Struggling to find the right metrics that will get you credibility with your CEO or CFO, and show the real value of marketing to the bottom line?
Look no further. Here are the three marketing KPIs that matter most to C-level executives.
- Marketing’s Impact on the Sales Pipeline
What they usually get. Marketing VPs frequently focus on generating leads and present reports like the Lead Trajectory report that tells CEOs if Marketing is on track to meet its lead generation goals. That’s all well and good. But as we all know, when it comes to leads, quantity of leads is meaningless without a focus on quality leads that convert into real opportunities that close.
What they really want. Beyond lead generation, CEOs prefer to see a report about conversions. How much of the sales pipeline is Marketing directly responsible for? What percentage of marketing leads converting into pipeline opportunities? This informs them if Marketing is pulling its weight to advance the bottom line, and it depends on your company and your industry. Statistically, Marketing typically generates 52% of the sales pipeline at high-performance companies, compared to 38% at average companies.
- Marketing Campaigns that Generate Sales
Knowing how many opportunities and deals that each marketing campaign is responsible for generating will help the Marketing VP to better manage her team and maximize marketing’s ROI. When Marketing can justify its efforts in each campaign, their “calorie spend” along the way, it will get the attention of C-level execs. Provide compare and contrast notes about campaigns and their sales performance. Nothing interests CEOs more than discussing ways to maximize ROI, and focusing the marketing budget on the campaigns that generate the most sales.
- Marketing Generated Bookings over Time
Finally, it’s important for CEOs to see that their marketing team is improving over time. This means that it is increasingly taking responsibility for generating more deals by refining its process, identifying weaknesses and honing skills. Analyzing the number of deals made or profits won per campaign can shed tremendous light on what’s working and what’s not and indicate the direction for future profit growth.
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