In the world of small business marketing, there is a LOT of data that is coming at you every day.
Enough that some days, you're in a rut and it's just easier to stick with the data you understand.
But often, that can be the wrong data.
I heard a phrase yesterday and I'd like to share it with you.
Measure the metrics that matter.
Here's the truth. Not all metrics are created equally.
But there are a few metrics that I use to make qualified, informed business decisions.
They are the metrics that tell me if a campaign is working.
How do I measure this?
If when I deliver a campaign, the call to action I want is happening.
So, ya, sure. You want an email to land in an inbox. You want an email to get opened.
But that's not what I REALLY want.
Can you guess what I REALLY want?
It's the same thing you want.
I want someone to click on a link and buy my stuff.
Let's have a look at an example.
If you have a list that has 1000 people on it and you send an email out announcing the release of a new product. It has a killer subject line and gets an open rate of 38%. That's 380 people who have opened the email.
It has a button sending people to your website to buy your product or service. So, let's say you're coming in hot with an average of a 2% click rate. That's 20 people who clicked and potentially bought your product or service.
But all you can see is that 38% open rate. And yes, it is spectacular.
So you send out another email the next week to the same 1000 people and the open rate is slightly less at 28%. So, again, 280 people opened your email and this time you basically duplicated the previous email's design and your click rate is now lower because they've 'been there, done that', and now your click rate is around 1.8% so, 18 people.
But your open rate is still well above the average and that's the metric we all watch. The automatic first question we ask ourselves is...
"How do I get my open rates to grow?"
But what if instead, we started by asking, "How do I get my click-through rates to grow?"
Do you feel the shift in focus? Suddenly you're thinking about ratios, design, content, structure, alt text, backlinks.
👉 EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT IN ORDER TO GET MORE PEOPLE CLICKING.
So in the above example, great, 380 people saw the email but only 20 did what you wanted them to do.
The metric you need to measure and strategize on is the click rate. (Not to mention the open rate metric is highly unreliable!)
I'm gonna say the same holds true for all marketing methods and advertising spends.
I don't care about the cost per click. I care about conversions.
🚀 Are customers clicking and buying?
🚀 Are customers listening and buying?
🚀 Are customers tapping and swiping up?
I DON'T care about the number of followers. The number of listeners. The number of people who saw the ad.
I care about whether they performed the call to action I wanted them to and if not, how can I make the experience different the next time around so that more consumers click?
So, how are your views on metrics changing? Will you start to measure the sales instead of the reach?
