Measurement spurs growth. It gives you the kind of information you need to test your assumptions and, ultimately, strengthen your marketing growth engine. But if measurement seems like a daunting and questionably useful chore, you’re in the right place.
Don’t drown in data. Measure what matters.
In the world of professional services marketing, measuring success requires us to dig deeper than vanity metrics and surface-level engagement. To truly understand the impact of your marketing efforts, it’s crucial to focus on predictive metrics that reveal how your target audience interacts with your content and brand.
There is a temptation to collect vast quantities of data (fueling an insatiable need for storage) and measure things just for the sake of measuring them. This approach is expensive and exhausting and leads most to give up on measurement all together.
Let’s explore some key predictive metrics that provide useful insights so you can focus on your measurement efforts and not burn out.
Email Performance
While open rates and click-through rates are common metrics, I suggest looking deeper. Take, for example, newsletters. While it is easy to understand why many get their propellers spinning watching their open rates take off in the moments after hitting the “send” button, open rates aren’t really predictive anything.
What is? Clicks on embedded links are more useful but I focus my attention on reader replies. Replies indicate a deeper level of engagement and can provide qualitative feedback on your content’s impact.
Website Performance
Consider metrics like time on site, popular pages, conversions and bounce rates rather than visits. “We get a lot of insight and data, really useful data from historical analytics on websites,” explained Sam Pagel, Resound’s Chief Creative Officer. “If your firm is gearing up for a rebrand or a website overhaul, those analytics can give you insights into interest trends and the journeys your customers take on their way to making a purchase.”
Advertising Metrics
When it comes to paid advertising, it’s crucial to look beyond just impressions. Make sure that your ads are precisely targeted and that every dollar you’re spending on those ads, whether it’s Google ads, search ads, you know, ads on YouTube, wherever you’re putting those LinkedIn, making sure your messages and targeting are aligned with your intended audience.
Social Media Engagement
While likes can be encouraging, I encourage you to look below the surface. Just about anyone who stumbles across your social posts is going to like them. Better to prioritize sharing as a share is essentially an endorsement. Sharing can also tell you which of your messages are working better than others.
Ratings and Reviews
Customer ratings and reviews are among the most meaningful metrics we can (and should) measure. Make sure you have automated systems in place to encourage customers to share about those experiences as well as review options that provide predictive feedback (like Net Promoter.)
By focusing on metrics that tell us that we’re reaching our human customers (rather than bots) and engaging them, professional services firms can gain a more useful picture of their marketing effectiveness.
Remember, the goal isn’t just to collect data, but to use it to drive improvements in your marketing strategy and ultimately, your business results.
Internal Activity Metrics: Measuring Your Marketing Efforts
While predictive metrics provide valuable insights into your audience’s behavior, it’s equally important to measure your marketing productivity. Think of measuring your marketing activity as monitoring the inputs that lead to the outputs represented as the predictive metrics we just considered.
While there a lot of variables that go into generating a marketing “output” (like a social post share), you know for sure you will never get a share unless you post something. In this case, your social posts are your inputs.
Measuring the “inputs” your marketing team creates helps ensure that they are consistently producing content your marketing plan dictates. Once you have established consistency, you can they begin testing different variables like messages, timing and media to see what combination of inputs moves the “outputs” needle.
If it’s important to the business and it’s actually moving the needle, then why not do it again and again (and again)? Measuring input activity ensures that once you identify that input (or combination of inputs) you have the system in place to repeat the process over and over again to produce the desired “output” result.
Let’s explore key marketing input metrics:
Content Production
Tracking the quantity and frequency of your content output is crucial. This includes articles, podcast episodes, whitepapers, ebooks, case studies, and videos. “One of the biggest missing pieces that we’ve seen with professional service firms is video,” Pagel stated. “Very few professional services firms are doing video really well.”
Consider video content’s versatility. Out of one piece of video content you can quickly generate all sorts of other types of content. For example, record a 20-minute video podcast and you can cut out excerpts to post on your social profiles or feature in emails to customers or in YouTube video ads.
Content Quality Assessment
Beyond quantity, it’s crucial to measure the quality of your content. This can involve using SEO tools to conduct regular content audits, and ensuring brand consistency. For example, we use the Yoast SEO tool for the WordPress-based Resound site. There are lots of credible tools that can help you improve the SEO value of your content.
Professional Development
Tracking your team’s ongoing learning and development is another important internal metric because competency and knowledge are usually precursors to creativity and quality.
Professional development can include formal instruction like reading industry publications, attending conferences (like Adobe MAX), and completing courses or certifications. But professional development can also be informal. Know a marketing expert? Consider bringing them in to spend time with your team and to share ideas and expand awareness.
Adherence to Marketing Plan
One of the first things we ask new clients is for a copy of their marketing plan. You might be surprised to know many do not have plans and, of those that do, few follow them as intended.
Sure, things come up that require us to adjust or correct our execution but sticking the plan ensures the most efficient path to the destination. By measuring your “input” activity, you go a long way to helping your team stick to the plan.
Internal Feedback
Don’t overlook the value of internal engagement and feedback with your marketing efforts.
For instance, Sam was visiting a professional services client some time back. We had recently helped them produce a video podcast episode and two of the firm’s partners commented on how much they enjoyed the process. That was useful feedback because it helped us to spot an opportunity to concentrate effort in an area in which they shined.
By tracking these input activity metrics, you ensure that your marketing efforts are consistent, high-quality, and aligned with your overall strategy.
Remember, the goal of tracking these metrics isn’t just to hit numbers, but to continuously improve your marketing effectiveness. Use these insights to refine your processes, enhance your content quality, and ultimately, better serve your clients and grow your business.
Considerations for Effective Measurement
While tracking metrics is crucial, it’s equally important to approach measurement strategically. Leading your marketing efforts with a preoccupation on metrics rather than the strategies that guide you to your goals is like focusing on your hood ornament while driving your car.
Here are key considerations to ensure your metrics provide meaningful insights:
Align Metrics with Business Goals
Make sure you are measuring things that matter to your firm and have a justification for each input and output you measure.
Avoid Vanity Metrics
Be wary of metrics that look good but don’t provide actionable insights … especially as non-human bots are responsible for large percentages of meaningless “impressions.”
Understand Platform-Specific Metrics
Platforms measure engagement differently and use the same words but define them differently. For example, Facebook and YouTube both metrics called “video plays” but Facebook’s was triggered after only one second of viewing while YouTube waited until three seconds passed to record a view. The point is, platforms may use the same vocabulary while defining those words and phrases differently.
Recognize Bot Traffic and False Impressions
Be aware that not all traffic is generated by fellow humans. Whether you are looking at traffic to your site or your social profiles, bots are likely bloating the numbers. That’s one of the reason we counsel clients against chasing or paying for impressions.
Create Targeted Reports for Different Stakeholders
Tailor your reporting to your internal audiences. You might create a metric dashboard of generally accepted metrics but then create tailored versions for key leadership team members whose interest may vary. Doing this goes a long way to winning their confidence and support of your marketing efforts.
Use Insights to Improve Marketing Strategies
The ultimate goal of measurement is improvement. There will be times (lots of them) when the metrics indicate a message or some set of tactical variables didn’t work. That’s is a good thing because you now have concrete evidence to help improve the next iteration. Inculcating a measurement culture primes everyone to appreciate each effort is a test and each, whether a smashing success or a smoldering crater, is a step towards greater efficiency.
Measurement Tests Strategy
When you allow measurement to inform strategy, you strengthen increase confidence in your business growth engine.
Start with the business goals, and make sure your marketing goals and KPIs support those larger business goals. This will make you more relevant to your firm’s leadership and help them understand why your activities matter to the firm.
Don’t stop at defining final results, such as site visits or form fills. Also, think about the actions that support those results. This way, you’re tying your team’s activities to actual results, allowing you to understand what actions contribute to your marketing success.
The ultimate goal of tracking these metrics isn’t just to collect data, but to derive actionable insights that can improve your marketing effectiveness and deepen your understanding of your clients. If connecting with your target audience drives your results—and chances are, it does—then don’t lose the point of all this, which is connection leading to a deeper understanding and, ultimately, a genuine client relationship. If you need some help with this reach out, we’d love to talk through your unique challenges with you.
