6 Marketing Metrics Every B2B Company Needs to Track and Wh

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6 Marketing Metrics Every B2B Company Needs to
Track and Why There comes a time when every
business needs to think about how they define
success. This is true no matter the industry and
applies to all companies from manufacturing and
construction to recreation and retail. Success
could be the number of units sold, how many new
customers they gained in a quarter or another
metric. The key is tracking and watching for
trends to continually improve results or change
direction if something isnt working. Every
company needs to know what they want to
accomplish and how they are performing toward
these goals. For business-to-business (B2B)
companies, marketing metrics are among the key
performance indicators that they cannot
ignore. Why Track Marketing Metrics? Modern
marketing activities are easier to track than
more traditional forms of promotion like trade
show attendance or brochure distribution. And
today, tracking the right marketing metrics for
your business can provide an opportunity to not
only demonstrate success but also identify
challenges - before they become real
problems. Good marketers know that website
performance, social media engagement and a myriad
of other metrics are available to them. The
hardest part is deciding which metrics to
monitor. Ultimately, marketing metrics can
provide B2B companies with insights to help them
continuously improve and grow. Knowing what to
measure and why are questions to answer in order
to develop an effective marketing
plan. Businesses of all sizes need a marketing
plan to keep their marketing efforts on track, on
budget and on time. Good marketing plans also
inherently have some form of measurement built
into them to gauge progress and measure marketing
success. A marketing plan without measurement
isnt a plan - its a wish list. Where should you
start? Metrics First A solid marketing plan
starts with clarity about overall business and
marketing objectives, so you can set realistic
and attainable targets. The first question all
companies need to ask themselves is What do we
want to achieve? You cant build a plan to get
your business there without clear
objectives. Next, consider What does success
look like for us? Is success for your business
based solely on sales growth? The number of
leads generated? Increased market share? Higher
brand awareness? Greater customer engagement? A
combination?
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• Without metrics, neither successes nor failures
  can truly be recognized. And by analyzing the
  results, businesses have the opportunity to take
  their company from doing fine to being a whole
  lot better. So, to be really effective, track
  metrics that are tied to your overall business
  objectives.
• Include Metrics to Track Both Quantity and
  Quality
• There are many different kinds of metrics a
  company can consider. The easiest metrics to
  measure are the quantitative ones such as the
  number of sales leads, the number of clicks from
  a digital ad to your website, the increase in
  sales revenue, etc.
• Harder to measure are qualitative objectives.
  These include changes in brand awareness and
  perception, channel effectiveness and more.
• Be patient as you begin to track metrics. Real
  results take time to come in, so dont rush the
  process. Develop a long-range view of trends over
  time. These results will be much more insightful
  and give a much better indication of what did or
  did not work and how and when to make strategic
  adjustments along the way.
• If measuring metrics is new for your B2B or
  manufacturing business, consider starting with
  these 6 marketing metrics
• Website Traffic
• Your website is the hub for your companys
  communications - its where customers and
  potential customers come to find more information
  about your company, products and services. A
  well-maintained and up-to-date website is one of
  the most important business tools in your
  toolkit. But, if no one is visiting the site,
  it's not doing its job and its not helping your
  business - it could be hurting your business.
• Learn more by building analytics into every page
  of your site so that you can see
• how many people are visiting,
• what pages theyre looking at,
• how long they stay (are they reading or
  skimming),
• where theyve come to your site from, etc.
• From here, youll be able to decipher if changes
  to website traffic can be attributed to
• specific marketing activities, business
  announcement or changes made.
• Website Visits vs. Leads Generated

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• leads. The insights gained with this metric will
  also help you decide what possible website
  adjustments could be made to drive greater lead
  volume and quality.
• How can your site be updated to make it easier
  for customers to educate themselves about the
  things you offer? Customers no longer want to be
  immediately referred to sales. They want to be
  able to find what they want, when they want it.
  If you dont already provide information such as
  product benefits, pricing and availability, you
  could be missing out.
• Social Media Traction
• Social media is a great way to raise awareness,
  generate leads, engage past, current and
  potential customers and more.
• Many companies start monitoring their social
  media efforts with vanity metrics. These
  include the number of followers or connections a
  company or individual executive has on any given
  platform. Although these are a good starting
  point, a better indicator of success or failure
  is the engagement your content creates.
• Some ideas to increase engagement include
• asking questions,
• posting short informative videos,
• sharing content followers will find useful, and
• Highlighting accomplishments and updates.
• Digital Advertising Click-Thrus
• Digital advertising is considered a lower cost,
  higher return form of advertising than more
  traditional platforms such as print ads and
  billboards. Its effectiveness is also easier to
  measure and reach can be significantly wider.
• Among other opportunities, digital advertising
  can include display ads, pay-per-click (PPC)
  ads, social media ads, blog and social media
  posts, online content, as well as any other form
  of digital messaging that can be clicked to drive
  traffic to your website.
• The goal of digital advertising is to have as
  many click-thrus as possible from the digital
  content leading to your website. Preferably the
  content would lead to a landing page on your
  website that is relevant to the content from
  which your visitor has clicked. Measuring these
  metrics not only tells you how effective the
  content you provide is, but it can also be the
  start of your website lead creation process.
  Driving more traffic to your website provides
  more opportunities to share your businesss
  messaging, products and benefits.
• Email Open Rates and Click-Thrus

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• Email marketing continues to be an effective way
  to share customized messaging to specific/target
  audiences that want to receive your companys
  information. Examples include newsletters,
  special offers, product announcements, and email
  messages that are triggered by your CRM system
  throughout the lead generation, pipeline
  management and sales conversion process. If your
  business is in Canada, dont forget about the
  need for messages to be CASL compliant.
• By monitoring the open rates for these emails
  (the percentage of those who open the email
  versus the number of emails sent in total),
  youll know how effective your subject line,
  brand, or company name is at getting your
  audiences attention.
• Measuring click-thrus from links included in your
  emails, that lead to your website, will help you
  understand how effective specific content or
  messages are at getting (and keeping) the
  attention of your target audience.
• 6. Audience Reach
• Reach is more than your digital marketing
  efforts. Its an all-in indicator that is an
  important overall business metric and refers to
  the total number of people currently in your
  business audience. To grow their business
  opportunities, companies need to grow this
  metric.
• Reach includes
• the number of contacts in your email database,
• the number of prospects in your pipeline,
• the number of customers youve invoiced, and
• the potential audiences of your various marketing
  efforts
• Collectively, reach is the supporting metric of
  the numbers game in sales and marketing.
• But, more than simply numbers, the quality of
  your audience is also an important factor.
• Marketing a product or service to an audience
  that has no use for what you offer is pointless
  and expensive. Your reach needs to be wide enough
  to include enough potential customers for your
  business to continually grow. So, part of your
  marketing plan must include tactics for
  increasing your reach to continually grow your
  sales.
• Try leveraging comments from happy customers,
  share corporate successes and join in other
  relevant conversations to keep your company top
  of mind for current customers and attract new
  customers along the way.

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marketing plan as a whole and for each individual
tactic youve included. Remember to include the
marketing plan completion date as one of the big
plan milestones.
Building milestones into your marketing plan,
ensures that timing is reasonable and goals are
achievable. Dont set milestones you know you
wont meet it will set a tone of failure
before your marketing plan has been set into
motion. Remember to Include The Good, The Bad
and The Ugly The truth is, that not all
objectives, metrics and milestones are
successfully met and achieved. And thats okay.
Understanding the complete picture can give you
the tools you need to implement positive
change. Regular monitoring of both metrics and
milestones will keep your marketing plan and your
business on track - and they can also uncover
issues and barriers to success which are just
as important as achieving your objectives. For
example, if you are consistently unable to meet
your desired milestones which should be
achievable then perhaps you have staffing,
resourcing or competency issues that need to be
addressed. If you are successfully generating
leads but have a low conversion to sale rate,
you might have a closing issue - which could
reflect a need for more or better sales training
or another potential problem. If knowledge is
power, metrics and milestones can give you the
knowledge to power up and change your
organization for the better. If youre
struggling with your marketing strategy and want
to talk to the B2B marketing experts, contact
us. Maybe its time for your company to hire an
outsourced marketing agency to realize some
exciting new opportunities. Mezzanine B2B Growth
Agents specialize in B2B demand and lead
generation for companies that have complex sales
such as manufacturers and other B2B companies.
Its all we do, so we have the depth and breadth
of experience to help your company
grow. Source https//info.mezzaninegrowth.com/b
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