This week, we begin a new five-part series
from The Marx Group on marketing metrics. The series will continue every
Friday. 
Many times
when marketing is discussed the question “How do we know if it is effective?”
is raised. For many companies, that question is difficult to answer because
they are not measuring their marketing efforts. What they are missing are
marketing metrics. This article is the first of a five-part series, designed to
provide you with tools to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
The articles are written by The Marx Group, a highly-focused, full-service
marketing communications agency. Celebrating its 30th anniversary,
The Marx Group works exclusively in the automotive and commercial vehicle
industry.
So what are
marketing metrics? Marketing metrics are data and statistics that help
determine the effectiveness of a marketing program. There are many things that
can be measured in a marketing program; however, the most common are brand
awareness, engagement and conversion. There are thousands of analytics
available and it is easy to get overwhelmed, so choose the ones you feel are
most important to you. If you are just getting started, you will be more
successful by focusing on a few metrics that you understand and will use,
rather than having too many metrics that are confusing or never get utilized.
Having
metrics in place and periodically analyzing them is important for many reasons,
such as:
o
Accountability
o
Establishing
goals
o
Gauging
success
o
Providing
opportunity to learn/improve
o
Proving
value of specific marketing tactic
The last
bullet point on this list leads us to one of the most important points: return on
investment (ROI). At the end of the day, we want to be able to determine what the
ROI is for the marketing we have done. Making sure the marketing dollars spent
provide a good ROI is important. Metrics help to illustrate which marketing
efforts are effective so that future marketing can be focused on the right
areas.
Once your
marketing metrics are established, and you’re tracking their results, make sure
that the right people are informed. At a minimum, that includes the marketing,
sales and management teams. A common mistake is using metrics but not sharing
them with other departments.
Now that you
have an overview of marketing metrics, let’s talk about how to use them as an
integral part of your marketing program. The following steps work very
effectively in managing any project.
o
Ready –
Define your goals and make one person accountable
o
Aim – Design
your program and makes sure it is measurable
o
Fire –
Implement your program
o
Evaluate –
Measure your results by using your
metrics
o
Adjust –
Make any necessary adjustments to the program based on what you learned from
your marketing metrics
We hope this
article provided you with ideas that you will be able to apply in your
marketing program. In our next article, we’ll take a deeper dive into the first
of our top five marketing metrics: advertising and public relations.
About The Marx Group
The Marx Group (TMG) is a
full-service business strategy and marketing communications agency offering a
diverse range of marketing services, including research, business development
strategies, lead generation programs, customer retention processes,
advertising, website design, public relations, collateral, online marketing,
research, trade show programs and interactive campaigns.
TMG began as an advertising and
marketing agency in Southern California in 1984. Now based in San Rafael, the
company has creative and account teams in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Houston,
Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Knoxville, Tenn. TMG team members, each with a
strong, proven track record, include strategists, account managers, public
relations and media specialists, and an award-winning creative group for both
print and online programs.
