Metrics to Monitor

Baseball has its World series and amateur sports, the Olympics. How about a KPI Bowl for marketers? What is there to recognize brands that excel and should be given a gold medal on a pedestal? Sports have agreed-upon standards on which each is measured, but it’s debatable when it comes to marketing. Consider KPI.

KPI is flexible and can contain any number of standards tailored for each industry or brand. What’s critical to some is not as important to others. Here are some metrics to consider.

While engagement doesn’t tell the entire story, it does provide a baseline and permit brands to measure and adjust their sustainable content. Measuring this can also inform the brand if it’s maintaining a positive image with its target audience and generating content consistent with both the brand’s and audience’s values. Close monitoring can also alert marketers sooner to possible new trends.

The daily number of active users is the lifeline of all brands. More than the sheer number of visitors, what’s more, important is their frequency in connecting. A strategy that concentrates on getting them to the brand’s website more frequently should have precedence over the sheer number of daily or weekly visitors.

Like the audience above, getting visitors to view-enhancing videos, graphics, or infographics is a good start. What’s better is knowing how long they viewed the video or how much time they spent investigating the materials and whether they acted on it. The data is invaluable in planning future content as well as adjusting to what’s currently being presented.

An analysis of conversational data can yield valuable information as well. Monitor and assess consumer conversations. Doing so will inform marketers of what’s on their minds and who the customer is, how they perceive the brand, and possibly identify any issues that could be arising.

SEO was and remains one of the cornerstones of effective digital marketing. But another consideration today should also include SEO to raise the brand’s credibility via domain authority to attract more media attention.

Share of voice is no longer a soft value. A recent study by multinational market research firm Milward Brown revealed a direct relationship between market share and online share of voice. What is the brand’s relationship between industry mentions and market share? Also look at those with great industry influence. How much of a share of voice does the brand have with them as compared to the competition?

When the brand is mentioned, what’s the first thing that comes to consumers’ minds? Is it love, hate, desire, indifference, nostalgia, or something else? Review and analyze customer feedback and comments on the brand’s website and different social media platforms. Knowing this can help immensely in reframing a strategy.

Stay tuned to what people are saying about the brand, knowing that not everyone will be pleased. But if there’s a pattern of complaints mounting or if an influential person comments, be prepared to respond quickly. Snapchat’s market value fell $1.3 billion and never recovered after Kylie Jenner remarked that she would no longer be using that platform. And that was back in February 2018.

More than ever, change is happening faster than ever, and brands must be alert to them and quick to adapt. The only way to do that Is to benchmark, monitor and be agile.