When it comes time for budget review, the marketing budget is often one of the first to go under the knife, and marketing departments often have to continually and repeatedly justify their expenses, strategies and demonstrate their worth. Recent surveys show that the majority of CMOs feel pressure to defend their department’s value, and that those spoken and unspoken demands to prove their relevance are increasing over time.
At the same time, the digital evolution is providing tremendous opportunity to improve cost-effectiveness. Of course, if a business continues to use well-worn marketing practices and simply directs old efforts into new channels, then not much will be gained. On the other hand, there is tremendous opportunity for marketers to leverage the data made available through scientific scrutiny; measuring and testing can lead to streamlining and optimization that elevate results and performance.
At the same time, we don’t want to miss the forest for the trees and set our sights on over-simplified objectives like optimizing conversion rates. This kind of over-focus can cause us to forget that marketing is a numbers game; higher percentages are worthy goals but don’t impact the bottom line if the pool is too small.
Some of the best marketing metrics that drive performance and prove your worth at the same time include goal setting, progress tracking, measuring channel effectiveness, measuring content effectiveness and measuring qualified leads. Selecting optimal KPIs and using them to track and report performance can help you optimize your department efforts and demonstrate the impact you make for the business. Use the digital evolution to your advantage with these smart metrics.
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