Measuring marketing ROI: metrics that matter
What’s the most important measure of success in a B2B marketing campaign? Hint: it’s not website page views or social media likes.
As a business owner or marketer, you want to ensure that your marketing efforts yield a positive return on investment (ROI).
When developing your systems to measure ROI, it can be easy to focus on things that are simple to track, such as page views, likes and impressions.
The problem with focusing on these metrics is that while easy to measure, they won’t tell you much about how your marketing is impacting your revenue.
They don’t measure value creation or engagement, and most importantly, there’s no direct correlation between these figures and the only metric that really counts – sales.
A different approach
A better way to think about ROI in B2B marketing is to look at how your activities are impacting the different stages of the buying process.
We know in B2B, the pathway to sales generally follows this form:
- Develop a strong brand presence
- Build quality relationships with your target customers
- Remind your customer about your value proposition to nurture them towards a sale
Is it difficult to measure the impact of your activity at each of these stages? Absolutely. But it’s also the only way to effectively track ROI.
So how can you gain insight into your performance against these?
Establish your brand
The modern marketer has an array of tools and channels they can use to improve brand recognition.
In the B2B sector, we know the platforms that have the best levels of influence include print media, content marketing, EDMs and industry events.
In a low-volume, high-value sales environment, print media is particularly important. When it comes to recall, print reigns supreme: RAMetrics data covering 2022-2023 shows print ads deliver a recall of 78 per cent, a whopping 48 percentage points higher than digital.
Brand recall is notoriously difficult to measure; but there are some metrics that give clues to healthy brand recognition. These include strong search volume for your brand, changes in website traffic and an increase in referral traffic.
Building relationships
The B2B sales cycle is long, and it involves many decision makers, so it’s important you build a strong rapport with your target customers.
As well as connecting directly with target customers, through virtual and face-to-face meetings and presentations on site, a great way to informally build your connection with potential customers is at industry events.
Tracking all client meetings – online, in person and at events – in your CRM, then reviewing these interactions against closed sales, is a simple measure of their influence in your sales cycle.
Repetition, repetition, repetition
The long sales cycle in B2B also means you need to develop a marketing plan that allows you to reach your target customers consistently and regularly, so that you’re always at the front of their minds.
A regular blog on your website or enewsletter to your prospect list is a great way to do this, but the difficulty is often locking in and committing to regularly creating this content.
Another challenge with internal content is that your communication is limited to your current prospects, and doesn’t encourage new ones.
Utilising the audiences of external channels – such as print media, associations and industry events – is a great way to navigate this problem.
In terms of tracking their influence, don’t be afraid to go old school here. When you onboard new clients, include questions on the factors that led to you closing the deal and the channels they used to learn more about your business – it’s the best ROI information you can get your hands on.
Don’t focus on vanity metrics
In the world of B2B sales, likes, follows and views don’t necessarily lead to a direct sale. They’ll likely contribute to a sale – but these metrics won’t be the way a deal is closed. After all, your clients aren’t signing six-figure contracts on the back of a Google Ad or Facebook post!
For this reason, when measuring the success of your marketing efforts, it’s important to avoid getting caught up on vanity metrics like website traffic or social media followers.
Instead, focus on developing a program of activity that will directly impact sales – establishing a strong brand presence, building relationships and running a steady advertising and content program.
Track this activity against closed sales and you’ll get a better insight into your marketing ROI than clicks and likes can ever provide.