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Marketing Metrics
Posted By: smesc2002* on 11/4/2004 12:01 AM (CST) 250 Points
What are the most important marketing metrics to focus on in any marketing plan?

Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Accepted Answer
11/4/2004 1:44 PM (CST)
smesc2002,

That’s a really broad question. Generally speaking the most important metrics will tell you who raised their hands in a campaign (meaning responded and qualified themselves in some way) and who eventually bought the product or service.

My suggestion is to search KHE past questions on this topic, gather your thoughts, and restate your question with a more narrow focus that will get a higher number of responses from the KHEr’s.

Best of luck,

- Steve
 
Posted by: Patti* Accepted Answer
11/4/2004 2:56 PM (CST)
Hello,

The most important metric is to measure if it met the goals and objectives you had set forth in your campaign from the beginning -- whether that be to gain 50 leads or to build awareness, go back to your creative brief for the plan and see what you were trying to achieve. At the end of the campaign, the team often forgets what they were trying to achieve in the first place, so you always want to go back to goals and objectives to deem it successful or not.

Patti
 
Posted by: Peter (henna gaijin) Accepted Answer
11/4/2004 3:49 PM (CST)
Generally, for a company, the most important thing is to increase profits. Marketing does this through increasing what is called the "top line", or the money the get from selling products (as opposed to bottom line, which is their end profits, which is top line minus expenses). So most companies want to see how their marketing program affect sales as what they track.

But, tracking from marketing program to sales is not easy, nor reliable yet, so often companies settle for tracking leads (people who state they are interested in your product).
 
Posted by: Praf* Accepted Answer
11/4/2004 4:12 PM (CST)
To answer this questions, visualize a marketing funnel. Think of the funnel to consist of layers.

1. The top most layer will have all the tagets that may exist in your target market. Call this TARGETS. (This layer is at the rim of the funnel)

2. The next layer down will be cold call list. Call this SUSPECTS.

3. The next layer down will be warm prospects. Call these WARM PROSPECTS.

4. The next layer down will be hot prospects. Call these HOT PROSPECTS.

5. The next layer down will be proposals. CALL THESE PROPOSALS. (This layer is just above the stem of the funnel)

6. The next level down will be purchase orders. Call these POs. (This layer is the stem of the funnel)

Now Item 1 you do nothing about. Just know the size of your target market. It is what it is.

Next track each one of the items and see how you go from on layer to the next: Suspects to Warm Prospects to Hot Prospects to Proposals to PO's. Track how many of each over a period of time. Develop the percantges.

Build a model and play with it. You will not only like it but you will be amazed at what you find out.

If you want to talk more, feel free to contact me.

Praf
 
Posted by: mgoodman Accepted Answer
11/4/2004 10:21 PM (CST)
I think Praf was answering mostly for the Sales component of Marketing. There are similar ways to measure other components of the marketing mix.

The problem is that many of the measurement tools cost more than the value of the result. And if you measure all the sub-components, you'll be losing so much money that even if you're successful, you'll fail.

The real dilemma is that if you DON'T measure the components and simply look at the end result, you'll never know what's working and what's not, or how much better you could have done if you'd known the value of each component.

I'm a believer in using market research whenever an element is thought to be costly enough or important enough to make a difference between success and failure. I'm not talking about fuzzy stuff like focus groups. I'm talking about projectable, quantitative research among the target audience.

It's not easy to measure overall marketing effectiveness. It's really difficult. But if you break the task into manageable component parts, each can be measured, and that's the way I'd recommend you think about it.
 
Posted by: Praf* Member Response
11/5/2004 7:00 AM (CST)
Mgoodman is right. However, the I would like to add that the purpose of marketing is to create visibility of your oraganization and your products and services to potential customers. The end result of marketing is to generate leads that will bring in new business.

The thing to do look at the various areas marketing dollars are allocated. These dollars should be correlated to the leads and new business.

Some examples of marketing initiatives could be:

Trade shows

Direct mail marketing campaigns

On-line marketing campaigns

Advertising - Media (radio and television), Publications, Newspapers, Billboards, etc.

Newsletters and articles

Press releases

And More

Each one of these has an expense. Track the expense and relate it to the business it brings in.

Hope this adds to what I wrote previously.

Praf
 
Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Member Response
11/5/2004 4:03 PM (CST)
Ran across this article with more info about metrics --

“Measurements most frequently reported to management include qualified leads generated, revenue impact, feedback from sales and channel groups, as well as web site traffic and content viewing.”
Source:
http://www.freelancewriting.com/survey-052504-05.html

best of luck,

- Steve
 
Posted by: Brainiac* Accepted Answer
11/20/2004 4:42 AM (CST)
Hi smes,
This website has done it again. Why look anywhere else. Just check out this article on this very website:
"Five Fundamentals for Useful Marketing Metrics"
http://www.marketingprofs.com/4/taylor2.asp

I hope this helps,Do let me know if you need anything else.
Au revoir.

 
Posted by: bobhogg Accepted Answer
11/27/2004 3:26 PM (CST)
smesc2002...

I totally agree with the earlier respons from Patti.

The most important things to measure are the things you set out to achieve in your marketing plan. That is where a lot of organisations go wrong, on NOT setting MEASURABLE objectives in their marketing plans - without those, any post-campaign measurement is meaningless.

So, if you set out to achieve increased turnover, measure turnover; if you set out to achieve increased awareness, measure awareness, and so on...

Good luck,
Bob
 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
11/27/2004 10:33 PM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question, since its more than 10 days old. We do this to make sure members' contributions are rewarded in a timely manner and to improve the visibility of newer questions.

Thanks, so much, for participating!

Val (Moderator)
 


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