As marketers, we are increasingly focused on measuring marketing
initiatives to guide our efforts and assess our Marketing ROI. We are reading about Big Data and how we need
to embrace it. We read blogs, articles,
and research data to catch the next big trend.
And often, we can miss the important data on our laptops that shows how
and where we are limiting our own marketing effectiveness.
While many marketing departments are now measuring their programs,
they are often too busy to make sure their digital marketing initiatives are
aligned and their metrics are set up to report progress toward top strategic
goals.
Measuring Campaigns
Is Not Enough
I have worked with companies that have long lists of metrics that they
measure month after month. “If you do
not measure it, you cannot improve it” is their mantra. Many companies may be good at measuring their
actions, but the can miss the insights in the data if they do not look at the
right data in combination. Many know their
click-through rates for individual email, Google AdWords, or digital ad
campaigns, but they do not know the sales conversion rates that came from those
efforts.
In my last blog,
I shared how many marketing funnels are leaking. This often occurs when marketing initiatives
and their corresponding metrics are not aligned strategically to top
objectives. Many companies place
marketing campaigns in market and feel good about generating activity, but do
not stop to understand if they also produced achievement.
Marketers need to shift from measuring to results at the top of their
funnel to measuring effectiveness from top to bottom. For a B2B campaign, we not only need to know
how many total leads a campaign generates, but also how many qualified leads
and active prospects as well as how many prospects become customers and their
size of purchase. By aligning our data,
we shift from measuring productivity of an individual initiative to managing and
optimizing our portfolio of marketing investments – and boosting our marketing
ROI.
Manage One
Funnel, Not Two
One of the reasons many companies do not truly understand their
marketing effectiveness is that the top and bottom of their funnel are managed
in two different departments. Marketing
manages awareness generation and engagement at the top of the funnel. Sales is responsible for converting prospects
into buyers at the bottom of the funnel.
Marketing measures results in terms of how many prospects they produce,
and all prospects are counted as having equal value in some companies. The Sales department is then measured on how
many prospects it converts to buyers—regardless of where the prospects came
from or how ready they are to buy.
By measuring the same prospect with different objectives, two funnels
are created. The Marketing funnel drops
prospects into the Sales funnel. Insight,
alignment, and productivity are often lost.
By aligning your metrics measurement and connecting the dots throughout
one integrated funnel, you will be able to understand the quality of each prospect
and the results produced by different marketing efforts. This results in better insights, and allows
you to better manage your marketing portfolio.
Make Your Data
More Productive – Leverage Your Analytics Tool Set
Many companies use their top-line analytics reporting to only look at
topline conversions—click through rates and resulting web traffic.
Those in ecommerce are often skilled in leveraging web analytics. They not only know which campaign drove
sales, they are customizing email messaging and landing page design via A/B
testing to optimize the impact of their efforts. Not every company has reached this level of
sophistication. They often have been
“too busy” to fully learn the tools available to them.
If you use Google Analytics or other tracking tools to track visits
and time on site, invest time to learn how these tools can also be used to set
campaign goals and evaluate multi-channel funnels (which elements of your
integrated marketing efforts produces the most sales). You will be able to track and evaluate the
effectiveness of different marketing initiatives to produce the most valuable
prospects.
Make sure your own data is used powerfully. Often, you can create greater short-term
sales growth by improving your targeting and retaining your best prospects than
by investing to launch an incremental marketing campaign.
Once your marketing and sales metrics and analysis are more fully
aligned, your next big sales trend could be come from a highly functioning
marketing and sales funnel. With a
robust funnel in place, the marketing ROI of all of your programs will improve.
“The ability to
take data – to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from
it, to visualize it, to communicate it is going to be a hugely important skill
in the next decades.”
– Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google
GrowthSpring Group
is a unique strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that helps clients
accelerate sales and profit growth. We help you identify and implement new
business insights, opportunities, winning strategies and plans.
