It’s all well and good to focus on overarching ideas and strategies when you first form a concept for a marketing campaign. In fact, it’s important to have the big picture in mind when you start out. However, it’s just as vital to keep a close eye on the details of your inbound marketing and sales efforts. That’s because numbers don’t lie. So spending time analyzing important data is imperative if you want to improve the way you run your business. Fortunately, we’ve identified five essential sales and marketing reports you should prioritize. And while this may not be a comprehensive list, it's a great place to start.
Gauging Market Size
Before you decide to dive into the pool you should always check and see how deep the water is. In the same way, before you begin to invest valuable resources into a marketing campaign, you should take the trouble to determine if it’s worth your time. It’s important to remember though, that market size is a relative metric. Just because a market is big doesn’t mean it’s going to yield great results; and just because a market is small doesn’t mean it’s not worth exploring.
Customer Retention and Acquisition
Both are important to your business and both will give you a solid idea of how your marketing and sales have been performing. In general you won’t want to see a ton of turnover in short periods of time –– though you should expect some amount of fluctuation here. Ring the alarm bells if your ability to acquire new business takes a sharp drop that lasts for a long period.
Conversion Rate
Something you’ll always want to be cognizant of is the rate at which your leads are being converted into sales. This isn’t merely a great way to measure the effectiveness of your sales team –– it can clue you in to how synchronized your marketing and sales endeavors are. For example: if you’re generating lots of clicks and driving large amounts of traffic to your site, but you’re not able to convert any of those leads into sales –– you’ve got a problem in marketing/sales cohesion.
Cost Per Acquisition
Cost per acquisition is a vital aspect to consider when reviewing your sales and marketing reports. Understanding how much it costs to bring in a sale can act as the bedrock for the rest of your strategy. And again, this metric is relative. If your company thrives off one or two major sales over the course of a few months, then obviously the cost per acquisition is going to be higher. What you’re interested in looking for here is a bang-for-your-buck-element.
ROI
There’s no better way to express how your marketing and sales practices are performing than by judging the amount of revenue they produce. In the end, marketing and sales are a team that need to work in step with each other. If you’re not creating viable leads, you won’t be able to close sales. And if your sales team isn’t in tune with your marketing strategy, they won’t convert solid leads into sales. ROI cuts through everything else and lets you know exactly the return your getting from your hard work.
For More Info
If you want to learn more about how to evaluate your marketing and sales efforts –– and how to improve them –– contact the Leap Clixx team today! Not only can we help you determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts –– we can help you improve them. Download our free eBook and see how boosting your SEO will put your marketing goals within reach.
Topics: Inbound Marketing
