It feels good to be back home in Toronto after an extensive Road to Revenue Tour this year! It was great to bump into old and new Eloqua users all across the west coast over the last few months and hear their reporting successes, desires, interests and pains. I was tasked with presenting the Metrics that Matter session and I want to thank those who had an opportunity to attend and participate in the great discussions. For those that attended my session may recall my anecdote of the custom security guard who drilled me on why I was travelling to the US to present on Marketing metrics as he could not believe that marketing could be measured! Well we have several client examples that prove he was definitely wrong and why this area of marketing is so interesting. I wanted to share some basic 'school yard' tips when you are thinking about marketing metrics and what's important to demonstrate to the rest of your organization. I use these tips when I talk to my clients about their reporting needs and what they hope to derive.
- Start Small and Keep Focused
The saying Rome was not built in a day holds true for various aspects of our life, why not for reporting? There is always going to be pressure to demonstrate ROI as quickly as possible, but ensuring that your campaigns are performing adequately, email response is positive and leads are being generated would be examples of where to start and apply focus. To support these initial reporting insights, I recommend using the following reports
Campaign Analysis:
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Campaign Performance Dashboard:
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At the bottom of this report you'll notice Campaign Filters. As a marketer, you can slice your data off of these static campaign fields. They work as select lists that you can setup to reflect your business requirements. Being able to run a report to off of the dashboard that views how your eBook campaigns in EMEA for all products have performed is pretty cool! Again, this data HAS TO BE POPULATED PRIOR TO THE ACTIVATION OF A CAMPAIGN TO BE ACTIONABLE.
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- Don't Report for the Sake of Reporting
We all get caught in this trap of trying to provide a report such that we have one. I will always challenge reporters to ask the question, 'what action am I trying to take with the data from this report?' If this is not readily answered, there is really no point in spending time creating the report. Rather focus on metrics that will demonstrate you are hitting your objectives, provide context to make better decisions and hopefully the report/metric is multi-dimensional, servicing and aligning to multiple departments and purposes. - Benchmark Your Progress
Eloqua has provided benchmarks that assess your performance against 12 different verticals which is a great starting place, but understanding how your organization is doing on a month to month or quarter by quarter basis is still the best measurement of success. Incremental increases across various metrics are above all, rewarding to your marketing team! Eloqua also provides a great benchmark workbook for you to start off with! I highly recommend going through this internally and with your respective success coach or marketing advisor. - Closed Loop Reporting Goes Beyond Technology
Having a CRM system and Eloqua is a critical part of closed loop reporting but to make this work, you need to ensure that there is an agreed upon process in place. Closed Loop Reporting requires both marketing and sales to 'beat the same drum' and ensure that all parties are clear on what is expected from one another. Marketers must be consistent with using CRM campaigns and campaign codes. Sales must help close the loop by correctly associating campaign to opportunity. Once this happens, you are that much closer to marketing nirvana!
The message I tried to echo at the Tours was that marketers are not alone in this quest - I'd love to hear on any other tips or your GO TO reports to support your marketing efforts. I'll look to continue to share some of my favourite reports as well!