How Marketers can get "Better At" Marketing (Part 3: Measurement)

Ooh, so excited for this part of the conversation, folks! Why? Because there's a lot of nonsense that gets tracked when it comes to Marketing, and a lot of people lose a lot of their time tracking things that don't matter.

I saw a post yesterday sharing that there is ZERO evidence that CTR's (click-through rates) have ANY bearing on sales OR brand awareness ??

The concept of MQL's (marketing qualified leads) is in the process of being de-bunked (see this event from just last week).

So, what does it look like to get "Better At" measuring what matters in Marketing? Let's explore, within the context of the Better At movement (improving others while improving ourselves) ??

What Matters?

You can probably run over to ChatGPT and ask it "what measurements matter in marketing?" and get some kind of answer. In fact, I did precisely that and here's what it says (summarized):

Awareness & Reach: Brand Awareness (surveys, social listening, and direct traffic growth), Impressions (number of times content is displayed), Website Traffic (total visits, unique visitors, traffic sources), Social Media Engagement (likes, shares, comments, follower growth)

Lead Generation & Conversion: Marketing Qualified Leads (leads that show buying intent), Conversion Rate (% of visitors who take a desired action, e.g., sign up, request a demo), Cost per Lead (total spend ÷ number of leads), Customer Acquisition Cost (total sales & marketing spend ÷ new customers)

Customer Relationship & Retention: Customer Lifetime Value (projected revenue from a customer over time), Retention Rate (% of customers who continue using your service), Net Promoter Score (how likely customers are to recommend you), Churn Rate (% of customers lost over a given period)

Revenue & ROI: Marketing ROI ((Revenue - Marketing Costs) ÷ Marketing Costs), Sales Conversion Rate (% of leads that convert to customers), Pipeline Value (total potential revenue in the sales funnel), Revenue per Channel (identifying which marketing channels drive the most revenue)

Content & Engagement Effectiveness: Time on Page (how long visitors stay on your website/content), Bounce Rate (% of visitors who leave without interacting), Click-Through Rate (% of people clicking on an ad or email), Email Open & Response Rates (how well your email marketing is performing)

See how easily it can be to get distracted tracking "stuff"? There's SO much of it!

But ChatGPT also follows that information up with an important prompt:

Which of these metrics are most relevant to your current marketing initiatives?

And if you don't know how to answer that question, then you're 100% going to get caught up in measuring what doesn't matter.

Answering The "What Matters?" Question for YOU

There are infinite ways to answer that question, and it all comes back to the INPUTS we talked about in the first two parts of the series (check out Part One: Discovery and Part Two: Alignment here).

Let's focus where we left off with Alignment, with three important questions:

? Is this action aligned with the business strategy?

? Is this action aligned with the company's brand story?

? Is this action aligned with my clients in partnership in solving their problems?

This is where you determine "What Matters" to you when it comes to the measurement side.

Let's deep-dive each of these.

Measuring Around Business Strategy

So, since I don't know YOUR business strategy per se, let's use an example and say that they strategy is around finding more NEW customers (instead of repeat/referral business), whether that's in a new geographical market or for a new product line.

What are some things that come up for you that you could track?

The first thing that comes up for me is: % of projects from new customers (which isn't in the list above at all). Because if I'm trying to increase the percentage of those, then I need to know how many I have today, and see if that number is growing.

Maybe you came up with something similar. Or maybe you came up with something different. It doesn't actually matter.

What DOES matter is that YOU think what YOU'RE tracking will show you what YOU want to know??

And sure, there might be additional things you can track as well that play into the important number, but if you're doing intentional activities towards one goal, then really, the top-line number is what matters ??

Measuring Around Brand Story Alignment

Haha, this one makes me laugh because this is something I ALWAYS DO; to the degree I've had clients label me the Brand Police. But really, if there's no one doing it for YOUR brand, how can you possibly stay in alignment?

We've talked a lot about Origin Stories in this series so far, and when you look at YOURS, it gives you great insight into what to track here.

Let's say you started your business because of a bad experience you had with something (which is not uncommon). And the gap you're trying to fill is related to creating a GOOD experience in that same arena.

What might you measure around that?

Well, first of all, we would need to define what a GOOD experience looks like.

Then we can look at how we're SERVING that experience through our marketing.

I'm a big proponent of percentage tracking; specifically because 100% is almost never possible, but it's good to strive for. So, let's just say we decide to measure our Content Distributed against our Origin Story.

What percentage of your posts effectively speak to your Origin Story?

Now, I'm not saying "what percentage TELL the Origin Story".

But "Speak To".

As in, if you are Spiderman, and you know your Origin Story, what activities are aligned with that? Things like climbing buildings, shooting or spinning webs, catching thieves (just like flies). Those types of things. Those are things a Spiderman does.

That a Superman doesn't do.

It's ALWAYS a good exercise to look at how an individual piece of content is playing it's role in the over-arching story you're telling. Because if we know that every piece of content IS playing IT'S particular role, we know we've created the opportunity for people to know our story.

Measuring Around Customer Partnership

This one is super interesting to me because it's actually REALLY easy to measure, if you're collecting the right data from the beginning.

As in, knowing from the beginning of a relationship the problem you're soling for them.

Which isn't necessarily the problem YOU THINK YOU'RE SOLVING.

So often we assume we know the problem we're solving. But it's WAY easier to just ask your client to clarify, in their words, the problem THEY think you're solving.

Because with that documented, you can now track against it.

I'll use myself as an example here.

I'm an Authentic Marketing Advisor. So, I might think that the problem I'm solving is bringing more authenticity to marketing efforts.

And while I definitely do THAT (just in my way of being), that's usually not the problem I solve for my clients.

Their problems include: spending too much time and money on marketing efforts that don't contribute to the business, not having enough time to execute "on brand", not having clarity on what marketing CAN do, not knowing what questions to ask to create a unique Brand Position, needing to audit marketing activities for potential investors...

And the list goes on.

In fact, every single client I've ever worked with, in corporate or as a consultant, has a unique problem. That either matches (or doesn't) with the way I do marketing.

When I know what THEIR problem is, I can do things that align with solving THAT problem.

So, simply FIND OUT.

Don't assume you know; if you take that route, good luck finding something to measure that matters to the success of the client ?

Measure Fewer, More Meaningful Things

At the end of the day, just like with most other things, doing LESS, in a more intentional way, creates MORE.

More insights. With less time tracking.

All because we bothered to figure out what matters.

When we prioritize measuring what MATTERS over "measuring to measure", we make things simpler, faster, and easier for business decision making.

Which is, what measuring is all about in the first place.

And let's hold eachother accountable here, can we please?

Because it might be easy for one person to get distracted chasing random measurments.

But if we make it part of our Team Ethos to ACTUALLY measure what matters, that's when we create a place for success.

Together, we can??

If you're ready to start measuring what matters for YOU, check out the upcoming Authentic Marketing Academy, starting on March 5, 2025 (that's next week!) Not only will you learn how to spend less time measuring more meaningful things, but you'll also deep-dive the other 3 areas that truly bring Authentic Marketing to life??