Every company needs to have a core marketing strategy – that process that guides all of their marketing efforts and is the cornerstone of what they are doing to get new clients. But having a core marketing strategy is one thing – knowing if it is effective is another. So, the question is how can companies evaluate their core strategy to see if it is working?
Metrics to measure the effectiveness
According to marketing experts Abacus Marketing, there are five primary metrics that can be used to measure any marketing strategy, whether it is the core one or one for a specific part of the business. By knowing and understanding these metrics as well as having a system to track them, you are in a better position to judge how well things are working.
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Contribution to revenue from marketing
The most key indicator of what is working is how much revenue the marketing efforts are bringing into the business. This is also known as ‘return on investment’ or ROI – how much are you spending, how much are you making and is the latter higher than the former?
Of course, it isn’t always that straightforward as some aspects of the strategy may not be judged directly on the revenue, they bring in. So, it is important to look at this one in the context of the aim of the strategy or areas of it.
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Growth of leads from marketing
Leads come in different forms for different business. For some, it may be direct – where someone gives their contact info to get more details about the product, books a call or arranges an appointment.
But leads can also be things like email signups or people agreeing to have Facebook Messenger contact from the business. So, understand what a lead looks like and measure what the marketing brings in.
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Conversion rates
Conversion rates tell a number of stories. It can help you determine if a channel is effective or look at how many people are moving through what stage of your sales funnels. Whatever the conversion might be, you should have this determined at the start of the strategy and know how to track it.
Remember, conversions aren’t always sales but can be anything that converts someone from one situation to another – email signups or lead form completion can both be conversions.
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Cost per lead or cost per opportunity
Depending on what you can track, there is various ‘cost per’ metrics that you can look at. These include:
- Cost per lead
- Cost per opportunity
- Cost per click
- Cost per conversion
- Cost per signup
By understanding which metric is relevant, you can then easily track these and judge them against the core strategic goals.
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Brand awareness increase
Sometimes marketing isn’t about directly getting sales or leads but something more subtle. Brand awareness increase is one example – building that relationship with customers so they recognise the company. Then when they are ready to buy, they feel they know enough about you to make that choice.
These metrics can be trickier to measure because it is sometimes harder to track a clear benefit. One way to do it may be to have it measured alongside the pipeline for your sales funnel. Are people becoming more aware of the company and taking that first step?
Analyse and adapt
There are other metrics as well as these that you can use to track your marketing and see how effective it is. It is important at the outset to decide what to track, how to track it, when to get the data and how often to re-evaluate based on it. Then you will always know how effective your core strategy is.
