In our last article A Sea of Big Data we looked at the range of Digital Dashboards and how they can provide us with powerful insights from your online marketing activities.
But, in order to really drill down in to the benefits of Digital Dashboards - we want to get more specific.
At Viper we believe that we can only get the best insights from asking intelligent questions, and so in order to develop the best digital dashboards - no matter what platform you use, the level of questioning you employ at the early stages - will determine what results your dashboards pull up.
Have you considered questions such as:
- What are the most important marketing metrics for me to use?
- How can I measure my various marketing programs’ impact on revenue and profit?
- How can I best communicate marketing results with my executive team and board?
It’s no secret that MD’s and board members aren’t particularly interested in the open-rate of your last email campaign or your last press release’s number of views.
In today’s economy, MD’s and board members care about growing revenue and profits:
- How much faster are we growing now vs last year or last quarter?
- How much profit was made last quarter vs this quarter?
- How are our marketing activities contributing to ROI?
Soft metrics like brand awareness, page impressions, and social engagement & reach are important – but only to the extent that they quantifiably connect to hard metrics like pipeline, revenue, and profit.
We are told by SiriusDecisions, Inc. “ 70% of the buying process is now complete by the time a prospect is ready to engage with sales.” On that basis the role of marketing and marketing measurement is even more important today.
Lenskold Group provides excellent tools for managing marketing ROI, including an online Lead Generation ROI planning tool. This and other tools are available for free from the Lenskold Group website.
Paul Albright Marketo’s Chief Revenue Officer shares his secrets for measurement success:
1. Choose no more five key metrics. It’s hard to put organisational focus on more than that, so choose wisely.
2. Measure success versus goals for those metrics for every campaign, every channel, every sales rep/region, every product, etc.
3. Show trends for those metrics over time – that way you can immediately see where you are improving and where you are not.
4. Put on a dashboard for everyone to see so there is always a succinct view of what marketing is trying to achieve, and where you stand.
5. Have recognition systems tied to goals. Make sure top contributors get recognition – E.g. Give them badges they can put on the desks.
6. Rinse and repeat. The best performing companies track results - weekly, monthly, and quarterly - so they can improve just as often.
Viper recommend that you analyse data from your lead generation funnel when considering what metrics to include; such as awareness metrics, engagement, prospect and sales lead stats - ensuring that you are providing watertight intelligence for yourself and for the board. For further information on digital consultancy contact us at Team Viper.