Many organizations struggle to measure marketing performance. The availability of increasingly sophisticated tools allows us to generate actual, measurable results in marketing spend as opposed to merely relying on art and luck.
Recently I was asked to provide a list of what I thought the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPI) were for a B2B enterprise marketing organization. Your company’s KPI will be unique to your business to some extent, but there are some broad indicators of how well your marketing performs. The question of KPIs is actually a very long answer, and there are many important factors. In no particular order, here are a few off the top of my head:
Engagement
The quality of the content we put out to the world should result in high engagement. Engagement by leads and customers in conversations across different channels helps determine marketing efficiency as we measure and optimize.
Lead lifecycle efficiency
The quality of leads entering the top of the funnel helps determine the likelihood of completed sales. If we stuff a funnel full of names, but those names don’t match the customer profile, we’re wasting our time and theirs, and wasting marketing spend.
Trust between sales and marketing
Related to lifecycle efficiency, this is a little less tangible than the others, but is no less critical. If excellent accord exists between the teams, then marketing efforts are more efficient. This means that sales and marketing must work together to define “ideal” customer profiles and behaviors so that MQLs (marketing qualified leads) really are.
Retention
After sales, our ability to delight customers enough to keep them is critical. Many companies leave revenue on the table by neglecting their existing customer base.
Cost per lead acquisition, cost per completed sale
Marketing programs are costly. All of the above factors and many others should contribute to efficient cost per lead. Some channels are considerably more expensive per lead than others, but the goal of most channels should be better than break-even cost-to-realized-revenue, or at the very least, significant influence on lead acquisition.
