Measure, measure, measure…after all the claims made for digital marketing, the big task is to measure how effective your online activities have been. This is the point at which you tend to get bogged down in trying to figure out what you need to measure – or conversely, when you’re presented with a lot of statistics but aren’t sure quite what they mean.
The problem is, due to the nature of the digital medium, there’s just so much that you can measure if you choose to. So what should you measure? We’ve found it useful to define 6 broad metrics, under which you should group your available data. Here goes the metrics parameter:
- Brand recall:Online or digital marketing should be increasing awareness of your brand among your target audience. Social media helps create the ‘long tail’, so find out how long that tail is by carrying out directed and undirected surveys.
- Brand interest:Knowing you brand exists is one step – it’s not an insignificant step by any means – but it’s not the whole battle. Are potential customers interested enough to find out more? You can measure this easily by looking at the usage of your online marketing material – how long did they spend on your landing pages, did they click through to the next level, search for information and so on?
- Brand Engagement:This is one step closer along the sales route. Did your visitors engage with your content? Did they download your PDF, sign up for your newsletter, try to solve your interactive puzzle, enter your contest and so on? This shows a growing engagement with your brand and is a vital element in driving an eventual sale.
- Sales:To put it simply: did your visitors but anything? Whether you’re selling a service or a product, did they take that next step to order a product, ask for a demo, have a salesperson call them? Which campaigns lead to more sales? This will help you refine your activities to be more effective.
- Profit:Not all sales are created equal. Measure all sales generated through your online marketing against the cost of that marketing. Are you still coming out ahead? Profitability has always been about getting the highest sales at the lowest cost, and this rule applies to online and social media marketing as well.
- Brand Advocacy:People listen to peers and many of these peers emerge as powerful online influencers over time. How well are you engaging with these influencers? Are you able to identify brand advocates and successfully reach out to them maximize their value?
Most of all, remember that no single metric from this list is the whole story, although it all comes down to profitability when the chips are down. You will get more insight into what you’re doing right or wrong if you can correlate the different metrics and find out how they tie together.
Identifying, tracking and analyzing metrics that result in digital marketing effectiveness and deliver insights that can increase profits – that’s what measurement is all about. And these are key skills in the i-Vista Digital Marketing mix. Contact us now for marketing plans that are completely transparent and data-driven!
