In order to stay on top in the marketing field, you need to improve efficiency by keeping a track of your progress. You can do this by setting achievable goals and accurately measuring your KPIs. Essential indicators which measure the achievements of your team include but are not limited to: cost per lead (CPL), organic traffic, conversion rates, keyword performance and inbound marketing ROI. These tangible reports will inform you on how well your marketing strategy is doing and areas for improvement to warrant better results.
Setting goals and following KPIs is an important trait of a proactive and results-oriented marketer who wants to increase the company’s profitability. There are small changes you can make in the management of your marketing team which will see a dramatic improvement in achieving your marketing KPI goals.
Hire the best marketers
Start by being careful with who you hire – consider the traits and skills needed to be an excellent marketer and seek them in your hiring process. Recruiting for marketing can be challenging as the necessary skill set can be ambiguous, but you can begin by assessing the candidate’s marketing experience and knowledge of specific tools needed to prosper in this role. In an interview, to really spot a candidate’s aptitude for the role, ask them to describe their marketing approach in detail and their previous contribution to an overall marketing plan, with a focus on specific achievements and statistics.
A great marketer has to be an all-rounder. This includes having the right attitude and approach to teamwork, so it’s important to assess their soft skills on top of their technical proficiency. The top 10% of candidates only stay available on the market for 10 days, so if you want to recruit top talent, start by creating a company culture that attracts them.
Set smart goals
Goals are essential for any great marketer — they keep you focused, aligned to your marketing plan and push you forwards, whereas KPIs prove and track how efficiently you reach the end goal, creating a record of proven marketing practices in the meantime.
Meeting your goals depends partly on your metrics performing well, but also on how accurately you set goals. When doing this, consider setting SMART goals which are: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Each of these traits is important to creating a goal that is not just good in theory but also works in practice.
Align marketing and sales
When marketing and sales unite, there is the possibility for a mutually beneficial and unstoppable force to form. Though they accomplish different tasks, both teams have a revenue-oriented goal and are interdependent on each other. Encouraging open communication between these two teams will lead to an optimised and clear strategy for generating growth. Only about 22% of businesses currently are satisfied with their conversion rates, but this number could easily increase with some synergy between sales and marketing. In fact, inefficiencies based on misalignment of the two teams is estimated to cost companies $1 trillion a year.
You can reduce wasted leads and unproductive prospecting by aligning goals and promoting frequent communication between the two teams.
Utilise technology
Understand and utilise digital marketing tools to modernise and optimise your marketing strategy. Especially in 2019, while there was an upsurge of technological innovation, it is useful to keep an eye on and invest money into purchasing these programmes. There are many automated marketing tools that increase efficiency, accuracy and save you time, which you can spend actively working toward achieving your goal.
Software and technologies can help in many areas of marketing including SEO, reporting, training, paid advertising and social media. Take advantage of these to save your marketers a hefty workload and upsurge productivity.
Technology has revolutionised marketing and advertising. Keep this in mind when planning your strategy for the year, as small improvements such as using videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%.
Give regular feedback
Tracking KPIs would be of little use without then acting upon the results. Providing your team with regular feedback and updates on how they are performing will motivate them to perform better or reassure them that they are taking the right steps to guarantee great results. Similarly, giving negative, but constructive, feedback can be beneficial as this will enable your team to make changes to their practices and eliminate any weaknesses within their current marketing strategy.
Be sure to keep your team updated on your goals and KPIs so they can work with specific objectives in mind. You can also use this time to train your team to follow the best marketing practices in order to achieve these goals.
Hire right with BMS Performance
At BMS Performance, we only offer you brilliant marketing candidates with proven talent. How do we do this? Through our six-step marketing recruitment agency assessment. So, you can be sure you’re hiring right with BMS Performance. Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you.