How Do We Measure Results of our Marketing Strategy?
You’ve probably wondered, “When will I see results from my marketing?” It’s a common question.
In simpler terms, how do you know if the marketing strategy is actually working? How do we measure results?
And at Heights, we want to tackle these key questions head-on so that our clients aren’t left guessing.
To get a clear and accurate answer this question, we need to look at our lead and lag measures. Keep reading to see how these terms translate into your marketing efforts.
Lead Measures: The Real MVP
Lead measures are the proactive actions we take to drive your marketing strategy forward—think of them as the things we can control. They predict and influence future success.
Imagine them as the training montage in a sports or fight movie, the steps that prepare us for the big showdown.
With each client, we assess their current lead measures, then adjust to ensure we’re dialing up the ones that make the biggest difference.
Here are a few types of lead measures we focus on:
- Engaging Existing Lists: Re-engaging your contacts with email campaigns, newsletters, and special offers.
- Networking and Outreach: Attending industry events, engaging on LinkedIn, and other networking opportunities to expand your reach.
- Content Publication: Regular blogs, social media posts, and articles on industry sites.
- Using Content in Sales: Integrating marketing content into the sales process is like adding the perfect soundtrack to a movie—it enhances and supports your sales conversations.
Many companies are doing some mix of the first three bullets, but very few are fully leveraging content in their sales process.
Are you new to using content in your sales process? Check out our post on the They Ask, You Answer marketing framework for a great primer.
Lag Measures: The Big Payoff
Lag measures are the outcomes of our marketing efforts—the results that come after all the hard work. We keep a close eye on these numbers throughout our engagement.
Here are a few lag measures we track:
- New Leads: The number of new potential clients identified.
- Qualified Lead Conversations per Month: Meaningful interactions with potential clients.
- Close Rates: The percentage of leads that turn into paying clients.
- Sales Cycle Length: The time it takes to move a lead from initial contact to closing the sale.
- Web and Social Analytics: Metrics like website traffic, social media engagement, and conversion rates.
We may track other specific metrics depending on our marketing activities and monitor anecdotal indicators like the quality of sales conversations and the relevance of leads generated.
The Timeline
As mentioned in our previous post, the timeline for seeing results varies. Factors include your team’s speed of execution, project size, and whether we’re working with existing lists of target clients or building a new audience from scratch. Here’s a rough idea of the timeline:
First 90 Days: Laying the Foundation
- Developing the Plan: We’ll create a comprehensive marketing strategy tailored to your goals and resources. (Read more about the difference between strategy-first marketing and deliverable-focused marketing.)
- Defining Roles and Responsibilities: Identifying who will execute each part of the plan.
- Implementing Initial Optimizations: Making quick adjustments to improve your current marketing processes and tools. We always like to identify some quick wins so that you can see some early progress in your marketing.
Looking for some DIY marketing upgrades? Check out our post on 4 Ways to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Marketing.
Next 90 Days: Testing and Tweaking
- Testing Initial Optimizations: We’ll evaluate our initial changes and make necessary adjustments—like fine-tuning a recipe until it’s just right.
- Establishing Rhythms: Developing consistent schedules for content publication and other marketing activities.
- Measuring and Adjusting: Continuously tracking progress using lead and lag measures, adjusting strategies as needed.
It’s here, around the six-month mark, we should see tangible results. While many factors influence this timeline, we monitor progress closely and adapt our approach to ensure the best outcomes.
Wrapping Up
As you can see, there are multiple levers we can pull – each with a way of measuring and determining whether our marketing efforts are working.
What other lead and lag measures do you measure?
If you are ready to start tweaking and ramping up but aren’t quite sure where to begin, request a call. We’d love to map out a plan for you.