Metrics Will Rule The Day In A Recessionary Economy

Whoever has the ability to create a strong marketing dashboard that informs the thinking of the key stakeholders inside client organizations will rule the day. In a tough economy, it is even more critical to quantify as much of your work as possible.





Recently, I had a client say we would like to put significantly better metrics in our marketing program. THAT'S MUSIC TO MY EARS. We have a shared interest. At our firm, we want to measure our work so we can:

1. eliminate the programs that aren't working



2. refine and improve the programs that show promise



3. increase our spending in the programs that have a strong ROI

The challenge is building a closed loop marketing system that allows the team to accurately track what is happening as the program unfolds.

The purpose of the dashboard is to get unfiltered information. Are there guidelines for creating an effective dashboard? I want to suggest one or two.

First, if you measure too many things then it becomes noise. I would strongly recommend companies measure 4 to 6 key metrics (there are exceptions to every rule but use the "less is more" rule if possible). By the way, I would not include sales, operating margin, profit and EBITDA in a dashboard because these measures should be captured in other financial documents.

Let's use an example where we put in a lead generation program for a company seeking to sell prospective franchisees a new business.

We could measure many aspects of a campaign -- from CTR (Click Through Rate) on the prospective email campaign to how many days it takes from initial inquiry (request FDD document which is legally required) from the prospect to closing a deal. The key is to pick metrics that will inform the key stages in the marketing and sales cycle and allow us to:

1. increase the flow of "qualified" prospects



2. spend more time helping the serious prospects and less time with those that are casually interested (use more time with the right prospects)



3. identify ways to move the sales cycle from 6 to 3 months (reducing time to turn prospects into clients)

The most important rule is that the key stakeholders have a shared view of what will drive a strong ROI and then you pick a few key ways to get hard data that will inform and drive thinking.

For a detailed list of some of the more interesting metrics I've seen included in client dashboards read on.

The dashboard could include:

1. Inquires Received


2. Conversion Rate of Inquiries


3. Revenue Per Inquiry


4. Days from Initial Inquiry to Completing the Process


5. % fo Prospects Rejected By the Company


6. Man/Woman Hours To Handle Each Inquiry
   
7. Cost Per Lead Generated


8. Cost Per Lead By Source (tracked by each media vehicle used in the campaign)


9. Revenue Per Lead


10. Revenue Per Lead By Source

As you can see, there are many, many ways to measure your efforts. Agree on the front end before you start your program.

Feel free to add your thoughts.

Jeff Fromm

jfromm@adamson-usa.com