11 items tagged "metrics"

  • 5 Essential metrics for B2B marketing

    5 Essential metrics for B2B marketing

    In today’s technology and data-driven landscape, marketers are under constant pressure to prove the value of their efforts. But with the amount of data and analytics we have access to, it can be difficult to differentiate between the important marketing metrics and the not-so-important marketing metrics.

    If you’re struggling to report on the success of your marketing campaigns, we’re here to help. 

    Today we explain the five most important B2B marketing metrics. Keep reading.

    Lead-to-close conversion rate (CVR)

    All too often, marketing teams spend too much time worrying about the number of leads they generate, and not enough on the quality of the leads. A steady stream of sales and marketing leads is important, but unless these people eventually purchase from you, they don’t provide much value.

    Lead-to-close conversion rate measures the average percentage of leads that end up becoming actual customers. The natural way to calculate this marketing metric is to divide the number of sales made in a specific time period, by the number of leads generated within that same time period. So, if your organization made 15 sales the first quarter, but generated 100 leads, your ;ead to close conversion rate would be 15%.

    However, the average sales cycle can take weeks or even months. Meaning, a lead you generate this November may not become a customer until next November.

    That being said, simply calculating conversion rate by time period won’t give you a true indication of how well your programs convert. Here’s an alternative: look back to the same time the year prior, and determine how many leads were generated in one month. Then, determine how many of those leads then converted into customers throughout the year. Lastly, divide the number of customers, by the original number of leads to retrieve your conversion rate.

    When CVR is calculated and monitored on a regular basis (i.e. monthly) it can also provide insight into the lead-quality your programs produce. For example, when your lead-to-close rate is high for a particular campaign or initiative, you can prioritize your time and resources accordingly. If your lead-to-close rate is low for a particular program, you can make the necessary changes to attract better leads.

    Initial customer acquisition cost (CAC)

    Another important marketing metric is your customer acquisition cost. This metric indicates how much your organization must spend to successfully secure one customer.

    This metric is easy to calculate: simply take all sales and marketing costs from one period of time and then divide that by the number of new customers acquired within that period.

    Executives consider their organizations CAC as an indicator of performance and efficiency. When your calculations are consistently low, your executives can assume that your sales and marketing teams are operating efficiently. But, if CAC spikes quarter after quarter, it can indicate an issue.

    For more granular results, try calculating the CAC by program, campaign, or initiative. These numbers can help you prioritize projects and scale your success.

    Marketing percentage of your CAC

    Another marketing metric to monitor is the marketing percentage of your CAC. Again, this is another simple formula to calculate. Take your marketing spend for a specific time period and divide by the number of new customers generated within that time period.

    This calculation reveals your marketing team’s impact on the overall CAC, and can be used to help make better sales and marketing decisions. Naturally, a lower number here is preferable. If your marketing CAC is high, it indicates one of two issues:

    • Your marketing team is spending ineffectively.
    • Your sales team is not performing well.

    Tracking this metric over time will demonstrate how each team is improving.

    Marketing originated customers

    This marketing metric identifies the percentage of new customers acquired as a result of marketing initiatives. This proves the ROI of your efforts. And more importantly, can help reassure your team that their efforts are paying off.

    Again, this metric isn’t hard to find as long as you track lead source. Take the number of customers that originated from a marketing initiative, and divide it by the total number of customers acquired within the same time period. Obviously, the higher the percentage the better.

    Marketing influenced customers

    In an ideal world, all customers would originate from your marketing team’s initiatives. Sadly, this is not the case. But that doesn’t mean that your efforts didn’t help move them along the buyer’s journey. Even if your programs didn’t generate the lead, your marketing team can still have a hand in closing a sale through educational content and nurture programs.

    This metric is not unlike marketing originated customers, but it goes one step further. To find this number examine the leads converted within a given time period. Then, determine how many of those leads interacted with your marketing efforts at some point. After that, once you divide by the total number of converted leads, you’ll have the percentage of marketing influenced customers.

    B2B Metrics: key takeaways

    The key to marketing success lies in your ability to understand how your efforts contribute to your organization’s bottom line. Once you prove the value of your initiatives, your team will receive well-deserved credit.

    Author: Krysta Williams

    Source: Zoominfo

  • 9 Metrics to measure the impact of your product marketing

    9 Metrics to measure the impact of your product marketing

    Measuring the impact of product marketing is an ongoing process for many organizations. Some product marketers have found it hard to quantify their efforts and tie it to business impact. The truth is, product marketing has a significant impact on business, for both B2B and B2C companies. In fact, product marketing has an impact on the ultimate KPI - revenue. 

    We’ve asked B2C marketing leaders which product marketing metrics are critical to their strategy. Let’s take a look at nine KPIs, covering overall business impact, customer acquisition metrics, and qualitative metrics, from B2C marketing leaders. 

    Key business metrics 

    Revenue

    One of the toughest metrics to measure, but one of the most important metrics, is revenue. Tying your product marketing efforts to revenue is incredibly important. There are a few ways you can go about tying product marketing to revenue, and you can also measure that impact year over year by setting a growth goal for your team.

    “At the end of the day, product marketing is in charge of making a product commercially successful. It's a great idea to track other metrics like close rate, cost per acquisition, and churn rate, but revenue should be your ultimate metric for gauging success. Not only do we track our revenue hourly against the previous year and our goal of 15% growth year-over-year, we meticulously document it by site and medium. This enables us to quickly identify the problem when sales are down and react accordingly.”

    -Joseph Piñeiro, Product Marketing Manager, 360training

    Sales conversion rate

    It’s important to measure traffic and CPA, but it’s also important to measure the conversion rate from visit to customer. This will tie into CPA, CAC (customer acquisition cost), and overall revenue. 

    “Yes, the traffic to your site might increase week over week or month over month, and your lead generation might be up 50% from last year. However, if the sales conversion generated from all these marketing successes aren’t so great, then we have a problem. It’s very important to measure our overall sales conversion rate right from how a prospect first become aware of your business through to the actual purchase. Measure each campaign’s contribution to actual revenue."

    -Mike Khorev, Growth Marketing Consultant 

    Launch impact

    When it comes to product launches, there are many KPIs you can be tracking. Depending on the scope of your launch, whether it be a feature launch or a complete product launch, you can look at these two metrics - feature impact on conversion rate, and product impact on customer value. These metrics will help you understand how new features impact conversion and how new product releases impact the overall value your customers are receiving from your offerings. 

    Feature impact on conversion rate

    “The primary goal for many new features launched on an ecommerce website is to increase the conversion rate. At minimum, a feature should not decrease the website's conversion rate. The exact metric could be specific to the part of the customer journey where the feature lives (e.g. increase in new registrations), or the website's overall conversion rate. We typically run an AB test to measure the feature's impact on conversion rate, which isolates the impact of the feature, rather than looking at overall conversion rates or a before-and-after analysis.” 

    Product impact on customer lifetime value

    “If we are launching an entirely new product, then it's very important for us to understand the product's impact on customer lifetime value. In other words, we want to understand if the new product has a positive impact on the overall value customers receive from our portfolio of products and services. It takes longer to measure changes in lifetime value, and the analysis is more complex, but it's an ideal north star metric. Typically, we'll use a 10% hold-out group for this analysis.”

    - Bruce Hogan, CEO, SoftwarePundit

    Customer acquisition & retention

    Cost per acquisition (CPA) 

    As you invest more in your marketing efforts, you want to measure your CPA, so that you can learn where to pivot in your paid strategy. 

    “The most important product marketing metric for us is the CPA or cost per acquisition. It tells us how effective our marketing efforts are compared to the number of new customers we get. In other words, if our cost per acquisition is too high, it means that our current marketing efforts are too expensive for the customers that we can get. Furthermore, that means that we need to focus on channels that are less expensive and have a better ROI. If you have an excellent product and a great lifetime value, it won’t matter much if your initial cost to acquire your customers is too high."

    - Adam Hempenstall, CEO and Founder, Better Proposals

    Attribution modeling

    Customers often take a non-linear path to conversion, and can interact with many of your campaigns, products, and content. Attribution modeling helps you get visibility into how each of those steps in their lifecycle are impacting your end goal.

    "It's important to know where your customer acquisitions are coming from. Usually you are using more than one marketing channel to acquire customers. Knowing and tracking which channel your conversion came from is called attribution modeling. For example, to market my app, I might have digital ads, billboards, a snazzy storefront, a website, social media accounts, and a great app store profile. Which of these is the most effective at getting me new customers? This is tricky because you often have to pull data together from various sources and reconcile differences in numbers. However, with a strong attribution system in place you will know where to allocate your time and other resources to more effectively build and market your brand."

    - Claire Shaner, Product Marketing Manager, ZooWho

    Subscription metrics

    Of course, you want customers to buy your product or service. But you also want to encourage a long-term relationship rather than a one-time purchase. If you offer subscriptions, measuring the lifecycle of your subscriptions can give you insight into the value, customer satisfaction, and churn rates. 

    “Subscription sign-ups is the most important thing for B2C companies conducting business online, because it represents recurring revenue. Anyone can buy a product once to try it, but signing up for a subscription is a measure of loyalty to the company, and carries a much higher customer lifetime value. It's for these same reasons that angel investors and VCs put so much weight on subscription metrics.”

    - Calloway Cook, President, Illuminate Labs

    Time on page

    Knowing where customers come from and if they purchase your product or service is highly important. But, it’s also important to measure engagement through metrics like time on page. If you notice a drop on certain pages, maybe it’s time to tweak your messaging. 

    "Time on page is extremely important. It's one thing if a click-bait ad pushed a bored Internet user into visiting your website. It's another thing entirely if an interested, potential customer is engaged while scrolling through your webpages. If you can follow their journey through a number of pages, and exit page, all the better! Time on page will tell you if you have a potential customer to re-target, or a bored phone zombie you should exclude from your next ad campaign."

    - Morgan Taylor - CMO,  LetMeBank

    Customer feedback

    Voice of the customer 

    No one knows the impact of your product better than your own customer. Your customers can act as an extension of your product marketing team. You should use their voice and sentiment as a way to measure your product marketing success. 

    “In any marketing you're only guessing until you talk to your customer and know what they want. Some important questions to ask your customer are things like, How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend? or What do you like most about the product? or What do you like least about the product? Getting input from your customer gives you direction. You can make this into a metric like the number of customers we talked to about this decision.”

    - Claire Shaner, Product Marketing Manager, ZooWho

    Measuring the impact of your product marketing efforts can help you shape future projects,launches, and share results with your key stakeholders. When measuring your product marketing activities, be sure to cover a wide range of metrics from customer feedback to sales numbers to website activity. The more you measure, the more insight you have into the impact of your business. 

    Author: Emily Dumas

    Source: Crayon

  • Applying Market Intelligence in six steps

    Applying Market Intelligence in six steps

    A marketing intelligence process is like the third-eye which allows you to see all that is happening in the market. It’ll allow you to reach your target audience, learn new business tactics, understand why market leaders succeed and what they do that makes them successful, in addition to identifying trends, even the ones which aren’t so obvious. Here’s how you build a market intelligence process in 6 steps.

    1. Identify your competitors

    This seems like a simple enough step, but all is not as it seems. You likely have a good grasp on who your direct competitors are, but do you know who your indirect competitors are? Your direct competitors sell or market the same products as your business, and while indirect competitors might not do that, they still compete with your business. For example, let’s say your product is an energy drink, then your direct competitors are other organizations that sell energy drinks. However, your customer might just as easily choose a carbonated beverage instead of an energy drink, which makes the organization producing that beverage your indirect competitor. You can identify direct and indirect competitors through some market research, customer feedback, and monitoring online portals. And, of course, you can (and should) use market intelligence to do that. Once you’ve identified both your direct and indirect competitors, you can move on to deciding the metrics you wish to measure.

    2. Choose the metrics you wish to measure

    The metrics an organization chooses to measure depend on their goals, and the strategies they deploy to achieve that goal. Organizations generally fall in two categories - ones that are brand-focused, and others that are performance-focused. Brand-focused organizations give more weightage to the aspects of their brand, their category, and their competitors. Performance-focused organizations, on the other hand, give more weightage to demand generation, and their sales efforts. Naturally, it is these respective metrics that they should focus on to gain a competitive advantage.

    Brand-focused organizations should measure and pay attention to metrics such as brand advocacy, affinity, appeal, association, awareness, loyalty, perception, personality, reputation, recall, preference, strength, sentiment, salience, trust, usage and of course, competitors’ performance & tactics. Pay special attention to the kind of content your audience likes. They should use market intelligence to continuously collect information pertaining to these metrics, and deliver them to their marketing teams in the form of daily alerts and weekly or monthly reports.

    Performance-focused organizations should measure and pay attention to critical sales metrics such as their competitors’ annual recurring revenue, sales budget, average revenue per user, win rates, conversion rates, acquisition channels, sales tactics, and the like. A market intelligence process that allows your sales team to constantly be aware of these metrics should be put in place. Integrating your sales enablement tool to your market intelligence system is a great way to streamline things in this case.

    3. Understand how to use market intelligence effectively

    In 2021, almost every business uses market intelligence in some form or another. From a small company that does basic or unstructured research using the internet on their target market and competitors, to huge enterprises that pay millions of dollars for data on their competitors and the markets. Neither of these organizations is using market intelligence effectively. In fact, 50% of organizations don’t know how to use M&CI properly in decision-making. When an organization creates a market intelligence process, there are 3 things they should look out for to ascertain its ROI.

    - Data costs

    - Labor costs

    - Cost of poor decisions

    Now, the company that does basic research has no data cost, as surfing the internet costs nothing. Little to no labor costs are incurred, as there’s no team of analysts decoding data that is fetched. However, the cost of poor decisions is probably immense, which is why this company is still a small company even after being in the market for a long time.

    On the other hand, the enterprise-sized organization is paying through their noses for data, labor costs to analyze that data are probably high too, as the organization likely has teams of analysts for this specific job. However, their cost of poor decisions is really low, which explains why they are an enterprise-sized business. They do, however, hemorrhage money in labor and data which could be saved with a more effective MI process.

    A balanced approach would be to use a market intelligence software, which will incur moderate data costs, incur moderate labor costs as a modest amount of analysis is required, while saving you from the cost of poor decisions entirely.

    4. Perform a market and competitive analysis

    The next step would be to perform a market and competitive analysis. Using the insights gleaned from your MI process, design a market and competitive analysis that can be shared with your organization’s stakeholders for easy interpretation. Bear these things in mind when doing so:

    - Provide a context
    Not everyone in your organization may be used to understanding how numbers and visual representations in the analysis work. Next to every statistic in the analysis, provide some context about what these insights mean for the organization, whether good or bad. Adding a benchmark to measure statistics would be a good idea too.

    - Provide recommended actions
    Statistics in themselves are no good if you or your stakeholders don’t know what to do with them. Every statistic is either an opportunity or a threat that must be taken advantage of or dealt with. Describe a plan of action as to what should be the appropriate response to every statistic you put in your analysis.

    - Provide Proof
    Although your stakeholders are not going to doubt the information you put in the analysis, it is always better to furnish them with specific resources for better understanding. Also, they might have to explain it to a customer, client, or another stakeholder in the future, so an attached resource to any statistic or a methodology on how you reached a conclusion is a must.

    - Keep it short
    The stakeholders in your organization, particularly the leadership, are busy people who have a schedule to stick to. Lengthy analyses that take hours to comprehend will waste their valuable time, and more likely not be paid adequate attention to. So skip the granular details, and provide information that can be quickly consumed and understood.

    Keeping these things in mind when designing a market and competitive analysis will ensure your organization makes the most of it.

    5. Deliver market intelligence throughout the organization

    To ensure that market intelligence is utilized effectively throughout the organization, certain things need to be taken into consideration.

    - It gets to the right stakeholders

    - It gets to them in a timely manner

    - It is easy to understand

    Doing all of this requires figuring out an appropriate delivery process. Doing this manually is labor-intensive and prone to faults, even if you use a CMS. Markets are highly-dynamic, and the number of insights you get each day, each week and each month can be overwhelming. Then there’s the question of turning them into daily insights as well as weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly reports for the stakeholders to understand the trends better. Finally, you need to send them to the right stakeholders. Not difficult, but laborious.

    6. Transform insights into action

    The goal of market intelligence is for a business to be able to make smart and strategic decisions with the information it provides. This generally means more sales, better products or services, a larger market share, more customers, more brand awareness within the target audience, in addition to other business objectives the organization might have. For this to happen, intelligence, strategy and action need to have a direct link, in order to be defined as a process. Organizations need to establish this link on their own, as market intelligence is just one piece of the puzzle. The process should ideally look like this:

    - The market intelligence process provides insights

    - Those insights are given a context by your market intelligence team, if you have one, or by the stakeholders themselves in case you don’t

    - The information is translated into specific business questions, that need to be answered with strategies

    - Strategies should be formulated after determining the best course of action in the present and future market landscape

    - These strategies should be communicated to everyone involved in their execution

    - Actions should be taken based on these strategies

    If you follow this process from insight to action accurately, the results will speak for themselves.

    Conclusion

    Today’s world is data-driven, and organizations that use a market intelligence process are able to take full advantage of it. Similarly, an inefficient market intelligence process, or worse no process at all, can quickly become a burden on an organization. The market intelligence process described above will hopefully give you some ideas on how to set up a similar system for your own organization, and enable you to be more competitive. Another option that can prove be invaluable, is hiring an external Market Intelligence team specialized in the ins and outs of the MI process.

    Author: Malay Mehrotra

    Source: Contify

  • Dashboarding: advice for useful design and application

    Dashboarding: advice for useful design and application

    Since 1770 when Britain’s James Hargreaves patented his spinning jenny that allowed a single spinster to run eight spindles and produce eight times as much raw thread and yarn as before – cutting both time to market and labor expense involved with producing textiles in Blackburn, Lancashire – doing more with less has been the driving force behind growing a business.

    This productivity remains an elemental economic force – with a decisive effect on profit.

    In our modern economy, software applications measure linear-feet equivalents of today’s “thread and yarn.” Such raw, furnished data, unlike cotton or wool fibers, begs translation, comparison, and analysis. Consequently, every team lead needs an agent by which to see, interpret and act on that data.

    The Dashboard – 3 Types for Business

    And that’s what dashboards – imperative to business intelligence software – do. Of course, dicing and splicing that data constitutes a need for tailored dashboards, of which three types are recognized:

    • Strategic – aggregates critical, overarching metrics, presenting a 10,000-foot view of a business.
    • Analytic – gathers and compares particular metrics across time and many variables, drilling down to actionable data per team.
    • Operational – monitors data in real time, alerting a team to any issues that need to be addressed.

    Regardless of a dashboard’s purpose, it should reflect a company’s particular needs and culture, displaying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on a firm’s high-level (and/or low-level) objectives. These KPIs will stand as quantifiable measurements of each goal; metrics, by any other definition.

    That’s important, because according to Sruthi Varanasi of ReportGarden, “A metric is a quantifiable measure that is used to track and assess the status of a specific business process.”

    Metrics – Lifeblood for a business; Heart of a Dashboard

    Suffice to say, metrics are the truest barometer of how your online business is doing.

    Consider this: A 15 percent increase in conversions is just that, a successful trend. Subsequently, metrics serve as buoys that can keep your business sailing in deep water or warn you when shoals are near. A 21 percent dip in visibility over a month is just that, a falling trend, indicating you might need to revisit strategy and adjust – on the fly.

    It stands to reason, then, that constructing a clean, uncluttered, incisive dashboard that represents key business intelligence metrics is equal parts science and art.

    You want a dashboard whose widgets illustrate – at a glance – essential data from which sound business decisions can be made – whether those decisions concern the content of a webpage or the features of an actual product.

    Dashboard enABLEd! How to Determine Which Metrics to Track

    So, how do you decide which specific metrics should populate that dashboard from which you will extract actionable data? How do you identify those KPIs for each business goal? Following these four steps will enABLE you (apology for the acronym within the acronym) to populate your dashboard with meaningful data:

    1. Apply S.M.A.R.T. methodology.
    2. Bring the selection to the team.
    3. Limit KPI assignment to three primary, overriding goals.
    4. Eliminate the urge to add more metrics to the dashboard.

    1. Apply S.M.A.R.T. to each KPI

    For a basic example, if an overriding goal is to increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the questions to ask – and answer (more than yes/no) – to assess the validity of a KPI begin with:

    • Is a metric Specific to a goal? What needs to be accomplished and why?
      We want to increase MRR to increase margins and subsidize a new product launch next year.
    • Is it Measurable? What kind of historical change has been evident? How will we know the goal was reached?
      According to historical analytics, we can feel confident that an MRR increase of between 3 – 5 % would be achievable.
    • Is it Attainable? Are the resources readily available to achieve success? Is the goal reasonable? Is it likely to bring success?
      We can ramp up social media promotion, launch a campaign, or otherwise put effort behind ramping up sales to drive revenue.
    • Is it Relevant? How meaningful and worthwhile is the goal? In the current situation can we commit to its achievement?
      Our competition has lost revenue, so more of the market is available to us. The more revenue generated, the more reward for us.
    • Is it Timely? Is the goal ahead of the curve, or behind? What’s the deadline for achieving it? What’s the overall timeline set for adopting the goal?
      After strategic planning, we can achieve a substantive bump in MRR over the subsequent quarter.

    So, your team devises this KPI: Increase MRR by 3% during Q2. What metric goes on the Dashboard? A monthly monitor of incoming revenue.

    2. Bring KPI selection process to the team

    Gain consensus on those metrics paramount to the team’s and the company’s success. Asking for a collective viewpoint not only helps distill the essence of paramount KPIs but also builds morale. Each team member gets some skin in the game.

    3. Limit KPI assignation to no more than three primary goals

    Segment’s Analytics Academy declares the purpose behind each solitary metric populating your dashboard should focus attention on a specific business process (goal!) that needs to be optimized. Using the sample KPI above, it could be one of three under an overarching goal to drive an increase of MRR.

    4. Eliminate unnecessary metrics

    The rule of thumb is to have no more than seven metrics displayed on any single dashboard because, after all, it functions as a quick-glance representation of a goal’s status. Thus, its design should advance easy comprehension, simple updating, and clean navigation without secondary data distractions.

    Your team should make hard decisions on which metrics to include. Consider: secondary data get in the way, conflating interpretation, overwhelming the reviewer. Fewer metrics are better metrics.

    Each time you visit the dashboard, you should remember that KPIs keep your business strategy agile, fleet, responsive. Positive data dictates stability and steadiness. Negative data compels your team to adjust, adapt and provide alternatives.

    An effective dashboard illustrates this crucial data and discloses a course of action to take.

    Metrics on Dashboard: What Are My Choices?

    Once you’ve followed the ABLE steps to determine your KPIs, you’re ready to populate your dashboard. At this point, you may ask, “What are metrics that achieve near-universal adoption by businesses?”

    That depends on the purpose behind your team, the audience (your team? An executive?) that will be reviewing the dashboard, the “actionability” of the selected KPIs, and the type of visuals preferred.

    Metrics for a marketing team might include tracking web traffic sources, incremental sales, social sentiment, conversion rate, and SEO keyword ranking. A sales team might want to monitor sales growth, product performance, average purchase value, and average profit margin.

    A financial team can follow working capital, debt-to-equity ratio, and current ratio. An e-commerce team might monitor customer lifetime value (CLV), customer retention rate, customer churn analysis, and monthly recurring revenue.

    Other salient KPIs can address net profit, revenue growth rate, project schedule variance (PSV), and average revenue per customer. Because your KPI choices are ultimately subjective, the A.B.L.E. methodology can help your team judiciously arrive at which data would be most constructive to track and display.

    Vital Metrics on (Dash)Board: The Skinny

    As long as any KPI on your dashboard is based in company goals, is relevant to the team behind achieving that goal, is attainable, measurable and remains timely, the dashboard itself should render keen data from which you can take incisive action to engineer successes — as well as avert disasters.

    Taking the time to apply the SMART methodology, bring in the team, limit primary goals and amount of KPIs assigned to each, and eliminate the urge to overpopulate a dashboard with secondary data, will help you select the most meaningful metrics for your business onto your dashboard.

    Perform these steps. Pick your metrics. Build your dashboard. Mine your data.

    Grow your business.

    Author: Keith Craig

    Source: Sisense

  • Gaining real value for you company with data analytics

    Gaining real value for you company with data analytics

    Experienced business managers know that reliable data is a requirement for success. Accessing complete and accurate data can help your team determine if your business is achieving its key performance indicators (KPIs).

    Data analysis is one of the most valuable practices for measuring business performance in today's competitive market. If you’re unable to gain a clear understanding of your business through data analysis, chances are you’re working within an outdated and limited data analysis reporting system.

    Regardless of your sector, having access to timely, quality data means the difference between generating static reports and generating true business intelligence (BI) that conveys critical information about your business.

    If you’re looking to get more out of your data and ensure your team is making decisions based on comprehensive reports that tell the whole story, consider taking your reporting and analysis in a new direction by implementing the following practices:

    Maintain a single source of truth

    When it comes to data analysis and producing accurate reports, accessing consolidated data is one of the biggest pain points facing businesses today. The next time you touch base with your finance and IT team, ask them how many data sources that have to manually add together to generate reports. Chances are that’s a job within itself.

    This silo-based data system may have worked well when your business was starting out; however, as a business expands and its needs become more complex, outdated solutions could easily stand in the way of profit.

    For many teams, it’s often only a matter of time before there are multiple versions of one spreadsheet being passed around among colleagues, compromising data integrity. A single, modern platform can ensure your data is processed in a seamless, efficient environment that keeps everyone on the same page.

    Aim for real-time data 

    Staying competitive means understanding your business and the needs of your customers in real-time. When it’s time to run reports, where do they, and the team, have to go to access all of that data? Is your finance team searching for data, and making corrections along the way, instead of meeting deadlines and producing up-to-date, dynamic reports?

    Fast access to data means having the ability to collect and analyze critical data on demand. Enterprise Resource Planning systems are an excellent way to store data and plenty of businesses may already have a  reporting system in place that “just works".

    Of course, the job gets done, but consider that keeping your data in ERPs may also be preventing access to the full power of data analytics. This is the difference between actionable data that your team can analyze and use to generate business intelligence and static data that doesn’t reflect your business's current state.

    KPIs vs. metrics

    When it comes to KPIs vs. metrics, it's important to know what you’re measuring and what you’re missing. Every industry has specific metrics that business managers must pay close attention to in order to understand whether their business is succeeding. Different reports detail P&L, customer information and sales. A single spreadsheet can contain valuable information about a business.

    However, some business managers may not realize that they are missing the opportunity to perform deeper data analysis beyond preparing financial statements simply because they lack the most modern tools that can show them how their whole business is performing.

    Once you have a more accurate picture of your business, you and your team may decide it’s time to reset your KPIs. New intelligence could mean new goals.

    Redefine collaboration

    Over the past year, countless businesses have had to switch gears, moving into a full telework environment. Automation can help your business overcome the limits of this environment where resources may also be stretched thin.

    Most managers would agree: Scrambling to find missing data at 5 p.m. is not putting your team’s collective experience and skills to good use. Instead, hand that work over to a platform so your team can focus on collaboration and find new synergies between departments. Revisit workflow with your team to gain a better understanding of where the barriers lie.

    Aim for a truly inclusive workflow that encourages all team members to contribute rather than solely relying on a few people who seem to hold the secrets to generating reports only the finance team can fully understand and utilize.

    By capitalizing on the subject matter expertise of your individual team members across your organization, business managers can use data to gain a clear picture of not only your P&L through financial statements but also your company’s potential for growth.

    Source: Phocas Software

  • How to Benchmark Your Marketing Performance Against Your Competition's

    160225-Man-Painting-Coloured-Arrows-115378220In today's digital marketing world, competitive intelligence often takes a back seat to all the key performance indicators (KPIs) on which marketers are focused—open rates, social engagement metrics, lead-to-sales opportunity conversion rates, etc.

    That inward focus on how well you are doing with your revenue-driving marketing tactics is critical. But it can lead you to celebrate the wrong things. Don't let your KPIs overshadow the importance of knowing exactly how your digital marketing strategies are performing in relation to your peers who are competing against you in the market.

    If you forget to look at the bigger picture, you'll miss a perspective that, well, separates the best marketers from the mediocre ones.

    You can easily keep tabs on how your campaigns measure up against others in your industry without hiring an expensive third-party research firm. Of course, there may be times when you do need customer research and use a fancy detailed matrix of your competitors for in-depth analysis for identifying new products or for market sizing.

    But I'm talking about a quick and easy dashboard that measures you, the marketer, against your competitors.

    Why Spy?

    Competitive intelligence helps you...

    • Increase your chances of winning in the marketplace
    • Shape the development of your digital marketing strategy
    • Create a strategy for new product launches
    • Uncover threats and opportunities
    • Establish benchmarking for your analytics
      Most businesses do not have the luxury of having a dedicated employee, let alone a dedicated team, to gather and analyze gobs of data. However, you can easily track basic KPIs to inform decision-making at your company.

    Having analyzed the digital marketing strategies of numerous companies of various size and in various industries, including e-commerce, SaaS, and travel companies—and their competitors—I suggest the following for benchmarking.

    Website Performance Metrics

    To track the performance of a website, gather data from sites such as SEMRush, Pingdom, Similarweb, and Alexa. While that data is not always accurate when you compare three or four competitors at once, you can spot trends.

    Important metrics to monitor include the following:

    • Website visits: The average number of visitors per month can easily size up how popular you and your competitors are.
    • Bounce rate and site speed: Correlate these two metrics. That's how you can determine whether you need to make changes to your own website. For example, if your website has a high page-load time compared with your competitors, that will impact your page rankings, bounce rate, and overall customer satisfaction.
    • Geographic sources of traffic: Look at what percentage of visitors comes from what regions. That's critical if your company plans to expand beyond its current geographical presence. It will also allow you to spot global opportunities by finding gaps in distribution when looking at all competitors.
    • Website traffic by channel: See where your competitors choose to spend their time and money. For example, a company that has a higher percentage of visitors from email probably has a large prospect database. If you look at their website, you can examine how they collect data for their email marketing programs. Are they getting website visitors to sign up for newsletters or special offers? If not, they may be purchasing prospect data from a data provider. You can adjust your own strategy to ramp up marketing campaigns in areas where your competitors are not actively engaging prospects, or to increase spending in areas where they are outperforming you.

    Benchmarking reports from industry research reports are also helpful for tracking average open, click-through, and conversion rates.

    By putting together your newly found competitor insight and your own metrics, including your past performance, you can establish your own benchmarking.

    Mining for More Data

    Where are your competitors spending their advertising budgets? How are they using social media and PR? What jobs are they posting? Those answers are not hard to find, and they provide powerful insights.

    • SEO/PPC research: Tools are available to help you determine what ads your competitors are running and how they rank for particular keywords. Check out SEMRush, SpyFu, and WhatRunsWhere. You can also look at their overall spending for PPC campaigns. Depending on the source, however, the accuracy of this data can be as low as 50%. So use it for gauging overall direction, but don't rely on it entirely.
    • Social media: This is probably the hottest area of marketing and the hardest to assess. Mining data on social channels is especially tough when tracking consumer brands. It's best to monitor your competitors' activities monthly, and make sure to look at the posts ad promotions that companies generate. When updating or changing your strategy, you should have a solid understanding of what social media channels your competitors are using, types of posts they are making, how frequently they are using social media, and how successful they are (including number of users and levels of engagement).
    • PR: Press releases, financial reports, and thought-leadership blog posts distributed by your competitors provide great insight into their partnerships, possible marketing spending, and other initiatives.
    • Job postings: From time to time, take a look at LinkedIn or other job sites and you can get a good idea of where and how the company plans to expand.

    Frequency of Competitive Analysis

    The answer depends on the type of business that you have and the competitive landscape.

    For example, if you are selling a product in the SaaS Cloud space where you have 10 competitors, most of which are leading innovators, it makes sense to track their every move. However, if you are a B2B company and you have only one or two competitors in the manufacturing sector, you probably can get away with doing some basic benchmarking once every quarter.

    It is advisable to do a competitive analysis prior to changing strategy, launching a new product, or making tactical plans for the next quarter or year.

    Don't Be Afraid: Know Where You Stand

    Here's the bottom line: Don't get too excited about your 5% jump in email open rates, or passing a "likes" milestone on Facebook. Have the courage to see whether you are really a marketing rock star by benchmarking yourself against your competitors. Your business needs to know what your competition is doing. And I don't mean just knowing your competitors' products and pricing.

    With the insights you'll get from these tips and tools, you will be able to create a solid strategy, spot-on tactical plans, and (at the very least) a fantastic presentation to your executives or board.

    Source: MarketingProfs

  • How to Find the Most Suitable Metrics for your Dashboard

    How to Find the Most Suitable Metrics for your Dashboard

    Since 1770 when Britain’s James Hargreaves patented his spinning jenny that allowed a single spinster to run eight spindles and produce eight times as much raw thread and yarn as before – cutting both time to market and labor expense involved with producing textiles in Blackburn, Lancashire – doing more with less has been the driving force behind growing a business.

    This productivity remains an elemental economic force – with a decisive effect on profit.

    In our modern economy, software applications measure linear-feet equivalents of today’s “thread and yarn.” Such raw, furnished data, unlike cotton or wool fibers, begs translation, comparison, and analysis. Consequently, every team lead needs an agent by which to see, interpret and act on that data.

    The Dashboard – 3 Types for Business

    And that’s what dashboards – imperative to business intelligence software – do. Of course, dicing and splicing that data constitutes a need for tailored dashboards, of which three types are recognized:

    • Strategic – aggregates critical, overarching metrics, presenting a 10,000-foot view of a business.
    • Analytic – gathers and compares particular metrics across time and many variables, drilling down to actionable data per team.
    • Operational – monitors data in real time, alerting a team to any issues that need to be addressed.

    Regardless of a dashboard’s purpose, it should reflect a company’s particular needs and culture, displaying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on a firm’s high-level (and/or low-level) objectives. These KPIs will stand as quantifiable measurements of each goal; metrics, by any other definition.

    That’s important, because according to Sruthi Varanasi of ReportGarden, “A metric is a quantifiable measure that is used to track and assess the status of a specific business process.”

    Metrics – Lifeblood for a business; Heart of a Dashboard

    Suffice to say, metrics are the truest barometer of how your online business is doing.

    Consider this: A 15 percent increase in conversions is just that, a successful trend. Subsequently, metrics serve as buoys that can keep your business sailing in deep water or warn you when shoals are near. A 21 percent dip in visibility over a month is just that, a falling trend, indicating you might need to revisit strategy and adjust – on the fly.

    It stands to reason, then, that constructing a clean, uncluttered, incisive dashboard that represents key business intelligence metrics is equal parts science and art.

    You want a dashboard whose widgets illustrate – at a glance – essential data from which sound business decisions can be made – whether those decisions concern the content of a webpage or the features of an actual product.

    Dashboard enABLEd! How to Determine Which Metrics to Track

    So, how do you decide which specific metrics should populate that dashboard from which you will extract actionable data? How do you identify those KPIs for each business goal? Following these four steps will enABLE you (apology for the acronym within the acronym) to populate your dashboard with meaningful data:

    1. Apply S.M.A.R.T. methodology.
    2. Bring the selection to the team.
    3. Limit KPI assignment to three primary, overriding goals.
    4. Eliminate the urge to add more metrics to the dashboard.

    1. Apply S.M.A.R.T. to each KPI

    For a basic example, if an overriding goal is to increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the questions to ask – and answer (more than yes/no) – to assess the validity of a KPI begin with:

    • Is a metric Specific to a goal? What needs to be accomplished and why?
      We want to increase MRR to increase margins and subsidize a new product launch next year.
    • Is it Measurable? What kind of historical change has been evident? How will we know the goal was reached?
      According to historical analytics, we can feel confident that an MRR increase of between 3 – 5 % would be achievable.
    • Is it Attainable? Are the resources readily available to achieve success? Is the goal reasonable? Is it likely to bring success?
      We can ramp up social media promotion, launch a campaign, or otherwise put effort behind ramping up sales to drive revenue.
    • Is it Relevant? How meaningful and worthwhile is the goal? In the current situation can we commit to its achievement?
      Our competition has lost revenue, so more of the market is available to us. The more revenue generated, the more reward for us.
    • Is it Timely? Is the goal ahead of the curve, or behind? What’s the deadline for achieving it? What’s the overall timeline set for adopting the goal?
      After strategic planning, we can achieve a substantive bump in MRR over the subsequent quarter.

    So, your team devises this KPI: Increase MRR by 3% during Q2. What metric goes on the Dashboard? A monthly monitor of incoming revenue.

    2. Bring KPI selection process to the team

    Gain consensus on those metrics paramount to the team’s and the company’s success. Asking for a collective viewpoint not only helps distill the essence of paramount KPIs but also builds morale. Each team member gets some skin in the game.

    3. Limit KPI assignation to no more than three primary goals

    Segment’s Analytics Academy declares the purpose behind each solitary metric populating your dashboard should focus attention on a specific business process (goal!) that needs to be optimized. Using the sample KPI above, it could be one of three under an overarching goal to drive an increase of MRR.

    4. Eliminate unnecessary metrics

    The rule of thumb is to have no more than seven metrics displayed on any single dashboard because, after all, it functions as a quick-glance representation of a goal’s status. Thus, its design should advance easy comprehension, simple updating, and clean navigation without secondary data distractions.

    Your team should make hard decisions on which metrics to include. Consider: secondary data get in the way, conflating interpretation, overwhelming the reviewer. Fewer metrics are better metrics.

    Each time you visit the dashboard, you should remember that KPIs keep your business strategy agile, fleet, responsive. Positive data dictates stability and steadiness. Negative data compels your team to adjust, adapt and provide alternatives.

    An effective dashboard illustrates this crucial data and discloses a course of action to take.

    Metrics on Dashboard: What Are My Choices?

    Once you’ve followed the ABLE steps to determine your KPIs, you’re ready to populate your dashboard. At this point, you may ask, “What are metrics that achieve near-universal adoption by businesses?”

    That depends on the purpose behind your team, the audience (your team? An executive?) that will be reviewing the dashboard, the “actionability” of the selected KPIs, and the type of visuals preferred.

    Metrics for a marketing team might include tracking web traffic sources, incremental sales, social sentiment, conversion rate, and SEO keyword ranking. A sales team might want to monitor sales growth, product performance, average purchase value, and average profit margin.

    A financial team can follow working capital, debt-to-equity ratio, and current ratio. An e-commerce team might monitor customer lifetime value (CLV), customer retention rate, customer churn analysis, and monthly recurring revenue.

    Other salient KPIs can address net profit, revenue growth rate, project schedule variance (PSV), and average revenue per customer. Because your KPI choices are ultimately subjective, the A.B.L.E. methodology can help your team judiciously arrive at which data would be most constructive to track and display.

    Vital Metrics on (Dash)Board: The Skinny

    As long as any KPI on your dashboard is based in company goals, is relevant to the team behind achieving that goal, is attainable, measurable and remains timely, the dashboard itself should render keen data from which you can take incisive action to engineer successes — as well as avert disasters.

    Taking the time to apply the SMART methodology, bring in the team, limit primary goals and amount of KPIs assigned to each, and eliminate the urge to overpopulate a dashboard with secondary data, will help you select the most meaningful metrics for your business onto your dashboard.

    Perform these steps. Pick your metrics. Build your dashboard. Mine your data.

    Grow your business.

    Author: Keith Craig

    Source: Sisense

  • How tracking the right KPIs and using the right triage strategy lead to success

    How tracking the right KPIs and using the right triage strategy lead to success

    Let’s start with a hard truth: If you try to do everything, you won’t excel at anything. In a growing business, there’s no shortage of things that need attention, but you can’t do everything at once. Instead, you have to decide where to focus your resources to get the greatest impact. In a word, you must become a master of triage.

    Triage means making the tough calls. It means cutting program budgets to free up resources to run down existing leads. It means postponing the development of new features to shore up core functionality — or it could mean running the risk of alienating your existing customer base so you can develop a potentially industry-shaking new feature. In triage, there are going to be losers. But there will also be winners, and that is how companies survive, thrive, and grow.

    To start, decide on your triage philosophy. Are you playing offense or defense?

    Offensive triage strategy

    Defensive triage strategy

    Who plays it: younger startups and companies fresh off a new round of funding.

    Who plays it: companies on the verge of an acquisition or exit.

    Why play it: to take an aggressive stance for customer acquisition and growth.

    Why play it: to patch weak links in financial infrastructure.

    Example in action: Identify a strength and to turn it into a key industry differentiator. If you have earned a good reputation for customer service, then make that a cornerstone of your offering. Hire more customer service reps, build a marketing campaign around them, and arm your sales staff with battlecards detailing how you soundly beat the competition in service and support.

    Example in action: Identify where you are underperforming so you know where to invest your resources. Running short on leads? Give marketing more budget for lead-gen campaigns. Having trouble closing business? Maybe you need more sales reps to follow up existing leads. Is churn affecting customer lifetime value? See if there are opportunities to improve experience and stickiness.

    Which KPIs should I track?

    When you’re a fast-growing business, there are a million metrics that you could track. So many possibilities can make it challenging to isolate the handful that say something meaningful about the health of your company. That’s why it’s crucial to start by identifying your key objectives — the goals that will make the most significant impact. Your KPIs (key performance indicators) are the metrics that tell you how well you’re performing against the targets that matter most to your business.

    Key objectives will — and should — vary from company to company. They depend on where the company is in its growth, what challenges it’s facing internally or in the marketplace, what’s happening in the macroeconomic climate, and more. In the offensive triage strategy example above, a company establishing their position on customer service will want to measure things such as CSAT and NPS scores. An early-stage technology startup fresh off its Series A funding round may set aggressive product targets and will keep a close eye on its product metrics. Meanwhile, a company evaluating an exit either by acquisition or IPO, such as the defensive example above, will want to subject financial metrics such as ARR, CAC, burn rate, and the sales funnel to intense scrutiny.

    Once you know what you want to track, look for ways to automate KPI reporting. Automation will minimize the person-hours you invest in your reporting, freeing those assets to do the creative thinking of solving problems instead of measuring them. An automated reporting system will also let you set up background tracking for KPIs that aren’t part of your active strategy, so when you do have bandwidth to address them, you have that history at your fingertips without additional investment.

    It can be very easy to let KPI reporting slide — especially in high-growth companies where bandwidth is at a premium. Often the relevant metrics are still being tracked by someone somewhere, but the executive leaders who need the information most may not even have access to the tools or dashboards where those metrics live. As part of your KPI planning, think about how you are going to get the data from the systems where it originates and into the hands of senior leadership.

    Finding the right approach to executive reporting

    Early-stage companies frequently leave reporting up to the individual department heads — in fact, the company’s main data leader may be the head of an entirely different department, such as operations or finance. If that is your situation, you should provide clear direction on who is responsible for reporting, which metrics should be included in those reports, and how the reports should be formatted. After all, it can be difficult to have a meaningful conversation about KPIs when the marketing metrics are in a high-level slide presentation while the financial figures are shared through a complicated spreadsheet. Establish a protocol for reporting that ensures that metrics are readable, sharable, and comprehensible.

    On the other hand, you may be a more mature or established company that already has a BI tool that you use for building aggregate dashboards to report on cross-functional data. It cannot be emphasized enough that you must resist the temptation to use your existing dashboards for executive reporting. What seems like an appealing shortcut at first never works out that way — in the executive leadership meetings where they discuss the data, flipping between different dashboards will become a frustrating obstacle to valuable conversations, and the presence of irrelevant data points could spin the team off on futile tangents. Invest the time to build a new, clean dashboard exclusively for executive KPI reporting.

    Whether you build a single executive KPI dashboard or rely on individual owners to provide regular reports, you’ll want to establish a reliable method to deliver consistent KPI updates to senior leadership. While the report should highlight the most current data, it should also provide an easy way to pull up historical data when needed. At every meeting of the executive leadership team, they should refer to those KPIs and use them as a framework for discussions about the larger direction of the business.

    Always remember that no matter what your strategy, communication is key. The entire organization — from the executive leadership down to every individual contributor — should understand what you are tracking, why those numbers matter, and how they can contribute to your overall success.

    Source: Talend

  • Launched a new product? This will help you measure its success

    Launched a new product? This will help you measure its success

    According to Harvard Business School, of the approximately 30,000 new products launched each year, about 95% fail. Of course, the product failure rate varies from one industry to another—for example, grocery products fail at a rate of 70-80%—but think about it: When you launch a new product, generally, your odds of success are 25 to 1. If casinos offered those kinds of odds, they'd go out of business overnight.

    So, why do so many new products fail, and how can you measure product success?

    Why do product launches fail?

    New products fail for a variety of reasons, but the number one reason, according to Harvard Business Review (HBR), is that companies become so engrossed in the nuances of design that they don't adequately prepare to go to market:

    "Numerous factors can cause new products to fail…The biggest problem we've encountered is lack of preparation: Companies are so focused on designing and manufacturing new products that they postpone the hard work of getting ready to market them until too late in the game."

    Of course, the failure to leverage effective marketing strategies isn't the only boondoggle that condemns so many new products to the ash heap of history. According to The Business Journals, there are others, including the following three:

    1. Not adequately defining a target audience for the product.

    Many businesses fail to define the customers most likely to buy their products. Doing so means scrupulous targeting, effective market segmentation, and the creation of detailed buyer personas.

    2. Not fine-tuning value propositions.

    Every business worth its salt has a value proposition, but that promise made to consumers should vary somewhat based on the target audience for your product. For example, a product-based value proposition should demonstrate how a new product is superior to similar products offered by the competition.

    3. Not establishing relevant, realistic, and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs).

    This is perhaps the most harmful of product launch mistakes. To increase their odds of success, businesses need to enumerate clear, realistic, and measurable goals for things like revenue, price point, the number of total sales needed to meet revenue goals, number of needed prospects, leads and conversions, and the number of sales expected from new vs. repeat customers.

    What key performance indicators (KPIs) should you use to measure product launch success?

    Every business — and every product — is different, which means the product marketing metrics you use to measure the success of a launch will likely be different from those another company in another industry. That said, some KPIs are applicable to virtually every product launch, such as:

    • Launch campaign metrics
    • Product adoption metrics
    • Market impact metrics
    • Qualitative feedback

    Let’s take a closer look at these KPIs and how you can leverage them to guarantee product launch success.

    Launch Campaign Metrics

    You can't expect a successful product launch without a smart marketing strategy. Marketing metrics will tell you how effective your launch campaign is, which strategies are most effective, and which need to be tweaked or eliminated.

    Which metrics are most important to you during a new product launch?

    While the exact campaign metrics you track will depend on your larger product marketing strategy, here are the most common launch metrics to track:

    1. Leads generated: Generating leads as part of your product launch campaign is the first step in generating interest in your new product. Leads could be trials started, demos requested, or even thought leadership content downloaded that’s related to the new product.
    2. Promotional channel metrics (email, advertising): Chances are, channels like email marketing and advertising will be central to your lead generation efforts. Measure your email open rate, as well as click through rates, to measure your effectiveness in positioning your new product as part of your overall promotion strategy. If you’re using online product advertising to promote your launch, look at the costs and click through rates to measure, once again, your effectiveness at positioning and promoting this new product.
    3. Website traffic / page views: Be sure to measure views of all of your launch content as well, which includes website traffic or page views to new product pages, landing pages, and related content.
    4. News coverage: For major launches, you may also want to target PR coverage for your new release. Measure the quantity and quality of these articles or mentions to gauge your effectiveness at getting coverage.

    Product Adoption Metrics

    Once you’ve launched your product, it’s time to focus your attention on how your product is resonating with your customers. Product adoption KPIs tell you whether you have been successful in releasing and marketing a product that serves a market need —ultimately serving revenue and related business goals.

    What are product adoption metrics?

    Think of tracking product adoption metrics as taking a glimpse into the mind of your customers and prospects. If they are quick to flock to your newly launched product, use these KPIs to keep up momentum and steer continued interest in your product. If your product adoption rates aren’t yet where you expected them to be, use these KPIs as goals to aim for as you continue marketing your product launch.

    Here are a few typical product adoption metrics to track:

    1. Product trials: Trials started by customers or prospects, if you’re offering this option, is a great metric for evaluating real interest in what you’ve launched. This is also a good first step in getting long-term product adoption.
    2. Customer usage: Setting and tracking goals around customer usage over time - not just customers trying the product but also continuing to use the product over a set timeframe - is a good measure of your product serving a customer need and your marketing effectively guiding them into that product.
    3. User retention: While the primary goal of your launch may be to generate awareness and interest in your new product, it is also important to retain those users to ultimately impact key business metrics like revenue.

    Market Impact Metrics

    In a competitive landscape, measuring your penetration into the market and the impact on your sales is key for measuring the success of your launch.

    How do you measure market impact?

    By measuring the market impact of their product, businesses are able to assess the achievement of their launch across product, marketing, and sales. Key market impact metrics to track include:

    1. Revenue: If you are charging for this new product separately, revenue will be a critical KPI to measure the success and impact of your latest product launch. This is how customers show you that you have truly delivered value with your new product release.
    2. Market share: Odds are there are many products like yours in the market. It's important to know what portion of the market for that product your business is capturing. The market share KPI, in other words, tells you how well your product is performing compared to your top competitors.
    3. Competitive win rate: Another measure of your success in overcoming competitors in the market is your competitive win rate. If your new product competes head-to-head with existing solutions in the market, your competitive win rate should increase with a successful launch.

    Qualitative Feedback

    Finally, not all product launch KPIs can be quantitative in nature. You can also complement each of these other metrics with qualitative feedback from internal and external audiences.

    How do you evaluate qualitative feedback?

    Measuring qualitative feedback is like taking a temperature check of your customers and prospects. How are they feeling about your product launch? How are they communicating these feelings to your business? By tapping into the qualitative feedback generated by their product launch, businesses can develop a holistic understanding of their degree of product launch success.

    Qualitative feedback metrics to track include:

    1. Internal feedback: Collect feedback from internal audiences, including sales reps, marketers, executives, and product managers. Be sure to get their desired outcomes before the launch to better prepare to meet their objectives.
    2. External feedback: Collect feedback from customers and prospects to get reactions and constructive notes about the positioning, channels, and other launch elements. You may even discover areas where you can follow up to maintain momentum post-launch, such as creating additional customer help documentation or marketing content.

    Admittedly, launching a new product — and choosing the best metrics to determine whether that launch is successful — can be challenging. The high failure rate for product launches noted above is proof of that. However, by setting clear goals around these KPIs, aligning your product and marketing teams around these objectives, and ultimately measuring performance against these metrics will keep your entire company marching towards an effective product launch. 

    Author: Madison Blask

    Source: Crayon

  • The 7 most relevant metrics for sales managers

    The 7 most relevant metrics for sales managers

    Sales managers need to be savvy and strategic to get ahead. These are the 7 metrics every sales manager must know and be able to measure.

    We are now in an age where sales managers have a myriad of advanced data measurement and analytics options available to them. Through sales analytics software, sales managers can gain insight into their sales team’s pipeline and have a team that works more effectively and efficiently. But are you measuring the right things?

    Data analytics solutions have revolutionised sales measurement. They enable sales managers to pinpoint where their teams can generate more leads as well as cross-sell and upsell to existing customers and define customer profitability. The potential exists for sales managers to enjoy great benefits. Whether they get to enjoy such benefits depends on how you use the solutions available.

    So, are you measuring the necessary metrics to ensure your sales team are working at optimum level? We outline the seven metrics every sales manager should know and use.

    1. The sales pipeline

    This is a great way to gauge a company’s health. Sometimes presented in a graphical format, it shows the sales opportunities the company currently has and an estimation of the amount of revenue the sales team is going to generate in the coming months. If the opportunities within the pipeline are managed well, the sales team will stay organised and feel more in control of their sales figures, giving the sales manager more confidence in the targets that can be achieved.

    What metrics should be measured in a sales team’s pipeline?

    • Number of potential deals in your pipeline
    • Average size of a deal (in €/$) in your pipeline
    • Average percentage of deals that are converted from leads to customers
    • Average time deals are in the pipeline (measured in days)

    2. Sales revenue

    Measuring the revenue a sales team brings in, instead of only their profit margin, gives a sales manager more insight into the business' performance. If a company experiences steady “top-line growth”, it could be viewed that the performance in that period was positive even if the earnings growth or “bottom-line growth” didn’t change.

    Measuring revenue allows you to to identify the profitability of the business. By calculating the profit ratio (divide net income by sales revenue) businesses can reveal how much of every dollar brought in by sales actually makes it to the bottom line.

    3. Forecast accuracy

    Forecasts will never be exact, but there are tools available that will assist a business in creating the most accurate forecast as possible. The accuracy of a sales team’s forecasts needs to be measured on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are continually reaching their predicted targets or at least getting closer to them as time goes on. Producing accurate forecasts enables a company to reveal issues threatening the business as well as opportunities available.

    4. Sales funnel leakage

    No sales team wants a leaky funnel but sometimes with limited technology and man-power this can happen. It’s imperative to know where the holes in your funnel are, how they occured and how you can essentially ‘plug’ them. Things to review include:

    • Lead response time: a business that responds quickly to a sales qualified lead is more likely to win the sale
    • Rate of follow up contact: persistence is key, a sales teams should be continually following up with a lead via phone calls and emails until they are deemed no longer qualified

    By constantly monitoring this data and putting means in place to avoid opportunity leakage, the overall sales numbers will improve.

    5. Win vs loss rate

    It’s important to understand the reasons why leads buy or don’t buy a company’s product or service. This information is crucial as it can assist in improving a sales team’s close rate thus gaining more market share for the business. 

    6. Cross-sell and upsell opportunities

    Cross-selling and upselling can be complex and risky. However, with the challenges around new customer acquisition, businesses must find ways to improve sales from existing customers. With the right analytics tool, businesses can identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities in the organisation and ultimately, generate more sales for the business.

    7. Closure rate or “win rate”

    It’s important to be aware of how many leads or opportunities are being converted into customers. This metric focuses on the final stage of a sales team’s pipeline. By this point a sales team would have invested a lot of time and resources into the lead so this rate should be as high as possible.

    A low or constantly changing closure rate signifies lack of competitiveness in the market, it means the value proposition being offered to the leads is not good enough. It may also mean that the sales team requires additional training.

    Measuring a sales team’s performance has evolved from the simple spreadsheets used back in the 20th century. There are now advanced business intelligence software options that provide dynamic reporting capabilities with dashboards to help automatically track key metrics. This gives a sales manager the ability to become more proactive as well as make more insightful and strategic decisions that will benefit the company.

    Source: Phocas Software

  • The art of looking beyond vanity metrics

    The art of looking beyond vanity metrics

    B2B marketers beware: Marketing vanity metrics are easy on the eyes but only skim the surface when it comes to actual value. Although vanity metrics may make you feel good about your marketing efforts, these surface-level metrics only reveal part of the story.

    But, fear not dear marketer! If you turn your attention to the metrics that matter, you can improve your marketing strategy and communicate the important insights to leadership.

    Before we get into it, here’s a quick definition of a vanity metric: a vanity metric is data that looks good at first glance, but provides little insight into business success, company revenue, and ROI.

    So, which data points are the common culprits? Examples of marketing vanity metrics include:

    • Page views
    • Downloads
    • Facebook likes
    • Twitter followers

    An alternative to marketing vanity metrics

    In order to communicate the value of marketing initiatives, marketers must hone in on actionable metrics: metrics that can guide decision-making. These types of metrics are often referred to as engagement metrics. Engagement metrics can tell you more about what’s working, what’s not working, and what information you need to test further. In fact, 91% of marketers named engagement metrics, such as social media interactions, time on site, and bounce rate, as the number one way to measure success.

    But let’s face it, executives and board members can get stuck on marketing vanity metrics. So, how can you manage the ever-increasing expectations around marketing vanity metrics? Today, we take a closer look at three common marketing vanity metrics and explore the different ways to steer the conversation towards more meaningful metrics. Let’s jump right in!

    1. Social media followers

    Many marketers rely too heavily on their social media followers to measure their social media success. And we get it! All marketers want to see an increase in social media followers, but, these numbers don’t necessarily equal an engaged audience.

    Think about it this way: you may have thousands of Twitter followers but if only one of them engages with your social content regularly, what is your following really worth? On the other hand, you may have a small but dedicated following on LinkedIn with your social posts often leading to big sales. Yes, your LinkedIn audience is smaller, but it turns out these users engage more with your content, ultimately bring in more value. Just by digging into the data, you’ve zeroed in on actionable information to guide your social media efforts.

    The next time higher-ups inquire about your social media following, be sure to shift the focus to more important engagement metrics. It’s important to note that your marketing and business goals will dictate which metrics are most important to your executive team. Here’s what we recommend:

    Brand awareness:

    An easy way to show brand awareness on social media is through the number of brand mentions or tags you receive. During your next marketing campaign or product launch, keep a close eye on branded keywords. Next, keep an eye on the competition’s branded keywords to reveal how often social media users interact with competing businesses. Use this information as a benchmark to measure and understand your own performance.

    Lead generation:

    When tracking lead generation, focus on conversions for maximum impact. As you review conversion data in your preferred analytics platform, take note of the social networks that deliver the highest number of qualified leads.

    Website traffic:

    If your goal is to generate website traffic from your social presence, look closely at metrics that demonstrate real social engagement. For instance, check out where your social media leads enter your website, track the pages you visit, and where they drop off. Also, take a look at the specific posts and channels that garner the most clicks so you can scale your success and serve more content that resonates with your followers.

    Customer experience:

    If you use social media as a customer support channel, the number of followers you accumulate won’t give you any information about how you are doing. Instead look at metrics like the ratio of questions asked to questions answered or responsiveness. Then, work to improve how many cases or complaints you solve.

    Event or webinar registrants:

    If your goal is to generate event participation, break your reports down by social channel. This shows you where users are the most active and engaged in your webinar or event. Simply include campaign tracking information in your social links.

    Content downloads:

    Not all content is created equal. For instance, a high conversion on gated content signals a high-quality piece of content. Use this metric to strategize on future content offerings and bring those insights to leadership.

    The list above is a good starting point to show the senior team how your social efforts meet specific business goals. Roll up your sleeves, and start tracking!

    2. Total app, product, or software downloads

    Total downloads. This number can be impressive on the surface but it isn’t a clear way to gauge the impact your marketing efforts have on product adoption. Instead of looking at total number of downloads, look to yearly and monthly download trends to reveal if downloads are increasing or decreasing over time. Then, look at this timeline in comparison to a timeline of major marketing campaigns. That way, you can pinpoint which efforts had an impact on downloads and which did not.

    Another issue with total downloads, is that it doesn’t paint a complete picture of product usage or adoption. Instead, look at these key usage metrics for a clear understanding of how your customers and prospects engage with your offers:

    • Uninstall rate
    • Renewal rate
    • Trial conversion rate
    • Time users spend using the software

    Although higher-ups and executives may only express interest in total downloads, it’s your job as a marketer to paint a more complete picture for them. For example, you could explain that total downloads are up after a recent marketing campaign, but usage metrics stayed level. This indicates that your campaign was faulty in some way. Maybe you didn’t give an accurate description of your product, or maybe it was too difficult for users to figure out. These are important insights to highlight to upper management.

    3. Website pageviews

    A high number of pageviews is an ego boost, but pageviews are another metric to be wary of. When you report this data to management, it’s important to provide pageviews along with actionable engagement metrics to fully show user behavior. Focus on how users engage with your website content rather than how many pageviews each webpage garners. Important engagement metrics include:

    • Time spent on site
    • Unique users
    • Bounce rate
    • Pages per visitor
    • Conversion rate

    Some questions to think about when reviewing website analytics:

    • Which pages keep people engaged, and which ones do users abandon quickly?
    • Which elements and CTAs convert best?
    • Can you identify which traffic sources perform best and why?
    • Or, can you determine which campaigns generate the most traffic and why?
    • Is your website content mapped to your sales journey in a way that makes sense?
    • Can you pinpoint at which stage of the buyer’s journey users leave your website?

    Take an in-depth look at these engagement metrics to really focus your online marketing initiatives on engagement over pageviews. Use your findings to build best practices and reduce bounce rate to ultimately keep users coming back for more great content.

    Final thoughts on marketing vanity metrics

    While higher-ups may ask for marketing vanity metrics, it’s your job to refocus on data points that correlate to sales and revenue, improving your business' KPI's.

    Know that you can still report on vanity metrics to management, but don’t spend much time there. Instead, focus the conversation on more actionable, advanced metrics, highlighting the value they offer your company.

    Source: Zoominfo

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