Our research recently found that UK business owners struggle with measurement and metrics more than any other aspect of their marketing. When surveyed, metrics scored lower than 12 other categories for 500+ SME respondents.

I’ll be honest, I was disappointed to hear that so many SMEs believe they aren’t properly measuring their marketing activities, and that they are struggling when it comes to establishing any form of meaningful marketing metrics. When so many are investing significant time and money into their marketing, I’d argue that having a firm handle on the metrics is of utmost importance. They simply must track and measure the success of that work, in order to feed that analysis back into their planning. 

Business owners invest in understanding their financials, as well as their sales metrics – reviewing the success of their business development pipeline, so why isn’t this the case when it comes to marketing?

What are metrics? 

Marketing metrics should include putting marketing performance measures in place, reviewing budget against objectives, measuring customer acquisition and retention, and costs per acquisition. 

Understand why you are doing this

When undertaking a marketing campaign, the first thing to do is to have an appreciation for the why? What is the purpose of this piece of activity? What are you hoping to achieve for the business? And what do you believe the results could be? 

Having real visibility will enable you to see and understand where your leads are coming from and what impact your marketing is having.

It is important for business owners, particularly those investing for the first time,      to appreciate that marketing can add value, but  doesn’t have to add a huge layer of cost.  All too often you hear of marketers using jargon and technical terms – when instead language based around the return on the investment of time and money is better suited to a busy business owner. 

Start with the basics 

When you start, just look to run basic campaigns designed to drive traffic to your website, which will help to generate leads. Over time, this can turn into a metrics framework to help measure the impact of these campaigns – you’ll then see which are the best channels and tactics. Taking this staged type of approach      will help you to gain real confidence in the marketing activities, and the tools you then choose to invest in on an ongoing basis. 

Be led by your data 

The end goal should be the creation of dashboards covering all marketing activity, enabling you to calculate the full return on investment and gain visibility of the marketing pipeline. This pipeline visibility will enable you to make informed decisions about where and how much you should be investing.  

I worked with one SME client who knew that the average value of their customer was rising. In order to capitalise on this, they analysed their marketing campaigns to see how they could modify their sales approach to look for bigger opportunities. They were also able to identify opportunities where they could grow their largest customers and invested in a new business development manager to make that happen – aligning his work closely to the marketing campaign.

Ultimately, SMEs should feel confident in their marketing and ensure it underpins future long-term planning and growth. This is because they should be tracking marketing activity all the way through to sales. 

Tips for successful marketing metrics

• First, be clear about what you want to measure and how measurement will add value to the business.

• Figure out how you’re going to measure it.

• Understand your marketing strengths and weaknesses. Take time to understand your marketing performance and identify areas to prioritise. 

• And, my guiding philosophy: if it moves, measure it. And if you measure it, it will move.

You can have a great product and customer-base, but until you really understand      your sales and marketing performance, you won’t be able to look ahead and plan for growth. Building a measurable strategy will help you to confidently invest in the business, because – at the end of the day – its performance could and should support the investment.