Think about where you spent your time today. Maybe your home, your office, your car, a restaurant, the grocery store, the gym – the list could go on and on. No matter where you were physically, there’s a very good chance that you were also online throughout the day. In both our professional and personal lives, the internet has come so pervasive and essential that it’s now an engrained part of our daily lives.
And that is why digital marketing has flourished in recent years. Marketers go where their customers are. But in order to succeed, it isn’t enough to just be there; you have to have a strategy too.
One of the most important parts of a digital marketing strategy is deciding what you want to achieve. After all, if you don’t know where you’re going, it’s impossible to know how to get there. As you create or refine your digital marketing strategy, be sure to identify your organization’s business goals to ensure that your digital marketing goals are aligned with these broader ones.
Common goals for a digital marketing strategy include:
- Generating leads and revenue
- Driving brand awareness
- Shortening the sales cycle
- Lowering the cost of customer acquisition
- Growing customer loyalty and purchases
However, don’t just stop there with your goals. Add some details and specifics so they are more attainable while also driving measurable results. Some examples are:
- Generating X new leads in the next quarter
- Increasing customer upsell revenue to X percent by the end of the year
- Growing social media followers by X percent in the next month
What you measure will ultimately depend on how you market and what you want to achieve, but it’s important to be strategic in selecting your key performance indicators (KPIs). That’s because not all metrics are worthy of becoming a KPI.
Here are a few examples of common digital marketing KPIs:
- Leads
- Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
- Sales qualified leads (SQLs)
- Social media engagement
- Landing page conversion rate
- Marketing percentage contribution to sales pipeline
- Marketing percentage contribution to closed revenue
The best way to determine the right KPIs for your team is to look back at your organization’s goals. Be sure that what you measure has an impact on those goals. Your KPIs should also be easy to measure and quantify, which often correlates with conversions. Avoid vanity metrics and things that you can’t impact with your digital marketing efforts.
Happy Marketing!
