Marketing and Sales Plan Measurement

Marketing is a business; and the purpose of a business is to make money—period!

Statements like “At least we gained some name recognition”  is NOT a measurement and should not be acceptable. You can't pay your bills with name recognition! It's best to think of Marketing and Sales as a science. In Science you start with a theory (Plan) you test the theory (Implement), record data,  measure the results (Measure) and draw conclusions (Analysis).

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” - Albert Einstein

Website Measurement 

If you have not been measuring your web activity – do so as soon as possible! Take a base line measurement of your website by reviewing the stats provided by your webhost or set up a Google Analytics account.  Without this information, it will be impossible to determine your internet marketing stategy. When setting up your analytics, determine where you would like to see your visitors navigate (completing an order or completing a lead form)…then measure to see if that is happening.  Google Analytics provides a goal conversion measure as a part of their free anlaytics.   Set up time in your market plan each month to review your website for at least an hour. You might need more time if you need to retool the website with small changes for better conversion. Keep redefining until acceptable and then keep monitoring to make sure it doesn’t fall back.  The illustration below demonstrates Google Analytics dashboard.

 

 Key metrics to review in your plan are:

  • Number of total visitors (Is it growing each month?)
  • Number of new visitors (This is good if your website goal is to gain new customers)
  • Number of return visitors (This stat depends on your website goal)
  • Bounce Rate (Measure your movement of this stat downward – 100% is not a good grade)
  • Time on site (Of course the longer the better)
  • Number of pages reviewed (The more the better)
  • Entrance sources ( How did they find your site – you want a lot of referral sources here like Search engines, partners, vendors etc. )
  • Exit pages (Where did they leave your site – should they have left there what changes need to be made)

If your visitors are low according to the benchmarks, and you show few search engine referrals, you might need to do a website optimization to increase traffic. See that section below.  If none of your visitors is converting to leads or sales, you need to look at the placement of your conversion goals and lead generation systems.  For example – if you have a “Contact Us” form that asks for a lot of information – you may need to provide a value add free source (such as this workbook) to intice them to complete the lead form.

Lead Generation and Sales Measurement 

Data collection is critical to determine the effectiveness of your marketing and sales plan and process.  Setting up a central source to document all incoming leads is the first step toward sound data collection.  The second is asking "How did you find us" and documenting the answer. Anything less is designing your plan and budget around a "gut feel" ! Are you comfortable with that?  That central source should be a CRM system that allows you to document all leads and their source of origin.  Most worhtwhile CRM systems allow you to track leads from your website and emarketing campaigns.  In our Marketing Plan Workbook, we have a form that sets lead generation goals for each marketing iniatitive. By consistantly measuring your lead generation toward your plan you will be in a much better position to set your plans and goals for the next year.    
 
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