Why Metrics Matter for Small Business

Marketing doesn’t work without measurement. It’s a simple concept, but one that frequently gets overlooked. Ensuring that limited marketing resources (dollars, people and time) are used wisely is critical for all organizations. But metrics especially matter for small businesses because the margins for error are small.

Your company should, at the very least, have a website and Facebook page. These are the first stops for a potential customer looking to find out more about your business. Now consider whether these online storefronts are adding value for your organization. Are they increasing visibility for your brand? What impression are your sites portraying? How are you assessing whether visits are converting to sales or at least moving the prospect further down the purchase funnel? That’s where metrics come in. By measuring metrics, you can collect information on page views, click-throughs, registrations, and more. You can then modify you efforts based on this data.

Online Marketing Metrics to Measure

Below is an outline of online marketing data a small business should be trying to measure:

1. Website Metrics – These include site visits, time on site, number of pages visited, and conversions (email address registrations, downloads, purchases, and other general contacts). 
    
2. Blog Metrics – These include the number of posts per week or month, the resulting traffic from those posts, search rankings of posts, and the leads generated from those blog posts.
    
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Metrics – These include measurement of keyword rankings and subsequent traffic from the search of those keywords on major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Learn more about SEO.
    
4. Social Media Metrics – These include numbers of followers per social networking site, social sharing of your content, conversions to website traffic via those networks, and the number of leads generated from those hits. Learn more about Social Media.
    
5. Email Metrics – These include open and click-through rates, subscriptions, and the resulting leads from those emails. Learn more about email marketing.

If you haven’t been gathering data about your online marketing efforts, never fear! Plenty of tools exist to help you collect that information. Contact Marketpath today to learn how your small business can take advantage of these features and begin collecting valuable data.