Holiday planning for brands and marketers is in full swing. Before launching any campaign you first have to clearly define your objectives and goals. Here are 5 tips to setting your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and how to measure them for success.
Website Traffic
Know your site traffic. Or, at least start putting initiatives in place now to get to know them. Know their demographics and who they are, where they’re from and how they interact with your site.
These are your people. Learn how to speak to them to keep them coming back to your site. Use the information that you gather to determine what exactly they want from you. And it will vary across sets of your demographic, some will want to absorb your content, some to make a purchase for your goods or services.
Once you know this, you will be able to predict what those customers want and to go after “look-alike” customers to grow your audience. Because really, isn’t anticipating your customers’ needs what it’s all about?
Ok, so when I say website traffic I am really talking about a lot of things.
Measurements like:
- Page views
- Pages per Session
- Average Session Duration
- Bounce Rate
- Sessions
Social Media Reach
If you don’t have a social media strategy, you need one. And it is not too late! You see, and as you probably already know, social media is a huge part of your organic reach and inbound efforts (full disclosure, plugging in a paid social strategy will increase your visibility). So, not only does social allow you to reach potential customers and clients, it allows you to engage with thought leaders in your space and create an open dialogue.
For social platforms, a standard KPI is to track growth, things such as followers, likes and shares. Pretty much all social sites have built in analytics tracking systems. However, there are amazing systems out there that compile your social analytics into convenient dashboard views, making life much easier.
And remember, not all social media platforms will work for your business. So, understand which platforms (and which messages on those platforms) work for you and track the ones that really matter to you and your customer.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is essential to any marketing strategy, so don’t neglect your email program. Every email campaign should be thoroughly planned and executed. And it doesn’t stop there. These campaigns need to be assessed and judged against your KPIs.
Good email metrics include:
- Bounce Rate or Delivery Rate
- Opens
- Click throughs
- Conversions
- Unsubscribe Rate
- AOV
There are many additional metrics of value depending on your unique goals and business model. But these will get you started and headed in the right direction. And, like with everything else in this list, make sure that it makes sense to your brand. If it doesn’t, don’t waste your precious time.
Landing Page Conversions
Where are your viewers landing? What landing pages are your customers being drawn to? And why? If a potential customer or lead gets to your site and doesn’t know the appropriate action to take, no one wins. Your landing pages are the first interaction many will have with your site (unless they were introduced on social, of course) and you want to leave a lasting impression.
This goes back to my first point about website traffic, but these landing pages are the building blocks of creating a connection and starting the conversation. This is your customers’ first impression. But if your content is lacking and your SEO is dismal, people won’t stick around. And then, you’ve likely lost them for good.
Blog Post Views
Ok, there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of content published daily. Why should anyone be interested in yours?
Understanding the overall, and granular, performance of your blog posts is the best way to gauge what your customers are interested in. What content captures their attention? Once you know that, create more of that content! Not only are you producing something valuable for your audience, you are building trust and rapport.
Each post that is published to your blog should be celebrated! And not just with high-fives around the cubes. It should be celebrated by being featured in social posts and email campaigns. And it should be SEO optimized and that means targeting your keywords.
But that is just a piece. The other part involves the length and quality of your content. I get it, maintaining a blog is hard. People get busy and all of a sudden you have no writers. Stay the course and don’t get discouraged. It is a process. And like with most things, you will get better with time.
Tracking KPIs can seem like a tedious task, and in truth, it kind of is. But, thanks to the countless analytics platforms and tools, it is easier to see just how your marketing efforts are pacing (without having to dig around in your analytics platform for hours).
Tracking your marketing efforts provides validation for what you do. No matter what you are selling, no matter if you are B2B or B2C, tracking KPIs will keep you and your business moving forward. Because to know where you are going, you need to know where you have been.
Learn from your failures, move forward and keep testing. When you put the effort in, you will have many marketing success stories.
Have a marketing success story you would like to share? Tell us in the comments section below.
