Marketing metrics matter

Looking to make a resolution that you can keep and will help your bottom line?  This year resolve to take a data driven approach to marketing.

Taking a data driven approach requires metrics. Metrics enable you to measure success, drive strategy, and demonstrate the ROI of your marketing efforts.

The first step to taking this approach is to identify the metrics to track.  Given that your objective is to attract, acquire, and retain customers, the most effective metrics to track are those where the unit of focus is the prospect, lead, or customer.  These include the following:

• Visits
• Reach
• Leads
• Customers
• Conversion rates
• Ranking

Once you have determined the metrics you will be tracking, you need a database in which to do so.  Here’s a great template that can help you to achieve success.

"I am awesome" doesn't sell

A survey focused on the logistics and supply chain industries found that 55% of respondents reported that their company blogs. Blogging isn’t going away.  Another survey found that 68% of marketers plan on increasing their use of blogging, making it the top area in which marketers will invest for 2014. 

Too often companies use their blog to promote themselves – and themselves alone.  The issue with this is that customers, current and prospective, don’t want to hear your sales pitch – especially not on repeat.

If you want to attract and engage customers you need to stop telling everyone how awesome you are.

HubSpot names salesy self-promotion as one of the “7 Deadly Sins of Inbound Marketing.”

Sin 3: Gluttony – Don’t be gluttonous and stuff your content with information about your company products.  Focus on solving problems and helping your customers and community first and not jamming your product pitch down their throats.  

Marketing and research strategist Ulrika Gerth suggests keeping the following in mind when creating content for your business blog:

• Stay informative and educational.
• Demonstrate market expertise.
• Sound like a business peer.
• Focus on topics and questions of crucial importance to your target audience.

She also offers this advice: “If you want to make a sale, stop selling.”