Whether looking to apply marketing automation, or simply hoping to improve current marketing automation strategies, focusing on the basic essentials for effective implementation or progress updates is key. Ultimately how you report on your strategies and related marketing channels goes back to your initial goals. From here understanding your KPIs, and approach for measurement, helps support insights derived from your related metrics.
Build Transparency
The most important component is ‘transparency.’ The where, the what, the who, should not be a trivial subject, no matter what type of marketing program you are implementing or working to improve on. You want your process to be easy and quantifiable at each stage. You want to ensure that visibility is giving you the right focus to capture the right data. As data enters your sales funnel, for example, be able to filter your data and understand where the different groups are located during each stage of the sales process. Future targeting and campaigns become a breeze from here.
Example Focus Areas for Improvement
- Align marketing, sales, and customer service
- Analyze lead generation and lead nurturing process
- Refine scoring system
Measure ROI by Marketing Channel
Understanding where your success factors are coming from, allows you to evaluate your investment to select marketing channels. Knowing which channel leads to greater returns provides insights for refinement as future campaigns are rolled out. Social? Blog? Email? Webinars? Events? All areas with applied costs need to be measured and readily analyzed, leading to common questions for improvement:
- How should we adjust our % of spend for each marketing channel?
- Which marketing channel proved to be the most successful?
- How can we expand on the potential of a successful channel?
- Are there missed opportunities as we roll out campaigns? How can we adjust our programs moving forward?
Example Measurement Types
- Gross sales
- Average sales size
- Cost per lead
- Value of campaign/customer
Link Campaigns to Goals
Always look to establish and/or refine your goals for the marketing programs you develop. This ensures that you can track your progress and gain visibility into the success or failure of the programs you implement. Transparency is key here. Depending on how many touch points you develop to create an opportunity, you want to be able to collectively understand how they worked for success. More than often it is not a single interaction that drives results. The different areas you work to incorporate become part of the crucial steps that demonstrate strengths and new areas of opportunity.
Being able to go back and report on the goals you were looking to achieve gives you that direct path to visibility and value. Your KPIs and process all come together here.
Example Campaign Goals
- Increase gross sales by EOY
- Increase revenue per lead generation
- Measure effectiveness of relevant/timely content
- Create automated workflows
- Increase conversion rates for each step
Additions & Feedback
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