On Monday, we shared the first of a series of “marketing mantras,” or big ideas about the future of marketing that we took away from last week’s Art of Marketing Conference. Let’s keep the series rolling today with a big idea about metrics.
Marketing Mantra #2: Metrics Matter (and we might not be measuring the right ones)
Metrics have always been an important part of our business. However, as the media environment has changed, so has the process of measuring results. We’re now swimming in more data than ever before, and unless we can figure out how to make sense of it, we can easily drown.
Art of Marketing speaker and Google employee Avinash Kaushik thinks we’re approaching digital marketing metrics from the wrong angle. We’re trying to adapt traditional metrics to fit new media, and it simply isn’t working. To compensate, many marketers pull more numbers than they know what to do with and simply become overwhelmed. Instead of measuring impressions, page views, followers and friends, Avinash recommends we look at conversation rate, amplification rate, applause rate and economic value per visitor. He even directed us to a handy tool called True Social Metrics that makes generating these numbers fairly simple and straightforward.
Though his presentation wasn’t as heavy on metrics-related content, Gary Vaynerchuk echoed Avinash Kaushik’s idea that we need to reassess our priorities when it comes to metrics. Instead of counting fans and followers, he recommends we get to know our online communities so that we are capable of assessing and growing their value. We’ve been moving toward this approach for a while now, but Avinash and Gary gave us the extra push we needed to re-evaluate how we measure success in social media.
(Click here to expand)
