Marketing analytics—this is a term that makes some people cringe, but measuring marketing efforts is necessary to driving business decisions. If your company isn't tracking marketing analytics, it should be. Period. If you’re still shooting from the hip, it’s time to make the jump to marketing analytics.
If advanced analytics seems a little scary to you, you’re not alone. Marketing is traditionally a creative career, so analytics adds a whole new layer that you may not be familiar with. But if you take it a step at a time, analytics will improve your marketing.
Deciding what to track
It's important to track your vital marketing metrics without getting lost in the details. Look at marketing trends over time and how to track important metrics without tracking, well, everything. Look at your marketing initiatives and choose one or two KPIs to track for each, like:
- Opens and clicks (Email marketing)
- Clicks and conversions (Digital advertising)
- Leads qualified by marketing (Lead generation)
- Conversions on leads qualified by marketing (Sales. Dollars. Marketing ROI. Don’t forgot to reach into the sales process and see how your efforts add to the company’s bottom line.)
Then, create a central place to track all of your marketing analytics. This could be something as simple as a shared spreadsheet, or more advanced like a dashboard. It’s up to you! Get started with this quick read of potential metrics to track based on your goals.
Taking action
Here’s what you’ve been waiting for: how to get your next promotion by implementing what I just mentioned above. Keep in mind that your numbers might be just plain ugly at the beginning of your marketing analytics journey—and your goal is to make those graphs go up and to the right. More opens, more clicks, more leads, more conversions. Here’s how:
1. Act, test, adjust.
I’ve seen so many marketers make the mistake of coming up with one inspired email subject/tweet/conversion button and really committing to it. Instead, create two email subjects, three tweets…you get the picture. Send your email first with one subject, then three days later to those who didn’t open with another. Schedule three tweets that position your content in a different way throughout the week. A/B test your conversion points. By analyzing your results, you’ll see trends over time and have a better understanding of how to reach your target market.
2. Don’t get discouraged.
Like I said above, some of the data you track won’t look good at the beginning. And the worst part is, you may not have known which of your marketing efforts bombed, and which were phenomenally successful. Don’t get discouraged; I repeat: do not get discouraged. Treat where you are today as a baseline and it can only go up from there.
3. Share your success.
This is the key to getting your promotion. Share your success with your company via customer testimonials, case studies, updates to management, really wherever you can. So many professionals don’t brag enough, and you should start. Because you’re not doing all of this work for nothing.
What other steps have you found impactful when analyzing your marketing efforts? Let us know in the comments below! Are you looking for help boosting your marketing ROI? Contact Milwaukee marketing agency, Accelity Marketing.
