Unlocking The Power of Data: Analytics and Reporting for Marketing Leaders in Manufacturing

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, marketing has evolved into a complex and data-driven discipline. Gone are the days of relying solely on intuition and guesswork to make critical marketing decisions. Instead, the success of any marketing strategy hinges on the effective use of analytics and reporting. With a well-defined marketing strategy, accessing reliable information is crucial for making data-driven decisions to improve or adjust your actions. Whether you’re an experienced marketer seeking to enhance your analytical skills or a manufacturing business owner aiming to harness data for organizational success, understanding the importance of analytics and reporting is critical for your marketing and sales efforts. 

ROI-Driven Metrics vs. Marketing Metrics 

The sixth pillar of the Great 8 Pillars is Analytics and Reporting. ROI-driven marketing requires marketers to track marketing effort to sales revenue. The goal is to ensure the investment in marketing is providing a return. To guarantee this, you must follow your primary marketing initiatives from the first point of contact with a prospect to a closed sale. Here are some metrics we define and track for our clients that assist in measuring ROI. 

• Website Traffic
• Marketing Leads 
• Marketing-Qualified Leads (MQLs)
• Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs)
• Proposals/Quotes
• Closed Won
• Average Order Value
• Customer Lifetime Value

These metrics help you track:

• Leads generated from marketing and the corresponding value 
• Marketing-qualified leads generated from marketing and the corresponding value 
• Sales-qualified leads generated from marketing and the corresponding value 
• Closed new business from marketing-generated leads and the revenue generated by these sales as illustrated in initial order value, first-year average client value, and customer lifetime value

Other metrics not directly tied to ROI that you should consider tracking include:

• New Users/Visitors - Users who hadn’t visited your site.
• Bounce Rate - The percentage of visitors to your site who view one page, take no action, and leave.
• Social Media Reach & Engagement - Interactions with social media accounts
• Email Marketing Performance - analyze your emails open rates, delivery rates, and unsubscribe rates
• Blog Post Visits - Blog post engagement among your customers and potential customers.

These are just a few to name. Even though the metrics above are not ROI-driven metrics, it's important to identify other KPIs that you can track, measure, and respond to.  All data can be used to add insights into your marketing efforts.  

To learn more about key metrics you should be tracking, purchase our book The Great 8 Pillars: ROI-Driven Marketing for Manufacturing Companies.

Vanity Metrics

In some instances, marketers tend to focus on tracking vanity metrics. Vanity metrics such as comments and followers may be useful, but they don’t lead directly to bottom-line results. Someone liking or commenting on your post does not necessarily translate to being a client or prospect. While vanity metrics should be kept in mind, it is important to recognize their limited significance in your overall operation. 

Reporting and Cadence

Having established what metrics to track and analyze, the next step is to establish a reporting process. We suggest implementing standardized reporting that can be shared with both sales and marketing leadership. Your reports should: 

• Be distributed monthly 
• Include data with comparisons from previous periods 
• Compare actual data to your goals 
• Include a summary of your analysis stating what actions need to be taken based on the data 
• Include visual representations of what KPIs met, exceeded, or missed their goal 

The Imperative Role of Analytics and Reporting in Marketing

Acquiring the right data to make educated decisions is essential to an ROI-driven marketing strategy. Once you establish what you should be looking at and report regularly on it, you’re set to take off. To learn how to build the analytical and reporting infrastructure your manufacturing business needs, consider reaching out to a G8P Coach.

If you want to learn more about the Great 8 Pillars of ROI-Driven Marketing, check out the book.