting into buyers? It’s essential to choose the right marketing metrics and track them to understand what’s working.
Suppose you’re investing time, energy, and resources into your marketing campaigns. In that case, it’s important to tell if you’re meeting your objectives and what you can adjust to improve results.
In this article, I’ll walk you through a simple way to track your metrics so you can better understand if and how your marketing is working to support your business goals.
Choose The Right Marketing Metrics: Relevant KPIs
KPI is short for key performance indicator(s). KPIs are different for every business – they are the critical numbers you can use to better understand what results from your marketing efforts. You can also use them to find ‘leaks’ in your marketing funnel that let potential customers slip through the cracks.
A simple funnel has three main stages: awareness, consideration, and purchase.
The Awareness stage is all about capturing the attention of people who might be interested in your product or service. You are both making prospects ‘aware’ of their problems and ‘aware’ that you are a pretty great solution. This stage of your marketing funnel is not about pushing sales. Instead, it’s all about building a relationship and providing valuable information that draws in prospects.
Potential Awareness KPIs include:
- Website Visits
- Social Media Reach (Profile Visits, Engagement, New Followers, Content Shares, etc.)
- Media Mentions
- Paid Ad Clicks
- Word of Mouth Marketing
The Consideration phase is when your prospect begins to look for a solution to her problem. The ‘problem’ could be anything from ‘I need the perfect pair of earrings for my summer party’ to ‘I need to choose between two accounting services.’ In this stage, your prospect will begin to look for and compare solutions. As she makes comparisons, she’ll evaluate if you fit her needs, wants, and budget. She’ll also likely look at online reviews, your competitor’s website, and your branding.
Potential Consideration KPIs include:
- Number of Newsletter Opt-ins
- Time On-site
- Bounce Rate
- Customer Service Inquiries
And finally, the Purchase stage is when your lead is finished reviewing her choices and is ready to make a purchase. At this stage, she may choose you, choose a competitor, or decide not to purchase at all. It’s essential that you make working with or buying from you a no-brainer. This could involve special promotions, 24/7 customer support, or creating a sense of urgency with bonuses, for example.
Potential Purchase KPIs include:
- Abandoned Cart Statistics
- Number of Consultations or Discovery Calls
- Revenue and Sales
Choose the Right Marketing Metrics and Then Set Targets
For meaningful tracking, you need to create a baseline. Start by figuring out where your metrics are currently. Next, do some research on Google to understand where your numbers should be. For example, you can look up average email open rates by industry. If you’ve never sent a newsletter to your customers, this open rate is a target number. You might find that you fall short or beat this number, in which case you’ll update your target number. Your target number should increase incrementally quarterly or annually – this is something you’ll have to decide after you’ve tracked metrics for some time and gotten a feel for what’s important and realistic. Once you’ve identified which metrics are priorities for your business, go to the relevant source, and find the data you need.
Social media metrics can often be found on a dashboard inside your account (that is, within Facebook or Instagram, third party platforms like Hootsuite provide helpful reporting). Website analytics can come from your website contractor or directly from Google Analytics. If you run an eCommerce business on a platform like WooCommerce and Shopify, for example, you can also find information on abandoned carts, the use of promotional codes, and other metrics.
As you find data for each KPI, make sure to document instructions to find the information. This way, you can delegate reporting to a team member in the future. You need to see and understand the numbers – you don’t need to be the one finding them each month 😉
By referencing your baseline data, you can now set relevant targets for your marketing. Make sure to review how to craft SMART goals so that your targets are specific, measurable, and achievable.
Track These Metrics Monthly
Now that you’ve identified KPIs for each stage of the funnel, you can begin to track and review these metrics once a month. These KPIs will reveal a lot about which part of your funnel you need to optimize.
For example, if you see that people are visiting your sales page but not purchasing – you should review your offer and see if there’s something you can add or change to make the purchase more compelling. Or, perhaps there is something that needs to be adjusted on the landing page for better results.
If you’re getting social media engagement but no inquiries, this could mean there’s a gap between awareness and consideration. In this case, you’d want to ensure that you’re making your unique selling proposition clear so that you’re positioning your brand as an enticing and relevant option.
Example
—
If you’re serious about success, set up an introductory call with Jennifer now to learn about Strategic Planning Sessions and new Advisory Groups starting soon.