Goals, KPIs, measure, monitor and control

Tracking, monitoring and controlling matter more to some people than others, but at the end of the day it’s hard to avoid them, especially if you want your business to be more successful. Numbers is a great way to define success.

The big of benefit of measuring and quantifying is that they help with decision-making – where to allocate resources, what choices to make, what produced the best returns. They give rise to the adage ‘If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.’

Calculating a Return on Investment (RoI), on money and on time, is made more possible and accurate when things that matter are measures and tracked.

The good news is that technology for marketing and sales, and all the applications now available makes collecting and analysing numbers much easier, online at least.

The caution is that you need to take care over what you measure, as there are several pitfalls that could cost you time and lead to decisions being taken on inappropriate data – a version of ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’.

What follows are some ideas for approaches, strategies and tips to help you gain a better picture and control, to help you improve your RoI and to grow your bottom-line profits.

The benefits of using numbers to manage your Sales Funnel

There are many pay-backs and benefits to be gained from an appropriate use of numbers to improve decisions and actions in marketing and sales, including:

• Better allocation of resources, of time and money. To answer questions like ‘Which market sector, product, channel, campaign and so on where most successful, and therefore which should we spend more time and money on in future. Also, which was least successful, and should we look to stop, or not repeat.
• Control and confidence. As competition increases, as sales cycle time in some cases reduces, as margins get thinner, it helps to be reassured that you’re on track and the business, which relies on Marketing and Sales, has a firm and predictable foundation.
• Reduced risk and uncertainty. Moving to a place where you can manage by exception would be ideal for many business owners. Reducing the number of hidden surprises within the business by being able to have pre-emptive conversations with colleagues and the team to fix out-of line situations helps with overall business operations.

Three types of numbers and measures

Setting a framework for what you measure will form the baseline for the data and your ability to make decisions on it.

1. Numbers ‘at a point in time’ – these are useful for accountants and bankers, for example – when they draw up a balance sheet and record assets and liabilities. If you are monitoring your net worth year on year, or are aiming at an exit strategy from the business these are very useful numbers.
2. Numbers ‘over a period of time’ – these are more useful to business operations such as marketing and sales. The value of sales, the number of leads, number of proposals written during the period are examples. The period might be a year, a quarter, a month, a week, a day, and hour or ever a minute, for something like a call-centre or a website.
3. Numbers ‘for a specific activity’ – this is a combination of the two above. A specific marketing campaign, the cost of sale for a specific bid, are examples where an activity has taken some time to complete and what is being added up are the resources that went into the activity, set against the outcomes achieved.

Four major uses of numbers for the Sales Funnel

For monitoring and tracking marketing and sales activities and results the following uses are fairly common practice:

1. For planning and subsequent review – to take a phrase used in schools – ‘Plan, Do, Review’- where you identify the outcomes you want, then you work towards them, and then at some point you look at the results and look back and see what went well, and what could be improved. This can apply to pretty much every marketing and sales activity, from the headlines to the minute activities.
2. To look at trends over time – looking back over a time-based series can quickly reveal whether something is increasing or decreasing. There may be influencing factors to take into account, such as if your business is seasonal, but then find the right time period to be and looking back at a measure Trends
3. To look at comparisons between activities – so an example might be comparing lead generation methods, between online and offline, between website, phone and direct postal campaigns.
4. To look at a sequence of activities – where one activity hands on to the next, the conversion rate is an indication of quality, not just quantity. Did inquiries from one campaign convert to sales better than leads from another campaign, is an example.

Pitfalls with measuring, monitoring and tracking

There are many factors that can reduce the validity of data and information to marketing and sales decision-making. Here are some to watch out for:

• Accuracy – sometimes it’s not possible to be precise – for example several activities may have contributed to an inquiry, but you may not know precisely which.
• Completeness – sometimes data is not recorded, such as when a call comes into reception that becomes an inquiry, but through the sequence the precise source is not recorded.
• Timeliness – data that takes too long to analyse may no longer be relevant – where there is a long sales cycle running into several months the validity of the lead generation activities of over a year ago may no longer be relevant
• Granularity – where a large number of small, repetitive activities or outcomes are being recorded then analysis and fine tuning is more feasible, such as on a website. Where a small number of discrete activities are performed, such as selling large and complex projects, there are many influences that reduce the validity of measurement of the minutae.
• Cost – this can be significant, especially when it’s a manual process. Sales people especially are being paid to sell and not to record data to feed into what may be seen as a black-hole.
• Value – this depends on the quality of decisions taken and implemented as a result of all the data capture and analysis.

Key Performance Indicators – KPIs

Measuring, monitoring and tracking the right things can contribute to a significant improvement in business performance, and marketing and sales is no exception.

As the title suggests, choose the KEY indicators, the top-level numbers that you can track on a periodic basis, probably monthly, and which you will act upon to bring them back on track if they waver.

Each business owner, director and manager will come to a view on what is right for their needs.

However, if you’d like a ‘starter for 10′ we’ve prepared a checklist of KPIs that you might find useful.

Enter your details below and you can find the link on the ‘Thank-you’ page.

NB. Going deeper into this topic of Business Intelligence is a specific area, with strategies, approaches, tools and techniques. If you want additional information in this area we can sign-post you.