What Are the Top Ten Most Important Marketing Metrics to Measure?

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David Caron, CMO of IndustrialSage, joins Danny to kick off part of the IndustrialSage rebrand and discuss the 10 marketing metrics you should be measuring!

Danny:

All right so, let’s jump in today’s episode. I have Mr. David Caron, who is now our chief marketing officer at IndustrialSage and he’s also the new podcast host extraordinaire of a new podcast that we launched called The Agency Success Podcast. You can check it out. David, thank you for joining me today.

David:

Happy to be here, Danny.

Danny:

I am super excited. So David’s going to be a little bit more of a regular as now he is drinking the Kool-Aid here in IndustrialSage. I mentioned you last year in and through a lot of different episodes is that, he’s really seeing if there’s Kool-Aid in here, kind of. And we are, we’ve got a lot of changes. So obviously you can tell one of the biggest things is we’ve changed our logo and the design and the colors back here. It’s a little different on the website, it looks different as well so if you’re listening you’re going to have to go to Industrialsage.com to take a look at this, look at the videos. We’ve got a lot of really cool things coming down the track so be excited. Because it’s going to be amazing.

All right so, David let’s jump into these marketing metrics and we’ve got ten of them here, they’re interesting. So some of these, which I mean to me to be honest with you, I guess I know most of these or all of these, right but I think sometimes we kind of get lost especially with all the data. So it’s kind of like, break it down from your standpoint if we would break these down to the ten most important, what are they?

David:

Right, so you know at the end of the day it’s all about dollars and cents. It’s all about the revenue. So you need to track the sales revenue that’s being generated from all of your different marketing efforts. Seems obvious.

Danny:

Yeah, it kind of sounds obvious. But that’s not being done all the time.

David:

Not being done all the time. And also in terms of priorities, when you’re looking at all the different metrics you pull down a spreadsheet from a variety of dashboards and platforms. There’s 30, 40, 50 different metrics you’re tracking. Number one, sales revenue.

Danny:

Yeah, and that totally makes all the sense in the world. That can be obviously challenging to be able tie a direct attribution to any particular tactic or even a strategy as a whole but obviously that’s kind of the golden goose, right? If we can match our activity to sales revenue that’s awesome.

David:

Yup.

Danny:

And I think the exciting thing now is that there are tools that are enabling us to be able to better do that. Maybe not all the time but a lot better than you might be able to do before.

David:

So yeah exactly, exactly.

Danny:

All right, sweet, what else have you got on the list?

David:

So digital marketing ROI.

Danny:

Okay, all right. Little ambiguous, what is that?

David:

Well, it’s thinking from the overall hierarchy of all the different marketing activities that you’re doing, what you’re investing, well what is that return on investment.

Danny:

That makes sense.

David:

Are we generating enough revenue based on these different activities to say are we going to continue doing these activities or are we going to stop.

Danny:

Right, yeah. Yeah, no that makes sense. I mean would you tie that number, as far as gauging a success I mean obviously if you want to be able to tie that back to revenue that would be number one but what if maybe that isn’t feasible. What would you, what would be a good sample of being able to measure success there?

David:

Really I think you’re only going to be able to track what you’re able to measure so if you’re not collecting the data

Danny:

Right.

David:

It is ambiguous. You’re not going to be able to figure out that return on investment. In a lot of ways you can rely on your gut. I know we kind of joke around on it sometimes.

Danny:

Yeah, no it’s true.

David:

Realistically if you can see that you’ve started these different marketing activities and while you can’t necessarily trackback a specific sale to it through the marketing software, through the tools that are collecting data but you’ve seen a sudden spike in phone calls, out of the blue.

Danny:

Right.

David:

Maybe you’re not tracking it. Your SEO, your organic rankings are suddenly spiking generating a lot more traffic that way. Sometimes you can’t see specifically where those keywords are coming in from. So you’ve got to use a little bit of your gut. But we also – with those tools that we have, with the Hubspots, the Salesforce, Eloqua, all the different automation tools – they’re making it way easier to pull all those different data points in and be able to show that ROI.

Danny:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s one of the exciting things about that. I could say a million more things. We’ve got eight more of these things to go through so let’s keep on moving. What’s the next one we’ve got here?

David:

So we can go really in-depth into some of these, but customer lifetime value. At the end of the day when you sit down, we’re typically as a sales team focused on new business. We need new customers, new revenue, new business…but are we tracking what the lifetime value of that particular account is?

Danny:

Yeah, that’s a great point.

David:

So it’s much easier to land and expand, get that initial sale and then get the follow-up and the follow-up and so forth. They might be a customer for five years, ten years however long it’s going to be. If you’re measuring it well you need you can then bring that into your sales process. So you’re counting for current new customer revenue and then returning customer revenue. So what better way than tracking that lifetime value.

Danny:

Absolutely, and then I think that also can help to influence your customer acquisition cost a little bit more. Hey maybe actually we can afford to spend a little bit more in here because we understand that they’re going to be with us a whole heck of a lot longer. There’s more value to that so.

David:

Yup, exactly.

Danny:

Awesome.

David:

So, you’re driving traffic. You’re bringing people to your website well, you typically have landing pages to help capture those leads, capture those contacts coming in. So you want to know that conversion rate.

Danny:

Yeah, yeah.

David:

So is that page effective? Typically within the industry a 10% conversion rate is average. So if you’re above or below that well you’re either doing the right thing or you need to start over and try and improve and iterate. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t stay put at 10%. I would be tweaking and making some changes. It also has to do with your call to action. Leading people to that landing page in the first place.

Danny:

That makes a lot of sense.

David:

So if the call to action doesn’t coincide with the landing page that they come to well, they’re not going to convert.

Danny:

Right.

David:

So it’s really looking at multiple different aspects of it.

Danny:

Yeah, we could do probably a whole series of episodes just on landing page optimization and conversion rates and all that.

David:

Absolutely.

Danny:

Well all right, number five.

David:

Traffic to lead ratio.

Danny:

Okay.

David:

So out of all the traffic that’s coming to your website, how many of those are turning into a lead? And sometimes you hear…there’s a great agency here in Atlanta called 98ToGo, okay. And the reason why they said 98ToGo, well, it’s 2% of your website traffic typically converts into a lead.

Danny:

Oh, very clever.

David:

Very clever, so they said, “Well, we’ve got to get after the other 98%.”

Danny:

That makes sense.

David:

Hence, “98 to go.” So that’s how I always remember that.

Danny:

Yeah, I will remember that now forever. That’s awesome. So, number six.

David:

Cost per lead.

Danny:

Okay, yeah that’s kind of a big one.

David:

So, any time we’re spending money and investing into marketing we’ve got to boil down and see, what’s that total cost? And like you mentioned earlier, are we able to invest more into that lead. So which goes into lead to customer ratio. So when we’re looking at the full funnel, traffic to lead to customer. What are all those different conversion rates? And if you’re able to say improve the sales cycle so your lead to customer conversion rate improves and the cycle becomes shorter well, typically that’s ramp back to more traffic and more leads. So it’s really- we like to say in sales, it’s a numbers game.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

Well in marketing, it’s also a numbers and data game. So you’re really looking for tracking those metrics because if you improve one of those even 1% or a half a percent it could have measurable impact through the entire sales funnel.

Danny:

Oh Absolutely. Yeah, no, well I could add a lot but I’m not. I’m going to let you keep going, this is awesome. Okay, so number what is this, eight? Eight, wow, we’re moving quickly.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

This is good.

David:

So, organic traffic. So it seems like, okay, well of course we want to track how many people are coming to our websites. Typically a great vanity metric. But based on all the other metrics that we’re tracking we can tie revenue right back to it. So increase that organic traffic in turn it should increase everything else down the line.

Danny:

Absolutely if we back up organic traffic, the cost per lead, lead to customer ratio, all that stuff, numbers game.

David:

Yup, it’s all numbers.

Danny:

Awesome. Two left.

David:

Social media traffic.

Danny:

What is that?

David:

Well, okay, there’s a handful of different places that people are spending their time typically when they’re supposed to be working.

Danny:

Okay.

David:

So they’re on Facebook, maybe Instagram.

Danny:

I thought you were going to say something else but it’s all right.

David:

Nope. They might be watching some YouTube videos or something. But or not or they’re doing research.

Danny:

Research, yes.

David:

You know they might be researching a problem or solution trying to solve something within the organization, they’re doing research on these different channels. Looking for peer reviews or feedback on different things to do. So they’re on social media. Well if your organization is publishing content on those social media channels which everyone should be – even if you don’t think you should be, you really should be. Because that’s where people are spending their time. Way too much time but really they’re spending their time there. And so that’s where you need to have your resources available to them. So you need to measure it. How much traffic is coming in from those different channels? Whether using a paid tool like a Hubspot or a free tool like Google Analytics. It will be able to tell you where that traffic is coming in from.

Danny:

Excellent.

David:

Very important.

Danny:

Then the last, last but not least.

David:

Mobile traffic: leads and conversions.

Danny:

Okay.

David:

So okay, mobile. We all have this little device…

Danny:

It’s over there.

David:

Hidden somewhere off camera.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

Mobile phones. iPads even fall under that, tablets. People are spending their time there.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

They’re usually starting their research there. So they’re, they have a moment of time, they’re in the middle of a meeting. Something is happening, they need to solve that problem. That’s where the research begins. That’s where that initial what am I going to do to solve this problem. So they’re on their phone. So, mobile traffic, very important to be able to see how much traffic is coming in and then what kind of leads are you getting. Is your website, does that experience lend itself to that initial landing of that person on your page?

If it takes a long time for the page to load they might go find something else. So think through or you’re looking at your website and you’re seeing your mobile traffic and you don’t have any traffic there, it’s very little. Well maybe you can then optimize your website and the way you’re trying to sell and provide information for more of a desktop user experience. So while the trends are saying mobile first, mobile everywhere, mobile’s where it’s all at. You really need to look at what your website is doing.

Danny:

Yeah, that’s a good point.

David:

And tailor it to that, to those stats.

Danny:

Absolutely, yeah, no. Fun fact, well IndustrialSage, correct me if I’m wrong, but most of our traffic that we get on well, on our website is desktop. Not mobile. Social though, different.

David:

Different story.

Danny:

Totally different story.

David:

Lot of social on mobile.

Danny:

Yup, so anyways. Well, hey David, a lot of great stuff here. I know we could probably do an episode on each one of these things or several, we might have to do that so I think this is really cool but one last question I’d have… so where, if you don’t have a Hubspot or a marketing automation platform, what are some of the best tools to be able to even just start measuring this?

David:

I think really you want to start with Google Analytics. Okay, it’s able to give you that initial data of what is going on in your website. There’s no cost to it. It’s also private so you don’t have to share your data necessarily with Google; you can make it private, so this is your data. And you can start tracking your metrics there.

Danny:

Awesome. Okay well this is great. I really enjoyed this. I think everyone hopefully will find this very valuable. I know they will because there’s a lot of questions we get asked about this and there can be a lot of acronyms and things flying around You’re like, “Oh yeah, yeah I totally get it,” but I think sometimes it’s helpful just giving it just a quick little dive, you know deep dive into it or a shallow dive maybe help to kind of uncover a little bit but thanks. This was good. I’m excited we’re going to have more coming down the pipe.

David:

Love it.

Danny:

So if your podcast for– The Agency Success Podcast– maybe you can tell a little bit about that for those who might be interested.

David:

Yes, absolutely so the whole point behind speaking with agencies is that they’re working, their hands are dirty working with industrial organizations. Across multiple verticals on and underneath industrial and they know what’s working and the whole purpose of this podcast is to be able to showcase those success stories of how an industrial organization has taken a particular marketing activity and been successful with it. So what better way to hear it and we don’t just say oh we did some digital marketing and it turned out great. They’re actually sharing the real details of what they did that’s actionable, so you can listen to the podcast and then actually go do something after listening to it.

Danny:

That’s awesome, well that’s great. So if you are interested in that go take a look at you can go find us on any of the podcasting stations of choice, we’re up there and we’re going to have more and more episodes we’re going to be rolling out, sharing these great stories so I highly recommend go check that out. If you are not a subscriber of IndustrialSage you really, really want to go subscribe you can go to industrialsage.com and subscribe and get all the loads of content that’s coming down the pipes. We’re going to have manufacturing news, it’s going to start here soon. Obviously we’ve got The Agency Success Podcast. We have this podcast and show we’ve been doing and we’re going to have a whole lot more coming down the pipes. We are growing, we are expanding we’d love to hear from you.

If you have any questions or if there’s a particular topic or something you want to learn or have a suggestion saying hey I think you guys should do this or cover that, reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you. You can go to industrialsage.com/questions and send us, drop us a line. So anyways that’s it, that’s all I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for watching today’s episode on IndustrialSage.

 

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