Direct Revenue Is Always Great, But It’s Not the Only KPI for Marketing

Posted on July 11, 2017 in Marketing

How do you know when a marketing campaign is successful? Everyone’s first answer is “direct revenue,” and for good reason. That’s why you hire a marketer in the first place, right?

Sure, direct revenue is a great way to track the success of your marketing efforts. However, it’s important to recognize the importance of other KPIs as well.

After all, marketing is bigger than direct revenue — it’s also about brand awareness, engaging with your audience, strengthening your reputation, and even solving other problems that may appear unrelated. If you focus solely on direct revenue at the expense of other KPIs, you’re losing out on these other opportunities and hamstringing your chances at true marketing success.

Consider customer retention and customer loyalty KPIs. How much of your sales comes from repeat customers? How many of these repeat customers are trying new products or services after their first purchase?

KPIs that track these types of questions are valuable for a number of reasons. They allow you to assess your customer service and general customer experience. They also allow you to measure the efficacy of your marketing that is targeted towards existing customers.

Many companies struggle to develop traction with new products or services. They experience lackluster sales often because none of their existing customers are aware of the new product. Tracking these KPIs can give you an idea of who is learning about the new products and why — allowing you to redouble efforts in these areas.

As another example, website and blog traffic KPIs can be essential for measuring the efficacy of your content and web design. How long are people staying on your website? How many pages do they view per session? What’s your bounce rate?

Most companies recognize the importance of having a quality website, and invest a lot of money in web design. If you want to make sure that money is truly working for you, then it’s vital to track these KPIs and fine-tune to the site to improve your numbers.

The same can be said for social media reach and engagement. Are people engaging with your content? Are you gaining new followers every week? These KPIs allow you to tailor your social media marketing efforts to achieve the greatest results. By tracking these results, you can better determine what platforms and content is working best to help you reach your business goals. Tracking these KPIs is crucial to gauging the vitals of your marketing campaigns and truly getting the most out of your marketing spend.

For big things to happen, you need a big picture perspective. To reap all of the benefits of expert marketing — greater brand awareness, customer loyalty, long-term growth, and more — you have to think past direct revenue.