Marketing analytics can be overwhelming enough without having to translate the different terms included in your marketing reports. Understanding the terminology can be essential to ensuring you understand the results of your marketing efforts.

After looking over your marketing analytics, do you feel like you leave with more questions? You are not alone — our team of consultants are regularly asked to explain the difference between a bounce rate and an exit rate, and explain why the bounce rate matters.

The first quarter of the year flew by, and many are reviewing their Q1 marketing efforts. So how did you do? Are your marketing efforts paying off? How about those KPIs?

For those of you searching for some ways to improve your marketing efforts moving into the second quarter and the rest of the year, here are three tips to implement in your quarterly reviews to increase the success of your marketing campaigns moving forward.

Today’s economic indicators seem to be positive. Unemployment rates are down. GDP numbers are up. And it seems that more and more companies are meeting, and even exceeding, their revenue growth objectives. Favorable economic conditions are always welcome, but we all know that success just doesn’t happen. It takes hard work and preparation from a lot of people to grow a business.

Preparation can take a lot of different forms – hiring, training, building out processes, and leveraging new technology. Proper preparation also requires that we re-evaluate our infrastructure. Do we have the essential elements in place in which to build upon? Our houses have infrastructure – foundation, plumbing, electrical, heating, and air conditioning, etc. Our marketing has required infrastructure as well. Below is a list of the basic marketing infrastructure elements critical to growing a company.

Governments repair and build roads. Utility companies run new transmission lines and fiber optics. And at home, we attach rain gutters to our houses and add-on new rooms. These are all examples of enhancing infrastructure. Even at work, we get new computers, new phones, and new desk chairs. Those too are infrastructure upgrades. 

Sales and marketing organizations have infrastructures as well.  Websites, sales collateral, CRM, marketing automation, and email are all examples of marketing infrastructure basics. How often does your firm evaluate the status of your marketing infrastructure? Do you have everything you need? What are you missing? Is everything working as it should? Like any infrastructure (roads, bridges, roofs, plumbing, etc.), a marketing infrastructure can become less effective if it’s neglected. And a neglected marketing infrastructure will eventually lead to ineffective marketing plans and missed revenue targets.

When you invest in a new effort like inbound marketing at your company, or you enter into a partnership with a marketing agency, everyone expects to get results. No one does marketing for marketing’s sake. We want to establish our brand, build an audience, convert leads, grow a pipeline, accelerate deals through the funnel, and ultimately grow revenue. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. Instead of experiencing the euphoria that comes with achieving goals, you suffer the frustration of unfulfilled potential.   

Most organizations do a pretty good job of tracking basic marketing KPIs – top of the funnel performance metrics like webpage visits, session lengths, bounce rates, and lead conversions. Those are early indicators. They tell us if our marketing is accomplishing its most basic function – attract an audience and generate leads. 

Your marketing, however, should accomplish much more. Ultimately, isn’t the role of marketing to help drive revenue?

Attempting to tackle your entire content marketing to-do list in one day could be overwhelming. Actually, it would be VERY overwhelming. But if you can commit to doing one thing each day over the next 12 days leading up to Christmas, you'll be on the road to improving your overall content marketing efforts that will have you ringing in the New Year on the right foot!

For many businesses, the primary person that is focused on in both marketing and sales efforts is the key decision maker at a company (or even in a household). It’s easy for us to think about the person who has the most power to say “yes” because that’s what we’re looking for in the first place. However, if we are not also keeping in mind the people who can say “no,” then we could be missing opportunities and hurting our overall efforts.

The Difference Between Decision Makers and Decision Influencers

Let’s start with defining the difference between these two: 

It's Thanksgiving week, which is a time to reflect on all of the things that make you happy, contribute to your success, and help you to grow. So in true Thanksgiving week fashion, we're reflecting on why we're thankful for inbound marketing. 

We believe that a solid inbound marketing strategy paired with sales performance is the key to results, and inbound marketing is the ideal approach to quality lead generation that aligns with a sales team's strategy to deliver the results a company needs for success. Below are just three reasons we're thankful for inbound marketing, and why we believe in, and stand behind, this methodology and the work that we do with our clients. 

I could probably write a blog post on a thousand reasons we love our clients, but I wanted to be a bit more succinct here and share some of the key characteristics that make for an effective and successful business partnership. We’ve worked with all kinds of businesses in many different industries and stages, and yet there are some clear reasons why some have incredible success with their inbound marketing, and some experience subpar results. This is actually a question I get asked often: “What do we need to do to be successful in this partnership?” So, this article will aim to answer that question while also showcasing the clients that make our days enjoyable day in and day out.