Defining Metrics
October 19th, 2006 | Marilou BarsamDirect Marketing Association recently quoted that by 2008, online marketing will be the dominant media for business-to business.
It’s more important than ever to understand how to launch a successful online marketing campaign.
Omniture recently published a report, B2B Online Marketing Guide: 5 Critical Steps that outlines successful tips to help better your online lead generation program. One of the first steps outlined is to define the key performance indicators (KPIs). Surprisingly, we often find that many companies do not clearly define the KPIs before the campaign begins. And, Sales and Marketing often have very different metrics of success.
To have a successful online campaign, it is imperative to understand what your key performance indicators (KPIs) are at the onset of the program.
How do you establish key performance indicators with your online programs?
October 19th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Karen - I have downloaded but not yet digested the B2B Online Marketing Guide. I did want to comment on your point about sales and marketing having “very different metrics for success.” We’ve all been through those situations in which marketing claims a program was a success because it produced a ton of leads, and sales claims it was a failure because no leads led to sales. Then the finger pointing begins. Marketing: you squandered those great leads. Sales: great leads? they were all lousy.
One way to mitigate this situation is to make sure that you agree on the way in just what qualifies as a lead by tightly defining your target market and potential buyer. E.g., a good lead is one that comes from a manufacturing firm with revenues between $100M and $500M, and the responder has purchasing authority…
Whether a campaign is online or off-line, this is a good starting point.