Because of the creative aspect in marketing, determining quantifiable objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) can be difficult. It's impossible to assess the impact of Picasso or Monet's work. When it comes to writing great sales copy and marketing, why should we not do the same?
For the obvious reason that they're in it for the money.
For marketing managers, it is not their responsibility to like all of their campaigns equally as if they were beloved children, but rather to determine which initiatives are the most efficient for their respective companies.
The key to selecting the appropriate marketing objectives and key performance indicators is striking a balance between a business perspective and an awareness of marketing's unexpected results. Some campaigns that appear to be a lost cause on paper end up being the most remembered and successful for a company. The same is true for marketing. You can't teach people to make viral content on a regular basis, either.
There is no such thing as classical conditioning when it comes to marketing success. The development of interesting, memorable information is a little more complicated and less systematic than training a beloved pet through voice commands and treats. However, you'll still need to produce monthly marketing reports and be able to demonstrate which approaches are succeeding and which are failing. Marketing objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) are therefore critical, even if you're an artistic genius at heart.
“Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.” — Beth Comstock, Former CMO & Vice Chair, GE
Data, Numbers, and Conversions Should Be the Focus of KPIs
To make matters worse, rewarding marketers only for their ingenuity isn't always good from a business standpoint.
KPIs should be based on concrete data, such as conversion rates. To convert a consumer, you must get them to cross the finish line and take action. It's the final stage in a well-designed marketing funnel. If a customer submits an inquiry, purchases, joins your mailing list, or does anything else that signals they're now your friend, you've made a conversion.
You may be performing well in a particular area based on indicators that are just based on numbers. KPIs, on the other hand, should not be centred around them. Poor KPIs include things like increasing the number of social media followers without converting those followers into customers.
Despite our best attempts to create and post valuable material, we are unable to fully manage our follower numbers to a significant degree. Social changes, platform algorithms, and visibility difficulties all have a role to play in these situations. Consequently, you should not use the number of followers your social media marketing team has as a way to measure them, even though it is a good way to see how well your social media is working.
Rather, measure your website's number of clicks or the engagement of your content. Your ability to influence these indicators has the greatest impact on conversion. If you want to avoid measuring your marketing success just in terms of the number of new social media followers, you need to adopt a goal-oriented approach. Marketing professionals frequently make the error of focusing on the content itself rather than the purpose for which it is being created when formulating objectives.
Blog Content > Visitor Count > Bounce Rate > Conversions
It's clear to us. As a marketer, you're always developing content with the assumption that it will attract a large number of visitors, maintain a reasonable bounce rate, and lead to some kind of conversion. However, when it comes to creating objectives, we must proceed in the opposite direction:
Conversion > Bounce Rate > Visitor Count > Blog Content
First-process marketers may determine that the number of visits to a page is a useful indicator of blog post performance, and so this becomes a key performance indicator (KPI). However, the amount of conversions or the proportion of bounced visitors are more essential, since they show whether the content is accomplishing its goal.
This does not imply that we create material with the goal of attracting a small audience. However, if just 1% of your vast audience converts or continues to browse your website as a result, your CEO or direct supervisor will be less than impressed. Consider the KPIs of each sub-team in relation to their position in the entire sales funnel.
Unlike the blog team, the social media team doesn't produce content that will be placed on the website. As a result, users of social media can use site visits as a KPI. If you want to show that you're making a difference in the process, you'll have to look at the bounce rate or conversions for your blog posts.
Make Marketing KPIs Achievable
Percentage-based metrics could be used by your team, therefore KPI achievement doesn't have to be achieved in a solitary fashion.
Members of the team might earn a bonus based on a variety of KPIs related to their job duties.
There is flexibility for marketers to miss certain KPIs without completely lucking out if they use many KPIs.
Keeping in mind that most of our success and failure as marketers is determined by technical teams, algorithm upgrades, and new technology, it's essential to keep this in mind.
Marketing KPIs should be fair to employees and valued by top management.
In some marketing companies, a -5 to -10 percent range is accepted, with the traffic light system used to show how near a marketer is to the intended target.
It's also a good idea to think about seasonal changes and be a little more relaxed if Google punishes a certain industry just a few months before a KPI session.
A distinction between an accountant and an economist may be the cause of this.
Accountants are infamous for obsessing over statistics. Trends and patterns help economists contextualise data analysis. Put on your economist hat when deciding on marketing KPIs; this will help you better predict the future. Even better, it will help boost your popularity with your coworkers.