Let’s stop for a moment and think how much you invest into your marketing. On average, a marketing budget accounts for approximately 10% of your business spend, financially. Let’s add into that figure your time or the salary you pay someone to look after the marketing for you. It all mounts up.
Now for the golden question …. are you monitoring your successes and failures, or just keeping calm and carrying on?
You’d be surprised at how many businesses I work with that never look at their ROI when it comes to their marketing, yet it’s an element of business that can take up a lot of time and energy.
- Your website
- Email campaigns/newsletters
- Hard copy direct mail
- Social media
- Exhibitions
- Networking
…. And so the list goes on.
Why Do You Need To Monitor Your Marketing?
In a nutshell – to see if its working! Just as important is to see what’s not working. If you’re not measuring your marketing activities you won’t know what needs tweaking, what works best and where your main source of leads is coming from. Keeping track of the stats can also be great leverage if you need to persuade your financial team to increase the budget or sign up for a trade show for example.
No doubt your business has KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), some of which will link into the marketing activities of the company. Monitoring your marketing performance needn’t be overwhelming – but it can be a great big boost when you can pat yourself on the back as you successfully head towards reaching those KPIs.
What Should You Be Monitoring?
Six key metrics to include within your marketing report are:
- Goals
- SEO data
- Email marketing data
- Leads and customers
- Explanations
- Social media data
Goals
It’s always good to know what you want to achieve from the outset. You wouldn’t go on a road trip without having a route in place before you set off – so how are you supposed to know if your marketing is working if you have no idea what you’re working towards.
SEO Data
Is your website doing its job? How are people finding your website? Are your visitors repeat, or new visitor traffic? Which pages are performing well – and which ones aren’t? All of these answers, and so much more, can be found in your Google Analytics. If you’ve never explored this amazing facility before, make some time and take a look. If you’re not tech minded, there are Google Analytics training courses out there which will help you to get an understanding of the basics and the confidence to explore further.
Email Marketing Data
Are your newsletters being opened? What’s the click-through rate? Have you had any feedback – positive or negative – after you’ve sent something out to your mailing list? Have you got a high unsubscribe rate? All this information can be found in the software of the platform you’re using (Mailchimp, sendinblue, Active Campaign etc).
Leads & Customers
How many leads did you get in the last month? How many converted to £££s? Are leads getting followed up? Is it a case of quality over quantity? Two great leads that convert to sales are much more preferable to twenty leads that equate to £0.
Explanations
You will have dips, and we’re not talking guacamole! There may be seasonal trends that affect your KPIs positively and negatively. An annual trade show will probably lead to a spike in leads – but are they converting to sales?
When it comes to the numbers, there’s nothing worse than an isolated number. It means nothing. You need to note your starting point so that you have something to compare with month-on-month. Stating a 38% open rate for your latest email campaign means nothing if it’s not compared to previous figures. 12 new Facebook Followers might sound impressive but over what period, and compared to what?
Social Media
Are you wasting your time on a certain platform? Could you be diverting yourself to a platform that works better? Measure your followers, engagements, post impressions, shares. Who is engaging with you? Age? Gender? Location? Knowing this information will help you to fine-tune your social media presence and content, which is when the magic of converting to sales starts to come into play.
My top tip to round off this marketing missive is to cut the jargon. It’s not big and it’s certainly not clever. Keep your marketing report simple, relevant, and informative. It really isn’t rocket science!
If you’ve never measured your marketing performance and still feel a little baffled, let’s have a chat. One thing I get the most enjoyment out of in my work is turning your dust into gold with a sprinkling of Golddust magic!