As a marketer, small business owner, or nonprofit manager, you're likely obsessed with numbers. Usually those numbers have to do with sales, donations, event attendees, or operating costs. But there are other ways to gauge how successful (or not) a marketing program has been.
Email marketing and social media offer a wealth of options and success metrics. It's one reason why both have grown in popularity in recent years. After all, you can see how many people open an email, but you can't see how many people open an envelope.
Here are 5 ways to get data that will tell you how successful you are in your various marketing efforts, and how that data can contribute to your bottom-line results:
1. Email metrics Conventional email metrics, like open rate and click-through rate5, can instantly tell you whether your subscribers are opening and engaging with your message, so you can easily tell how effectively you've captured people's attention and prompted them to act. And you can compare your results to others too: Average open rates6 range from 17% to 28%, depending on industry and type of organization. So if you're a business-to-business organization and you're getting a 38% open rate, you know you're doing well.
2. Shares These days, knowing how far beyond subscribers' inboxes your email went is becoming a critical metric to measure. It's all well and good for one person to click on the links in an email, but if the content was so compelling that the person felt the need to share it on social media, then that extends the reach of your message even further. Constant Contact's email reports7 display the number of shares your emails get, and even say where your messages were shared (on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or someplace else). Of course, you won't get any sharing data if you don't enable your emails to be shared, so make sure to turn on the Social Share bar8 the next time you send a campaign.
3. Follower count While the number of Twitter followers you have is only half the equation9 (the other half being what you do with those followers), measuring your growth in audience10 is a significant metric to track over time. Follower count is not going to skyrocket overnight, but if you note the number of people who follow you each month, you'll likely see growth on a consistent basis.
4. Facebook Insights Yes, Facebook seems easy to measure because you can see how many fans, likes, and comments you get. But you can learn so much more about how well you're doing on Facebook by taking advantage of the site's free Page Insights analytics tool11, which tells Page admins information such as demographics and how many people are visiting the Page during a selected time period. Facebook Insights can also tell you how many new "Likes" you got over a period of time, and where those new Likes came from, which can help you better spread the word about your Page to new fans.
5. Klout An increasingly important metric is your Klout score12, which measures your online influence. The score is a quick, numerical rating of that influence, based on everything from comments to shares to number of Twitter followers. While there's debate about the validity of Klout scores13, some people look at the number to determine the credibility of a business or organization, especially when it comes to social media expertise. For you, a high Klout score could lead to more speaking opportunities. And having customers with high Klout scores opens the door to greater word of mouth marketing.
While sales or donations may be the final determination of how successful your business or organization is, these other metrics can help you gauge how well you're doing in the meantime
Article Source: Constant Contact
Greg Longstaff
Business Development Consultant
Franchise Network Specialist
greg@salesmarket.co.nz
+64 9.307.7860
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