Six Marketing Metrics that Matter

By Sylvia Montgomery

In a matter of days, the year's first quarter will be over. Do you know how your marketing fared? This question can paralyze many executives. Even with all the changes in the economy, some professional service providers answer this question with: “our success is built on relationships — marketing is secondary.” But if you don’t know how well or how poorly your marketing performed, then how do you know where you need to go next? More important, how do you know you if your marketing spend is of any value?

As an executive, there are some obvious metrics you are probably already evaluating: number of leads, number of proposals, revenue dollars. However, there are other metrics that can be just as valuable for diagnosing the health of your firm’s marketing program. Here are a few key metrics you should be tracking and reviewing at least quarterly:

1. Networking – Where are your people networking? How many networking events are they attending? Is your staff networking at peer industry events or at events with fewer familiar faces?

Metric: How many qualified prospects/leads are generated by the different types of events?

2. Nurtured Leads – When you and/or staff members attend events, what happens with the information on qualified contacts? Does your firm have a process for entering contacts into a database? How has that database grown over the past quarter? What types of information are you sharing with those contacts? Is the information your firm shares sales oriented or educational? Understanding the quality and relevancy of your leads is critical to determining appropriate nurturing strategies.

Metric: How are your contacts segmented? By role or by vertical? What type of information is shared with them on a regular basis?

3. Target Audience Research – Professional service providers frequently confuse this type of research with obtaining project feedback. While project feedback is important in recognizing how a project is progressing, conducting target audience research  (client, prospects, and prospects that got away) is valuable for understanding audience concerns and how relevant your services are to those concerns. Some of the objections we encounter include: “I already know my clients" and "It’s unlikely that you will learn anything we don’t already know about our clients, competitors, or marketplace.” In our experience, these answers couldn't be farther from the truth.

Metric: When was the last time you asked clients and prospects, “what service do you believe we do well? How relevant is that service to helping you solve your most pressing needs?”

4. Thought Leadership Content - Publishing great content is a fabulous technique for boosting SEO rankings and building trust. I am not talking about content that focuses on how good your firm is. I mean content that presents valuable, relevant information in an approachable manner. Content marketing (sometimes called thought leadership) has quickly become the most effective technique for establishing authority online.

Metric: Who is responsible for producing meaningful content for your firm? How often are they producing this content? How is it distributed to relevant teaming/prospect audiences?

5. Strategic Partnerships – We are all familiar with the expression, “many hands make light work.” Well, I can’t think of a better sentiment to highlight the value of strategic partnerships. For example, if your firm is an HR consultancy specializing in middle market government contracting firms, then partnering with other firms or associations that serve middle market government contracting firms is a logical channel for business development.

Metric: How many strategic partnerships does your firm have? Can you identify the next five your firm should be courting?

6. Website – Brochure websites no longer make sense in today's web-centric marketing environment. Today, effective professional services websites generate leads. Are you receiving leads through your website?

Metric: How much traffic does your website receive? How long do visitors stay on your site? What are the top visited pages? What keyword phrases are associated with your firm? Where do those keyword phrases rank in Google's search results and do you show up in the first page of Google results for any of those terms?

These are just a few metrics to consider as you evaluate your Q1 results. Challenge your marketing staff to include these metrics in the evaluation of your firm’s marketing strength. If you'd like to share any other interesting metrics with our readers, I encourage you to leave your comments below. At the end of the day, the more you know... the more you know.

Looking for more information on marketing? Read this article:      10 New Business Lead Generation Ideas.