Do you find marketing metrics overwhelming?
Then you're not alone.
As a small expert business owner, you're probably under-resourced and struggle to find the time to stop and assess what's working (and what isn't).
There is a lot of data at our disposal when it comes to our marketing and sales efforts – especially with the amount of online platforms we use on a daily basis.
So in this article, I explain three important aspects to consider with your marketing metrics to help you attract the right clients.
1/ Determine the goal you want to achieve
Have you ever heard of the saying ‘if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there’?
This quote is particularly relevant in terms of your marketing metrics and tracking performance.
Without initially defining the goal you are trying to achieve, it's difficult to optimise for it.
So it’s critical that we identify the things that contribute to our particular goal and work backwards from there.
This approach ensures you're focusing your efforts on the metrics that matter.
For the rest of this article, we'll examine your marketing metrics through the goal of attracting more of the right clients.
2/ Look for the leading indicators
Following on from the previous point about optimising for a particular goal, it's important to take note of the leading indicators.
A leading indicator is essentially a particular activity or metric that contributes to a specific outcome.
In other words, they are the inputs required to drive a key result for your business.
For example, if your goal is to achieve more consulting sales, the number of proposals written for prospects can be identified as a leading indicator.
So once you have a goal in mind, write down the leading indicators you should keep tabs on.
Knowing this will influence the activities you need to do on a regular basis to ensure the goal is eventually achieved.
Here are some of the top leading indicators to think about for attracting clients in the short term:
- the number of initial conversations you’re having with ideal clients
- the amount of sales meetings booked with prospects
- number of proposals written
- the number of enquiries generated through your website
3/ Don't focus too much on vanity metrics
Although it can feel great to see some of your marketing stats reach high figures, the majority of them are not the best indicators of success for attracting clients.
In the same way that ‘revenue is vanity, profit is sanity’ there are lots of stats that are not worth paying too much attention to in the short term.
Here are some examples of the vanity metrics I’m talking about:
- video views
- social media post impressions
- social media likes, shares, and comments
- email open rate
- follower count
- time on website
- bounce rate
So despite the fact that it's good to see growth, try not to obsess over these metrics.
Conclusion and action point
In summary, when it comes to marketing metrics, having a clear purpose is essential.
Define your goals, identify the leading indicators, and avoid getting distracted by vanity metrics.
By concentrating on the metrics that truly matter in the short to medium term, you can attract the right clients and optimise your marketing efforts for success.
Your action point for today is to spend half an hour examining the leading indicators that contribute to your specific goals and think of ways to embed more of that into your working week.
