In a digital world, there is an abundance of data available to help inform your marketing strategy. From Google Analytics to Facebook Insights, businesses and nonprofits alike have access to powerful customer “feedback” that can help to refine marketing strategies and allocate resources for optimal ROI.
With a wealth of data at their fingertips – and a broad swathe of marketing channels at play – organizations need clearly-defined success metrics in place. At the end of the day, the end goal is the same – ROI that positively impacts the bottom line – but the channels that are most successful in helping achieve this objective will vary widely among companies and causes.
As companies integrate their online and offline strategies, it is increasingly important to ensure tracking mechanisms and analytics are configured to clearly identify which specific marketing channel(s) inspired action and drove conversion. For example, if you are an elder care provider who is running both online ads and doing e-mail marketing to drive baby boomers to download a free guide to choosing the right elder care facility for a parent or loved one, you need to have tracking URLs in place to determine which source generated the most downloads.
For B2B companies who rely heavily on tradeshow marketing to fill their pipeline with qualified leads, measurement and tracking can be an especially complex process. Marketing for just one tradeshow may include pre-show marketing to a company’s existing prospects, a speaking engagement for the CEO during the show, post-event e-mail marketing to new leads, premium content offers for booth visitors, and the list goes on. Case and point – the more marketing channels you employ, the greater the need to have both channel-specific metrics and the most comprehensive lead tracking mechanisms possible in place.
While the volume of data available to measure marketing success can be overwhelming, having clearly-defined KPIs in place is critical for optimizing ROI. As you set out to refine your marketing measurement and lead tracking programs for 2015, keep these key questions top-of-mind:
- Who is my target audience?
- Through which marketing channel(s) will I reach them?
- What action(s) do I want my target audience to take?
- How will I know/measure which channel(s) was/were most effective?
- How can and will I use this data to both replicate success and prove ROI?
Inbound marketing programs allows companies and causes to increase the “trackability” of their marketing programs and generate tnagible ROI.
