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In the good old days your marketing success was measured in cheers and clapping, as the sales team made their numbers and occasionally remembered to attribute a small thank you, to the marketing team who designed the campaigns, produced the brochure, ran the tradeshow, sent the emails and managed the website (but I'm not bitter). Only the foolish tried to quantify their contribution. Marketing was a cost centre forever.
Evaluating marketing success is no longer optional, but what you choose to measure and why you choose to measure it, can make all the difference.
Dust off your marketing plan
Remember that document you sweated blood over at the end of last year? Go back to your marketing plan and pinpoint what your organisation defines as success. What is the marketing team tasked with this year e.g. increasing leads, improving retention, grabbing market share etc. Add numbers if they are missing so that 'increasing leads' becomes '20 new prospect leads per month from the UK top priority list according to sales'. If you aim at nothing, you're bound to hit it. Aiming for a number gives you a definite proof point.
You probably have some key targets in your marketing strategy, but measuring as you go along will help you to make any changes necessary, to stay relevant and take advantage of new opportunities as they develop.
Who cares what marketing does?
If you're the marketing budget holder, who do you need to influence to secure next years funds? Over delivering, under budget is the marketing dream team of every CFO. Make sure you know what information is needed across your organisation to demonstrate your success. If you can convey the facts in their language i.e. actual leads generated against forecast for the sales and financial people, they're more likely to listen.
Also think about the format of your facts and figures in terms of what works best for your peers/boss/other departments and how often they need updating on marketing progress. Email and direct marketing campaigns are relatively easy to measure, as are web statistics and now as each new social media trend emerges, so does a tool to help you evaluate your success. Use these to set expectations at the outset and refer to them often to check you're on track.
Get started
Once you know what you're trying to measure, why you those numbers are important and who cares about the results, it's time to get started. Some of my favourite (and free) little helpers are
- Google Analytics (monitoring brand traffic to your website and keywords)
- Facebook Insights (assuming you have a Facebook page for your brand)
- LinkedIn Analytics (for all company page administrators)
- Topsy (metrics on mentions across social web and Twitter)
- Social Mention (social media search and analysis)
Now go forth and quantify!
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