10 Marketing KPIs To Kick-Start Business Growth

Some businesses focus entirely on bringing in new work. Little thought is given to developing the product, service or brand – and it shows. In fact, trying to build your brand strictly through sales KPIs can do the opposite: negatively affecting client retention and limiting your inbound leads.

‘Engagement’ is a buzzword that is often thrown around. However, KPIs that focus on attracting prospects and keeping people interested in a way that moves them through a sales funnel can work in tandem with your sales targets. By creating content and pushing it out effectively – via email and social media, for example – you are better equipped to help your business flourish.

So pull yourself away from your sales figure chart for a moment – here are 10 marketing KPIs that better quantify efforts on your website, email platform and social media channels.

Quantifying your site traffic

Tools like Google Analytics will provide an insight into who is visiting your site, where they are coming from and how long they are staying. It shines a light on all the mysteries associated with your target audience, and most importantly gives you an impression of what is working and what isn’t.

The following KPIs will give you a good idea of how your website is performing:

Average session time

The longer a visitor stays on your website, the more likely they are to convert. Short session times or a high bounce rate can indicate that your content isn’t relevant or you’re attracting the wrong audience. Map your user journey as visitors make their way around the website, and update the navigation where necessary. Your website – and the content on it – should match your target audience’s motivations, rather than taking a ‘scattergun approach’ and trying to be all things to all people.

Acquisition channels

If you’re investing in SEO content or social media marketing, you can see how effective this is at drawing traffic to your site via Google Analytics and CRM software. Data is presented in a format that allows you to analyse your audience and how people are finding you online. Where are visitors coming from, and what pages are they landing on? This can provide an interesting insight into your marketing efforts.

Cost per lead

Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns can quickly drain your budget, so measuring the cost per click of paid ads should be a key KPI. The success of these campaigns will depend on numerous factors: how compelling your ads are, the quality and relevance of the landing pages, and ultimately the product or service you’re pushing. You can use cookies to retarget prospects, and experiment with A/B testing to optimise ads.

Evaluate email marketing 

Email marketing is still a major form of brand communication, despite taking a hit in May 2018 in the form of GDPR. But the introduction of the new data protection regulations also had a beneficial effect – those that opt in are generally more interested in the messages they receive, resulting in a higher quality database.

In order to hold their attention and lead them towards a sale, you need to present them with relevant content. This can be measured through the following KPIs:

Open rate

You can learn a lot about your audience from the open rate of emails. An attention-grabbing subject line can pique their interest and encourage them to read on, but what approach best grabs their attention? What time of day do they respond best to emails, and how do they react to regular communications?

To build your database, design a lead nurturing campaign. Start with a good website and a reason to subscribe – such as a free download – and then create a drip series of relevant and valuable content to engage your prospects.

Click-through rate

Click-throughs can be measured against the open rate to determine the quality of your emails. If subscribers opened your content but didn’t click through, then you know the problem lies with the email and not the landing page. Equally, it might be that your call to action wasn’t clear and the target audience enjoyed the content yet didn’t feel any obligation to move through to the site.

Inbound enquiries

Enquiries are the end goal here. Someone reads your email and immediately recognises that they need your product or service. They respond by either directly emailing back, clicking through to make a purchase, or calling your in-house team. Keeping a record of this will help you put a tangible KPI on your email marketing.

Social media measurables

Social media is more often than not done poorly, either because the audience isn’t listening or they’ve been given no reason to engage. But when it’s done properly, it’s a perfect means of two-way communication with your audience. It enables you to find out their opinions and needs, which you can use to your advantage.

However, if you want to improve your message and grow your social media following, you’re going to need measurables first.

Reach

Thanks to algorithms created in 2018, a user that ‘likes’ your Facebook page won’t necessarily see your posts. The metric to look at here is ‘people reached’ and it refers to how many users saw your content on their feed. Increasing this should be considered a priority and requires the posts to be truly engaging. Facebook and Instagram like to see (and reward) conversations taking place below your content. To get seen, you’ll need to encourage comments as well as likes.

Mentions

Brand mentions are when someone talks about your business on social media. You can monitor the increase or decrease of these through tools on the specific platform or additional software like Hootsuite. The more mentions you receive, the more your brand is considered a part of the conversation. That is, of course, unless the messages you’re receiving are critical – in which case, be conscious of the visibility social media has.

Followers

You’ll read several best practice guides on how to boost your follower count. Many of them suggest you follow mass amounts of users, wait until they follow you back, then unfollow those who don’t. While this may possibly increase your following, those users are unlikely to be 100% relevant to your business. Additionally, those who purchase followers to appear more credible will have a difficult time mobilising their audience. If you want to start conversations, don’t build a follower base with no use for your brand.

At the start of our blog we told you to step away from your sales figures for a moment. But, of course, we don’t mean that you should disregard the numbers altogether. After all, marketing should ultimately have an impact on your bottom line. For this reason, our last KPI puts a fresh lens on those sales targets…

Touchpoints

Single-touch attribution means awarding a sale to the last touchpoint the prospect came into contact with. Multi-touch instead awards all factors within the sales process. Marketing is a marathon not a sprint. Sales won’t immediately skyrocket from any marketing output. Instead, there should be a healthy incline that follows it. If you were to view your incoming deals over a period of six months and track their first points of contact, the likelihood will be they were introduced through marketing.

Including any of these 10 KPIs in your marketing objectives is likely to increase the focus of your business’ growth efforts. As a result, you’ll improve your knowledge of your audience and will find it easier to engage with, nurture and convert your prospects.

To find out how we can set you on the right path towards achieving your targets with content creation and distribution, get in touch with us today on 0161 660 9206 or send an email to [email protected].