After investing considerable time and effort into strategizing and executing your digital marketing efforts across various channels such as email marketing, social media, and public relations, the next step is measuring the impact. After all, what’s the point of putting in the hours and dollars if the efforts don’t deliver?
Measuring the effectiveness of your strategy helps to identify the tactics that are working from the ones that aren’t, giving you the opportunity to revise and make improvements to your strategy so that your organization can drive tangible results.
Setting SMART Objectives:
Start with outlining measurable goals for your marketing strategy. Based on past performance, be realistic when setting these objectives and ensure they are focused and revolve around the following:
- S – Specific
- M – Measurable
- A – Achievable
- R – Relevant
- T – Timely
For example, a SMART objective for your e-commerce business could be to increase sales by 10 per cent within the next 6 months. Setting these objectives is needed to determine what the results of your marketing strategy should be and to help keep you on track.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Next, it’s integral to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). As the name suggests, KPIs are a good way to measure performance over time. Narrow down the KPIs that are relevant to your channels and tactics.
KPIs For Social Media:
- Reach: The number of people that saw your post.
- Engagement: The average number of interactions your social media content receives per follower. If your posts have a high reach but nobody is interacting with your content (i.e., they’re not liking it, commenting on it, or sharing it), then the content may not be providing as much value as it should.
- Impressions: The number of times your post was visible in someone’s feed, regardless of whether they saw it or not.
Since all social media apps have their own analytics and insights integrated within their respective apps, the best way to measure these metrics is directly on the social platform itself. Keep track of the best times to post, and what type of content your audience is engaging with most.
KPIs For Email Marketing:
- Open Rate: The percentage of people who opened your email campaign.
- Click Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who clicked on your email campaign.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that did not get delivered.
To measure these KPIs, opt for an email marketing platform like Mailchimp. Mailchimp automatically generates reports for each campaign you send out, identifying these key metrics and providing click-maps to see where exactly people are clicking on your newsletters or daily campaigns.
KPIs For Public Relations:
- Share of Voice (SOV): The total number of mentions of your brand across media websites, forums, and blogs. SOV helps to understand where your brand is in comparison to the competition. Think of it as the amount of conversation and voice that your brand has. Share of Voice is calculated by the following formula:
- Brand mentions/Total Market Mentions x 100 = SOV %
- Sentiment: This metric measures the overall tone of brand mentions. Whether it is mostly positive, negative or neutral.
- Reach of Mentions: If your brand was mentioned in the media 15 times, what is the reach for each of those platforms/articles/posts that your brand was mentioned in?
You might be wondering how on earth you’re supposed to calculate some of these metrics on your own. Don’t fret, there are media monitoring tools such as Meltwater that do all the work for you. Meltwater tracks and analyzes the web for specific keywords, brands, or topics that you choose and provides data visualizations for each of the metrics listed above so that you can have a better understanding of how well your PR campaigns are performing.
KPIs For Pay-Per-Click (PPC):
- Cost Per Click (CPC): The average amount that is paid when someone clicks on an ad.
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): The cost of acquiring a new customer.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): The amount of revenue made for every dollar spent on campaigning.
KPIs For Your Website:
- Traffic: Number of users who visit a website.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of website visitors that leave without clicking on anything.
- Conversion Rate: The number of conversions divided by the number of visitors.
No need to panic or frantically pull out a calculator, because Google Analytics calculates the above metrics for you.
Reporting
Compile your findings into a comprehensive report and be sure to analyze them. Making sense of the data can be tricky, but it’s necessary in order to apply those learnings to future campaigns.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking compares your performance metrics against industry standards. For example, an email campaign open rate should be above 20 per cent. These benchmarks are important for determining where your marketing efforts fall in comparison to your competitors. If you are looking to customize report templates and compare your performance to your competitors and industry benchmarks, Hootsuite is the tool for you.
Optimize
A great way to compare different ads, emails, and landing pages, is to carry out A/B Testing to determine what performs best for your organization’s objectives.
Remember, marketing requires constant iteration. What might work for one channel won’t for the next, but the numbers don’t lie, so lean into the data, and let it drive your decision-making.
Jackie Marson | Staff Writer
