Forrester, along with Heidrick & Struggles, found in a survey that nearly 80% of CMOs want to prove their capabilities as business or strategy leaders. To achieve this, making metrics meaningful is crucial.
This requires good and thorough planning. Here are the decisions you’ll need to make and what to consider:
1. What to measure
There is a tendency to measure what is easy to measure, as opposed to deciding what would be most useful and then working out how to measure it. Rather than thinking about ‘how’ first, think ‘what’.
Consider the purpose of the metrics. Why are we gathering this data? What do I need to get from it? Who am I presenting it to and what do they want to know? It’s important to be able to relate your findings back to both your individual objectives and the business’s – and to demonstrate the effect your marketing efforts are having on revenue, market share, acquisition and retention levels.
The Modern Director’s Guide to Getting Buy-In From The Board highlights three key marketing metrics:
- Revenue metrics – the total impact on business revenue.
- Campaign performance metrics – the individual impact on business revenue.
- Customer-centric metrics – the customer lifetime impact on business revenue.
It also highlights the need to clearly present the return on investment (ROI) as well as simple marketing metrics. When speaking to the likes of CEOs and CFOs they will want to know the overall ROI as well as metrics such as cost per lead.