Focus on these key areas to increase customer engagement and ROI in the year ahead.
Before diving head first into a new year of financial marketing campaigns, consider taking some time to review which strategies worked (and didn’t) during the past 12 months. If your campaigns came in over budget — or with less than stellar results — it might be time to review your success measurement strategy and reassess your financial marketing metrics and analytics.
Start Your Financial Marketing Measurement Process with What Matters Most
When it comes to increasing engagement and ROI, how do you know which metrics you should track to effectively evaluate and refine your financial marketing strategy? Start by identifying what you’re trying to achieve: Perhaps you want to attract more visitors to your website, convert more leads into sales or upsell existing customers. Then factor in your larger business goals, your target audiences and their needs.
Next, Create a Financial Marketing Measurement Strategy
Once you’ve identified what defines campaign success, you’ll be better positioned to effectively choose marketing metrics that align with your goals and objectives. Most likely, that will include one or all of the four key performance metrics below, depending on how closely they align with your specific goals. Not only are these metrics measurable, they also enable you to refine your financial marketing strategy with a clear plan of action — to boost campaign results and demonstrate value to the rest of your organization.
Engagement Metrics
Is your content resonating with readers? Do they take action after reading it and, if so, how frequently or consistently? Examining your click-thru rates can provide insight into the performance of your emails, landing pages and other communication pieces, and help you determine what to replicate and what changes to make in future campaigns. In addition, be sure to review your social networks for engagement indicators such as likes, shares, reposts and comments.
- Improvement Tip: Include at least one call to action on every web page, email, print piece or any other channels that provide a conversion opportunity. Consider moving the location or format of your calls to action, or the actual wording. Conduct A/B testing to see what works best.
Consumption Metrics
How frequently are readers consuming your content and what channels are they using? Are customers and prospects filling out forms and downloading assets, like e-brochures and white papers?
For instance, use a tool like Google Analytics to look at page views, unique visitors and average time spent on your website. Set goals for conversions from email subscriptions or form fills and examine which landing pages on your site are driving the most conversions.
- Improvement Tip: Review all the communication channels you’re using to determine if certain channels perform better than others at generating your desired response. If so, consider investing more time and resources on those channels and less on the lower performing ones. Carefully examine the marketing pieces that resonate most with your customers and prospects, and look for commonalities — such as topic, format, images or tone. Use this information to adjust and refine your strategy accordingly.
Retention Metrics
Are you holding your customers’ and prospects’ attention beyond the initial contact? Look at subscribe and opt-outs rates, the number of returning visitors to your website or blog, as well as the number of social media followers.
- Improvement Tip: If your retention numbers are growing steadily, it’s a good sign that your message is resonating with the intended audience. Keep doing what you’re doing! If numbers are decreasing, revisit your messaging, tone and marketing distribution strategy — and make tweaks to more closely align your messaging with your audience’s needs.
Cost Metrics
These help you calculate a return on investment for your marketing. How much does it cost to produce an email or direct mail campaign, a blog post or a monthly newsletter? How much time does it take? And what downstream revenue is it generating? Tying marketing efforts back to revenue is crucial for your company’s growth.
- Improvement Tip: Take a look at how your marketing efforts impact the bottom line, and then use the results as you plan your strategy for upcoming marketing campaigns and sales cycles.
Reassess, Refine, Repeat — The Key to Financial Marketing Success
Evaluating and measuring the effectiveness of your financial marketing campaigns on a regular basis — using key, relevant metrics that support your end goals — can do more than improve campaign results. By focusing on metrics that are both measurable and actionable, you’ll be on track to increase the efficiency of your financial marketing strategies by devoting time and resources toward your most profitable leads. Best of all, you’ll be able to show value to your financial organization through increased customer engagement, retention and profits.
Do your financial marketing measurement strategies need a boost? Our team of experts can create a plan for tracking, measuring, evaluating and refining for optimal results with maximum efficiency. Email us or call us at 303.986.3000 today to see how our 30+ years of financial marketing expertise can work to your advantage.
