Every month, you receive your marketing data. It tells you how many people liked your posts, how many new subscribers you have to your eNewsletter, and whether your direct mail campaign resulted in new leads.
Faced with an almost-constant pressure to justify marketing efforts to C-suite executives, companies have increasingly gathered data to demonstrate the results they’re getting with marketing efforts. However, not all data is equal, and gathering and analyzing data is not the same as embracing accountability in your marketing strategy.
Among those surveyed in 2018 by Rakuten Marketing, respondents estimated that they wasted 26% of their marketing budgets. In order to remedy this trend, companies need the right data to support their strategies.
Take a look at a few of the most common pitfalls of data gathering and analysis in marketing teams:
Measuring likes and follows, though they might appear to give your brand a boost, shows little connection to sales growth or conversions.
It can be tempting to focus on growing metrics, such as shares of social media posts, but if they don’t deliver qualitative, measurable growth, they hold little value on their own.
You may be able to demonstrate that you mailed 30,000 postcards or produced multiple live videos on social media, but these activities simply turn marketing departments into cost centers.
The right metrics for any organization will be different from the next, but there are some key things you should strive to include in your accountability efforts:
Any data collection related to marketing metrics should be based on the goals of your sales and marketing teams. Are you trying to raise brand awareness, or are you focusing on increasing sales among existing customers? Know what each marketing activity is trying to achieve, so that you know whether your data indicates success.
Eighty-nine percent of leading marketers focus on strategic measures of success. This means they are not counting likes, but rather metrics that indicate growth, such as market share or gross revenue.
The Harvard Business Review recently included a report indicating that Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) will be investing much more in analytics in the future. They intend to increase the percentage of their budgets dedicated to analytics from 5.8% to 17.3%.
If you’re picturing analysts huddled over reports, or needing to hire a full team of social media management experts, you can relax. There are automated marketing tools that simplify a coordinated strategy and allow you to easily make adjustments to meet your goals. You’ll improve your return on investment and be able to clearly make your case as a revenue-producing department for your organization.
Automated marketing through DirectMail.io allows you to prioritize accountability, not just data-gathering and analysis, in your organization. Contact us for an initial consultation.