When it comes to marketing, the million-dollar question is: “Have we been successful in our campaigns?” No company wants to pour money into a marketing effort and get nothing in return. It’s common for marketing professionals to track numerous metrics in an effort to gauge the success of their campaigns. Unfortunately, many are monitoring the wrong thing, and that can be dangerous.
What metrics don’t matter?
It doesn’t matter how many people visit your website. Some people might argue with that and try to talk about brand exposure or sales funnels, but think about something. Say you do a massive overhaul of your website. You really focus on optimizing content, creating a clean and attractive layout, and improving your search engine ranking. Your site traffic jumps by a shocking 200 percent! Wow! Congratulations! What does that mean? Nothing.
The jump in traffic is only significant if the number of conversions jumps with it. If you received 10 quality leads per week on your old site and you receive 10 quality leads per week on the new site, your jump in traffic actually means your site is now performing worse. If you were only monitoring your site traffic, however, you might be tempted to say that the overhaul was a huge success. This can be detrimental to your business in the long run.
The same thinking applies to social media followers or even physical bodies in the store. What matters is quality leads and potential conversions. These are the metrics you should be tracking. Site traffic is only important for comparison purposes to see the percentage of visitors who convert.
Finding quality leads
The most important aspect of finding quality leads is developing content that offers value to your ideal customer. You should have a good idea of the type of customer you’re looking to attract. This includes their interests, what matters professionally to them, and what they’re looking for.
Build quality content, which will naturally incorporate keywords and help to answer your visitors’ questions and concerns. More importantly, when visitors find your site, they’ll become interested in what your company has to offer. This will lead to a higher percentage converting. Visitors will come to trust your company as an industry leader who can help them find what they’re looking for.
Focus on building a conversion friendly website. Whether a customer arrives on the web page from a QR code or web address on a direct mail postcard or through a Google search, the site should have a clear sitemap, show obvious value for the customer, and make it easy for them to convert into customers.
Customers don’t like having to hunt around for phone numbers, addresses, or the chance to sign up for products and services, so don’t make them. Prominent, easy-to-use buttons are great additions. Neuromarketing also tells us little tips, such as offering customers choices (even if the choices are meaningless) will improve conversion rates. For example, customers are more likely to sign up for a newsletter that comes with a ‘sign me up now’ button next to a ‘no thanks, I like wasting money’ button, rather than a newsletter with just a sign up button.
There’s no doubt getting chatter on your site is addicting and exciting. Everyone who’s ever built a website knows how enticing it is to watch the number of visitors increase. When it comes to a successful marketing campaign, however, it’s important to remember to measure the right things. Visitor counts don’t matter unless conversion rates also rise. Spend your time attracting quality leads, and watch the important metrics increase for genuine success.
