How to Measure Your Marketing

In 2021, it’s crucial to have a marketing presence but how do you measure the success of your marketing efforts? You’re spending all this money — how do you know if it’s working or not? Have you asked yourself or your marketing partner?

It’s easy to throw money at marketing. Whether it’s Google Ads, Facebook Ads, social media, billboards, print…the list goes on. What’s more challenging is ensuring that you’re investing in the right platforms with the right messages to help you achieve your marketing objectives.

Below are a few things to consider when you’re looking into measuring your marketing.

Determine What Your Goals Are

Before you decide to jump into any marketing strategy, ask yourself what your goals are. At the end of the day, when you invest in marketing, your ultimate goal is for your business to grow. This typically means seeing positive revenue and customer growth.

First off, determine how much you want to grow in revenue and how many new customers you need to acquire in order to do so. If it isn’t about gaining new customers maybe it is more about growing your current client revenue.  Whatever your goals, they will dictate your marketing tactics.

Once you have an overall vision of your business growth and focus, then you can decide which platforms and initiatives will be best suited for you. If you’re interested in learning how to calculate the ROI on your marketing, check out this blog post.

Think Of Your Marketing As A Funnel 

Consumer purchasing is not linear. There are more distractions and competition than ever. Gone are the days when someone went to the store or picked up the phone to learn about the products from a business. Consumers can now find any (if not all) the information available about your product or service online. 

The marketing funnel below is a representation of the customer journey most people go through before making a new purchase. As you start to measure your marketing, you’ll want to determine what parts of the funnel you want to focus on, what your metrics and goals are, and which initiatives will help get you there.

• Attract & Engage – In this part of the funnel, the consumer is aware they have a problem but they might not be ready to fix it yet.
• Nurture & Educate – In this part of the funnel, the consumer knows they have a problem and they are starting to look for a solution to help them fix it.
• Convert & Purchase – In this part of the funnel, the consumer is ready to decide how they want to solve their problem and who they want to hire.

In the past, that was it! The customer bought and was happy. 

In 2021, there’s a new part of the funnel. After the customer purchases from you, it’s important to keep them engaged with the goal of seeing them become repeat customers and  advocates for your business.

• Adopt & Retain – After the customer has purchased, it’s important to follow up and keep them engaged.
• Expansion & Loyalty – Now that they have purchased from you and had a great post purchase experience, how can you help them either buy more or become loyal customers?
• Advocate & Ambassador – This is where you want your customers to be! Help them become ambassadors for your business.

What Should You Be Measuring?

Determining your Cost Per Lead and ROI from your marketing efforts are some of the most important metrics. If your marketing partner is not already doing this, this blog breaks down a step by step process on how you can do this yourself!

That being said, you want to ensure you’re tracking your metrics and looking at what’s working and what’s not working in your marketing funnel.

Ideally, you want to be working on every part of the funnel. This will enable you to continue to build brand awareness, reach people in the consideration and purchase phases, and nurture your existing clients in their journey to becoming ambassadors.

This isn’t always possible based on your budget.f you’re just getting started, focus on getting in front of people who are ready to buy. This can help you generate more business so that you can start investing in goals like brand awareness and thought leadership.

Based on each part of the funnel here are some metrics you can be focusing on:

Attract & Engage 

• Remarketing audiences — are they growing based on new website traffic coming to your site?
• Website sessions — are you getting a consistent or increased flow of website traffic?
• Direct Traffic in Google Analytics — is your direct traffic source increasing as people start seeing your brand and typing your name into Google?
• Facebook Video Views — are your views growing in order to remarket ads to people who have watched your content?

Nurture & Educate 

• Downloadable Content — do you have a lead magnet created and if so, are you seeing consistent downloads? If not, maybe consider something else or ask your best clients what they would like to see. 
• Are you writing blogs and are people finding and reading your content? Consider tracking your blog views on your website as a metric.
• Email Marketing — is your email list growing over time and are they engaging with your content? Look at metrics like Open Rate and Click Through Rate. Here is a list of industry averages you can look at to see how well you’re doing.

Convert & Purchase 

• Leads — are you getting leads coming through your website from platforms like Google, Facebook, or organically? Look at goals when it comes to website submissions on your website and phone calls from ads or from the site in Analytics. At Intrigue, we like to use a tool called CallRail to track calls.

Adopt & Retain 

• Email Marketing — Do you have an automated email campaign set up for new clients or after someone contacts you? If so, you should track open and engagement rates on these emails over time.

Expansion & Loyalty

• Google Reviews — Are you getting consistent positive Google Reviews? This is one of the best metrics to measure when considering if you have loyal customers.
• Revenue/Client — Review your numbers and see if your revenue per client is growing over time.

Advocate & Ambassador 

• Referrals — are you getting referrals from your current customers? This is the best way to measure whether you have strong ambassadors.

Know Your Vanity Metrics

Vanity metrics are metrics that often look and feel good but don’t necessarily have a direct impact on your business. At the end of the day, the number of leads your business is attracting and converting should be the primary metrics you keep a close eye on. So make sure you have the right systems set up to track website contact requests, phone calls, or online sales.

A vanity metric might be something like website traffic, clicks on ads, or impressions. These numbers are important to track to ensure they’re performing well but oftentimes, they’re given too much weight and serve as a distraction from the more important metrics. Keep in mind that just because they’re high, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re working! A high number of impressions or website sessions is great but if no one is contacting you, there’s a problem!

Measuring your marketing might seem a little daunting but it will help ensure your marketing is focusing on the right metrics to grow your business. When in doubt go back to your goals and take a look at your marketing funnel. Assess what you currently have in place, what metrics will give you clarity as well as where you might want to expand.

If you’re too busy growing your business and marketing partner or internal marketing team isn’t providing you clarity give the team at Intrigue a call! 

Tricia wants to ensure your experience with Intrigue is awesome! She helps non-profits, businesses, and communities grow together. Tricia assists the sales team in business development. Outside of work she is an avid tea drinker, world traveller and loves getting active and cooking healthy.