What marketing metrics do you need to help you improve your business ROIs? We’ve been kicking off the new year getting last year’s reporting up to date and spending some quality time planning 2024’s metric scene – asking ourselves what have we been measuring, why and how this set of data is help our marketing objectives.
There is a saying, often attributed to Galileo, that says: “Measure what is measurable and make measurable.”
Are you measuring the right metrics? Do you know exactly what marketing activities are getting your sales?
It is all too easy to measure the wrong thing – the difference between marketing analytics and marketing metrics needs to be clear, and often businesses can get caught up with measuring what many marketeers describe as ‘vanity metrics’.
Measuring followers and likes to a social media post may seem important, for example, but for many brands what really matters is the meaningful engagement and return on marketing investment (your time and your budget).
What metrics should you be measuring in your marketing?
Analytics deal with data at a high level, usually combining tangibles and intangibles, using historic and current data. Google Analytics, Good Search Console and SEMRush, for example, are common examples of dashboards that will push out these analytics for you, allowing you to compare between time periods of your choice.
Metrics are normally understood as counting, tracking and communicating data that has been gathered from a specific situation. It could be market share, market growth, brand penetration, growth rates, net sales, customer retention, impressions, or click through rate, for example.
Need help understanding marketing metrics?
If you’re struggling with knowing what to measure in your marketing, or are getting caught up with reporting for what feels like ‘for the sake of reporting’, it would be well worth taking some time out to look at your customer journey – where does your customer interact with your brand, what helps to drive the sale? What objectives do you need to achieve in your marketing – is it sales, brand awareness, or both?
Understand your marketing and sales goals in order to help identify the specific marketing metrics that will make a difference to your business. [...]
More than half-a-million business leaders have discovered the power of the Story Brand Framework, created by the New York Times best-selling author and marketing expert Donald Miller. And they are simply making millions!
Here at Poeticus Marketing we are huge fans of the work – tried and tested methods to help you dig deep and dramatically improve how you connect with your customers and, ultimately, grow your business. Sounds too good to be true?
While the book is a hefty read, Miller’s proven process has helped thousands of companies engage with their existing customers, giving them the ultimate competitive advantage.
Building a Story Brand does this by teaching you:
The seven universal story points all humans respond to.
How to simplify a brand message so people understand it.
How to create the most effective messaging for all your copy – from websites and brochures, to social media.
Our key takes from the Framework include:
Write your blog, website copy and social media (in fact, all of your comms!) from the point of view of your customer. Get into their mindset, know your customer inside and out before you reach for the pen and do any form of marketing planning.
Sales led marketing – yes, sell your benefits to your customer but sell the solution. Communicate the benefits to your products from a solution point of view – what real benefits does your product or business give your customer?
Emotions are important in marketing (yep, think John Lewis). Imagine a ‘Benefit Ladder’ – get to the emotional leverage. How can you get the emotional aspect of your product across in your messaging?
Map out the real reason your customers purchase from you. If you don’t know this, do some customer research – why do your current customers use you? What do they like, what do they want improving?
Clarity on your website is key – reassess whether the copy on your website needs to be on your site or if it could be addressed in a different area or section. Does it really give the information your customers need to see?
When starting up, you have to sell yourself, so it’s easier to position yourself as the hero – but at what point do you tip the scales back to the guide position? Sense-check your copy.
Call-to-actions in your marketing – use them clearly and constantly.
Identify gaps in knowledge and practices e.g. narrative void.
Try a group workshop with your team – bring in fun and help dig deeper!
If you’d like to give the book a read, head to your local bookshop or online; it’s widely available and is being snapped up by many marketeers and business owners worldwide.
Need help with your marketing?
Poeticus Marketing is a marketing team based in Spalding, Lincolnshire. We work with brands all over the UK, large and small. This website is not a commercial entity but an informative resource to share and help others create brilliant marketing strategies. [...]
Poeticus Marketing is a marketing team based in sunny Lincolnshire. We work with brands all over the UK and use this blog as a way to share marketing insights.
A passionate team of marketeers, journalists, artists and brand consultants, between us we’ve clocked up over 50 years in the marketing and media industry. Starting out in the days of keyword stuffing (yes… we were guilty!), we’ve seen (and sometimes shuddered) as the world of marketing has evolved.
Yet despite all of our marketing stories and successes, one thing has always remained the same – we’re here for the long and the short of it (thank you Mark Ritson for always keeping us on the straight and narrow). No matter what your marketing budget is, whether you’re a business owner spinning all the plates or have an impressive marketing resource at your disposal, our focus should always remain the same; the long drives the short. Regardless of the size of your marketing budget, here’s the leveller: you must resist the suck of the short term…however addictive it may seem.
By short term we mean being marketing tactic driven. Quick, fired wins (social media posts for the sake of it, ad-hoc advertising with no clear way to effectively measure your marketing ROI, blog posts without a call to action, or perhaps with too many CTAs!). The alternative?
Well, that’s the long game: those well-researched and optimised series of blog posts, a social media content plan that’s been written to invite a LinkedIn engagement – boost the brand or perhaps lead generation; all of which should form part of your overall ‘big’ strategy.
We’re not saying that the quick wins are to be completely avoided, absolutely not, but you need to ensure that any marketing plan is well thought out and set up for real success and ROIs – your performance marketing (short) will be driven by your brand building (long). [...]
When it comes to creating a logo for your business, we understand just how daunting the process can be. We were delighted when Drive by Websites offered to help us with bringing our vision for Poeticus Marketing to fruition! Taking the time to understand our ideas, Jack took a hand-drawn sketch and brought it to life. [...]