Which are the right KPIs for your marketing objectives?

When I first joined Smith Goodfellow in November 2014, it seemed that the measurement for public relations (PR) and marketing objectives was in the process of changing so it took some time before I encountered training courses and articles that gave the kind of detail I was looking for. 

So, following on from my previous blogs on measurement and how to create SMART goals, I decided to create the overview I wanted when I first started. This covers some of the main desires (they form the basis of marketing objectives discussed in the goal setting blog), which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) these groups link to within your marketing strategy, the activity or content that might fit each category, and what the team here at Smith Goodfellow find useful to measure the performance of those pieces of work. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should hopefully help give you a better idea of how to get started setting up a marketing plan specific to your business’ requirements and give you a better understanding of how to track performance throughout the year. 

The four categories that most of the objectives we’ve worked with fall into are: brand awareness, financial, customer and operational. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should hopefully help get you started setting up a marketing plan specific to your business’ requirements and give you a better understanding of how to track performance throughout the year.

Please note: the tools and websites we list below are ones we’ve used and found helpful. We have not been paid to promote them and links supplied are not affiliate links.

Brand awareness

We explored this within the goal setting blog, but this is perhaps one of the hardest objectives to track accurately, so do bear this in mind when you come to set your KPIs. 

Desire

·      I want to grow my digital presence 

·      I want us to be seen as an authority in our industry

·      We want to be seen as a trusted brand

·      We want our brand to be associated with specific products or industry solutions

·      We want to add value to the industry/for our stakeholders

Potential delivery

·      Thought leadership pieces (eg. articles, blogs) 

·      Instructional content (eg. white papers, guides)

·      Videos (eg. ‘how to’, interviews)

·      Events/exhibitions/seminars

·      CPDs

Potential KPIs

·      Target market surveys

·      Focus groups

·      Brand name searches (or product names that are associated with your brand) 

·      Brand mentions on social (social listening – brand name/tagged/hashtag)

·      Website traffic (direct)

·      Reach/impressions

·      Coverage (print and digital eg. articles, interviews)

Example tracking tools

·      Survey analytics (eg. Survey Monkey)

·      Website analytics (eg. MOZ, Google Analytics)

·      Social analytics (eg. Direct from the platform, Zoho, Buffer, Hootsuite, Kantar Media Social)

·      Alerts/mentions (eg. Google Alerts, Warble Alerts, Kantar Media Social)

·      URL tracking

·      Publisher’s data

·      Newsletter sign-ups

·      CRM growth

Financial

Desire

·      I want to increase revenue/profits

·      I want to grow revenue streams/expand into a new market

·      We need to promote a particular product/service

·      We want to be able to cross-sell/upsell more effectively when we attract a customer

Potential delivery

·      Update website (eg. ecommerce, landing pages)

·      Improve SEO/ranking

·      Advertising (Eg. Adwords, social, industry magazines/digital, newsletter)

·      Content (address FAQ; highlight benefits and solutions eg. articles, blogs, videos)

·      Events/exhibitions

Potential KPIs

·      Conversions

·      Enquiries

·      Quote requests 

·      Website traffic (landing pages, goal completions)

·      Social engagement

·      Average spend per customer

·      Cost per lead (cost to attract vs average spend in given period)

Example tracking tools

·      Internal reports (eg. financial, database)

·      Website analytics 

·      Email

·      URL tracking

·      Social media monitoring/analytics 

Operational

Desire

·      I want to improve our sustainability messaging/corporate social responsibility (CSR)

·      I want to improve health and safety

·      I want to improve our processes

·      I want to improve internal relations

·      I want to increase our community engagement/initiatives

Potential delivery

·      Literature (eg. policies, guides)

·      Comms (eg. internal newsletter)

·      Social media campaigns

·      Content (address issues, schemes and solutions eg. articles, blogs, videos)

·      Media (eg. editors, local/industry press, chambers/local bodies)

·      Award entries

Potential KPIs

·      Quantity/weight/cost of waste collection and/or recycling

·      Implementation/employee update of new schemes (eg. energy use, recycling, cycling, plastic use)

·      Newsletter (output/contributions)

·      Employee engagement on social 

Example tracking tools

·      Waste/recycling centre (eg. invoices, reports)

·      Internal reports 

·      Internal comms (eg. surveys)

·      Newsletter analytics

·      Social media analytics 

·      Alerts/mentions 

·      Awards (entries/shortlist/wins)

Customer

Desire

·      I want to improve customer satisfaction

·      I want to encourage brand advocacy

·      I want to increase referrals to us

·      I want to increase brand loyalty (lifetime value)

·      I want to receive more leads (lead generation)

·      I want to increase engagement with our brand/content

Potential delivery

·      Content (eg. articles, blogs, videos, case studies, guides)

·      Social media campaigns (eg. customer stories, case studies, testimonials, support services, guides)

·      Customer service (eg. promote warranties/support/guarantees available)

·      Newsletters/follow up

Potential KPIs

·      Sentiment

·      Survey

·      New leads 

·      Reviews

·      Testimonials

·      Shares on social

·      Referrals (eg. backlinks, word of mouth)

·      Database growth

·      Customer engagement on social

·      Returning customers (quantity/percentage)

·      Lifetime spend

·      Newsletter signups

Example tracking tools

·      Media monitoring 

·      Website analytics 

·      Forms (eg. ‘How did you hear about us?’)

·      Database stats (eg. MailChimp, Zoho CRM)

·      Review service (eg. social platform, Google My Business, TrustPilot)

·      Social analytics

·      Financial reports

If you’d like to recap how to turn your desire into a SMART marketing objective, you can learn about this here. In this blog, I used the example of brand awareness for goal setting: 

“Feedback from an industry survey we circulated revealed that only 30% of respondents had heard of us. Over the next 12 months, we aim to increase this by taking the following actions: [INSERT ACTIONS RELEVANT TO YOU]. [I/NAMED DELEGATE] will create the plans for these by [DEADLINE].”

You may choose to spend the next 12 months publishing thought-leadership articles in relevant publications and blogs on your website/guest blog on other websites. Using tracking tools such as Google Analytics, Google Alerts and media monitoring, the potential KPIs over the year could include: 

·      Brand mentions 

·      Website traffic (direct & referrals eg. backlinks)

·      Reach/impressions

·      Coverage (print and digital eg. articles, interviews)

At the end of the 12 months, you’d create another survey to see if the percentage of respondents has increased. With increased exposure, brand awareness should have increased. If it hasn’t, were stats over the year good? If so, you will need to assess why brand awareness hasn’t improved. This should inform your analysis and strategy going forwards: Are your pieces reaching the right audience? Is your branding clear? Have more people responded to the survey, which affected the percentage? 

I hope this piece has helped and becomes a useful tool for you. If you have any questions or would like to contact one of our team here at Smith Goodfellow, please do get in touch!

Kelly Oldham is the Digital Media Manager and a content writer at Smith Goodfellow (SG). Smith Goodfellow is a public relations (PR) and marketing consultancy specialising in construction. If you would like to get in touch with the team to discuss how we can help, you can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagramor contact us on [email protected]. If you would like to learn more about the work it does, case studies can be viewed on the website.