How To Measure your Marketing Metrics
Hello All,
Marketing your business, whether you are brand new or experienced, is an ongoing challenge. The good news is that the number of ways in which we can get ourselves in front of potential customers has proliferated. The bad news is that an initiative, that might have been working, suddenly stops delivering results, often for seemingly inexplicable reasons. (a recent google update has significantly impacted the ranking of my blog which inspired me to write this article which is as much for me as it is for you). This means that we have keep on top of our marketing efforts, and monitor their return on investment (ROI), on an ongoing basis. Since our financial resources and time are not infinite, we want to make sure that they are as effective as possible. We also want to ensure that we do the accounting for our advertising and marketing expenses, meaningfully.
In the past, this was significantly more difficult where marketing was done using traditional media, such as tv or radio of mailings/flyers etc. Other than seeing an increase in sales, there isn’t much in the way of specific metrics. If you have more than one campaign at any given time, you would likely have difficulty discerning which one was actually working.
All that has changed with digital marketing, where you can often follow the path of an impression to a click to a sale. Conversion metrics have become much identifiable and there is a plethora of data to work with. Digital marketing is also much more accessible to small businesses whose budgets tend to be less. If you have time, you can leverage social media without spending a dollar. Or you can use Facebook ads with a budget of less than $100 per month.
Perhaps, the most important piece of advice with respect to your marketing efforts is to take some time to identify the characteristics of your ideal client and find out where you can find them. If your service or product is visual, then Instagram might be a good place to have a presence. If it is informational, then you might choose YouTube. Crafts and other hobbies can often be found on Pinterest and Etsy.
Once you have selected your marketing platforms, it is important to establish metrics to measure their effectiveness. Every digital platform has data that can be analyzed.
Website Traffic/Search Engine Optimizations (SEO)
Anyone with a website should set up Google Analytics that allows you to see all kinds of data about your visitors. Of particular interest are total and unique visitors, sources of traffic, pages that are clicked on the most and have the most interaction and location of traffic.
You also want to monitor the position of the search terms that for which you are getting clicks and traffic and also identify other popular search terms that you are not ranking for and create helpful content around it. Note that ranking for a popular search term can be difficult as there is a tremendous amount of competition. Often the strategy here is go for “long tail” keywords which means targeting longer, more specific searches. Most importantly, however, the content that you create should be helpful to the user, sound natural and be well organized.
The best free tool for SEO is the Google Search Console (different from analytics) which gives you granular insight into impressions, clicks and your position for specific pages and search terms. There also a number of other keyword tools that help you find search terms that real people are using.
Social Media Metrics
The most important social media metrics are the growth in your followers/subscriber and engagement which include interactions such as likes, shares, and comments. You want to create content that people are interested in and establish you as an authority in your field.
The metrics for video marketing are similar. Additionally, you would want to review the watch time, and what parts of the video receive the most attention (YouTube actually provides this and reams of other data that helps you really hone in on what is working, and what isn’t)
Email Marketing
One of the best ways to market your small business is via email marketing. A user that signs up to receive your emails is generally more engaged than someone who is simply seeing your social media posts, and it allows you to personalize your messaging.
In terms of metrics, you should monitor your the open rate i.e. the percentage of recipients who open a given email (although this has become less precise since Apple introduced certain restrictions). Click-through rates (CTR) i.e. the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in the email is also a good measure of engagement. Conversion rates which is the percentage of recipients who make a purchase is perhaps the most important metric and with enough data, allows you to forecast what percentage of your subscribers will actually convert to customers. Other metrics might include the best days to send to email newsletters, especially if you send them often.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Given the number of options for PPC advertising (Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube etc.) the best strategy for placement of ads is, to reiterate, to try and identify what platform your ideal customer is using. Once you have done this, you want to try and create ads that resonate with them.
Since each ad costs money, it is important to monitor the effectiveness of your ads carefully and be willing to make tweaks as there is a certain amount of trial and error to see what works best.
In terms of metrics, you would specifically want to track the Cost Per Click (CPC) which is the cost incurred for each click on your ads and the conversion (from ad to sale) rate. At a certain point, the sales need to exceed the cost of placing the ads.
Big Picture
All marketing requires an expenditure of time and/or money. You obviously don’t want to spend too much time on tracking metrics, but you do want to create a system (e.g. a spreadsheet and a process for tracking key metrics) that gives you insight into the total amount of time and money that you are spending and how it is contributing to your sales. This will let you know if your efforts are working or if it is necessary to make small tweaks or change your strategy altogether. Once you have created a system, it is essential that you monitor this regularly as something that works now (as I learned) might change very quickly.
Related Resources
What Types of Advertising/Marketing Expenses Can Small Businesses Deduct?
In the past advertising for small business owners mostly involved ads for print, television or radio (a catchy jingle was always a good way to go), cold calling (rarely a pleasant experience), sending
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