Let’s face it. If you tried to measure every single aspect of marketing and sales performance, you could quickly succumb to “analysis paralysis.” This affliction occurs when a company starts to spend more time analyzing data than they do communicating with prospects and customers.
In other words, their focus is on internal data instead of the needs of the marketplace.
When advising clients on what marketing metrics data to collect and analyze, three are three criteria we use to decide whether to include a particular set of data. We call these the Three A’s of Marketing Metrics: Available, Accurate and Actionable.
First, the data must be “available.” By this I mean that it can be collected fairly quickly, without spending effort that far exceeds the value of the data.
Next, the data must be “accurate.” Lots of reported sales and marketing data does not stand up to scrutiny. The data is estimated, extrapolated, decimated and otherwise tortured to try and produce some pertinent conclusions. But as the saying goes, garbage in = garbage out.
Finally, the data must be “actionable.” You should never waste major time collecting data of minor value. We want to make sure that the data we collect is meaningful has the potential of moving the needle on our marketing and sales results.
Out of the dozens of potential data points, there are 10 that I usually recommend for B2B marketers. We’ll cover the first five in today’s post.
- Cost per new inquiry. The calculation on this is simple: You take your entire marketing programs budget and divide by the number of inbound responses.
- Conversion of inquiries to qualified leads. Assuming you have a method for qualifying inquiries (and you should), this number is found by dividing the quantity of qualified leads by the total number of inquiries. Most often, this number will range from 10-15 percent (your mileage may vary).
- Cost to acquire a new customer. This number is calculated by dividing the total marketing and sales budget by the number of new customers generated in a given time period (usually monthly or quarterly).
- Cost per new dollar of revenue. This is one of the sales and marketing metrics that is an important gauge of the health of the business, and you want this number to decline over time.
- Sales and marketing cost as percentage of total revenue. Startup B2B companies often spend more on marketing and sales than they generate in revenue, while highly efficient, mature companies spend as little as 20 percent of revenue on marketing and sales.
Read my next post for five more critical marketing metrics. I will be sharing this and much more about marketing ROI at my session at B2BLeadsCon in New York next week. Hope to see you there.
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