If you are anything like me, you want to be in control of your marketing. This goes for the marketing reports that I produce. When reporting the performance of digital campaigns too often marketers are at the mercy of the inconsistent requests of the senior executives. No longer! Here I outline how you can “take back control” of your reporting.
Manage your digital marketing like logistics
When we have a delivery. We will judge the success of the sender on whether it got to us on time. If you feel that it did not arrive quickly enough, you may complain to the sender. The sender will then analyse whether the dispute is valid by whether it met the standards that they set for themselves eg. 24 or 48 hours etc.
As a marketer I want this same power that they have in logistics. Where I set the standards and I tell people whether it was a failure or a success; through the results achieved.
It is frustrating to receive anecdotes from senior staff members that tell me if I have done a good job. The question should be has the activity served its purpose?
Take back control of digital reporting and performance
Marketing performance should be in the hands of marketers. From the outset marketers should be setting clear KPIs and analysing whether the activity has met their own performance benchmark in digital reports.
Marketers can take the power of digital marketing reports back from the senior leaders in the business. It is important to be upfront from the start. Be bold enough to tell the management “this is the activity that I will undertake, this is how we will measure success”.
In the past I have made the mistake of providing full reports so the management. This meant that they could pick out the information that they believe to be most important. Which often led to senior leaders drawing the wrong conclusions.
It is time to recognise that marketing metrics are the domain of the marketers. Which means it is down to you to guide the leadership to draw conclusions that you want from reports.
Simplify your reports
Make sure that your results lead the reader to the conclusion that your analysis suggests is correct. Tell the story that you feel needs telling and explain it as simply as possible.
This will reduce the amount of times that you are asked to provide an “industry average” or an “evaluation of the competition” to validate the reports.
If everything is tracked and everything is measured against KPIs that actually matter to your business and your bottom line; then subjectivity is taken out of the question.
You can valuate every expenditure in terms of whether it helps to achieve your company’s mission. Which will mean you can stop worrying about competitors. This will free up your time to focus your efforts on fulfilling your business’ purpose.
Marketing performance shouldn’t be a mystery. Provide clear targets, succinct and measurable results. You can tell people which activity succeeded and which missed the mark…just like logistics.
Proper planning leads to predictable profits
Everyone experiments, everyone makes mistakes. To be data driven you need to learn from these mistakes constantly. When campaigns are constantly reviewed and refined. You will notice a change start to occur.
Over time it gets easier, refinements become less frequent, performance becomes predictable. This is the point where we want all clients to get to. When you can predict your performance marketing is no longer a mystery.
John Luck
John is a data driven marketing specialist and website manager who lives in South East London. When he isn't blogging for us he manages Revenue and Marketing Operations for corporate clients.