There are certain performance indicators that must be applied to measure the success of your marketing campaign if you must take your business to the next level. There is no point in setting business goals and objectives if you cannot measure their attainment using core metrics that track marketing efforts.
When you set up a marketing campaign, you must also set up success metrics that can be used to measure their effectiveness and overall achievements. If your business is wholly online, you can use web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Clicky, KISSmetrics, and even HubSpot Analytics to measure page views, clickthrough rates, lead conversion, bounce rates, and the diversity of your customers.
Whether online or offline, you must apply proven metrics to measuring your marketing initiatives so as to know what works and what does not. Also known as KPIs – key performance indicators – marketing success metrics serve as the scorecard against which marketing campaigns work in terms of budget and measurable results. Here are some key metrics that can measure the performance of your marketing efforts:
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Sales Revenue
This is the easiest metric to measure – it measures revenue in terms of the marketing efforts that went into it. When done properly, you will discover that a tiny fraction of your marketing initiatives drives the majority of your sales revenue – to this extent, you will know the efforts that are working and how to improve on them instead of wasting funds on blanket marketing campaigns. This metric is connected to return on marketing investment (ROMI).
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Conversion Rates
Although this applies to online businesses, the metrics can also be applied to brick-and-mortar enterprises with some modifications. Measuring the conversion rate includes key factors such as the traffic-to-lead ratio, landing page conversion rate, lead-to-customer ratio, and customer progress from the point of landing on the business’s website to the point of leaving the site. If the journey of the web visitor leads to purchase before exit, then the conversion rate can be said to be successful.
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Brand Awareness
The extent of brand awareness in the market is very essential to driving sales. When you are able to measure how well known your product is in the market, you will be able to leverage on that awareness to further push next-stage marketing efforts. Brand awareness is also significant with product reach – meaning the geographical area where such brand awareness is prominent. This is why radio presenters often ask callers during their call-in program where the callers are calling from – it is to test the reach of the radio station and to evaluate its popularity outside of its transmitting base.
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Customer Retention Rate
It is not enough to have people buying your products – it is best to have them buying again and again. People who buy once and never return are not called customers – people who buy repeatedly and in all situations are the real customers. The customer retention rate is the measurable rate at which customers stay with the brand without shifting to competing brands – for instance, some people do not take any soft drinks except Coca-Cola – these are the customers that have been retained and that drive the success of the company; they hold a customer lifetime value (CLTV).
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Customer Acquisition Cost
The customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the specific cost of acquiring a new customer. If you spend $100 over a week period to acquire a customer who spends $30 to buy your product over a month period, then the customer acquisition cost is not worth it. The amount you spend in your marketing campaign to acquire new customers must not exceed the worth of their purchase over a given period – that would be like paying a lawyer $100 to prosecute a debtor owing $30.
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Testimonials And Reviews
Did all your marketing efforts translate to positive testimonials and reviews from target consumers? Marketers often overlook the importance of customer testimonials in driving sales figures, but word of mouth is very powerful in bringing success to a company. Potential customers often rely on the positive experience of product users to determine their needs for the product, and one thing with testimonials or reviews is that they are often given freely, or very cheaply.
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Other Key Success Metrics
There are other key success metrics that should be applied to measuring your marketing efforts. These include –
- Email subscriber growth rate
- Sales team response time
- Return on advertising expenditure
- Cost per quality lead
- Website traffic to lead ratio
To improve your performance indicators, it is advisable you enhance your marketing messages, support sales teams, and redistribute your marketing budget over a customer’s lifetime.