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Not all metrics are created equal: ROI vs. Vanity Metrics

by Elizabeth Hines | Nov 5, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Data/Analytics, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy

We all want to see the fruits of our labors. Whether launching a product or a new social media campaign, we look for instantaneous numbers that will affirm we made the right choices. But here’s the problem: not all metrics are created equal.

So-called vanity metrics are measurements that have no bearing on your bottom line but can give you an inflated sense of success. Generally, they are easy to calculate but are influenced by too many factors—and are too vulnerable to random external events—to be reliable.

Website visits and number of subscribers are two classic examples. A spike in homepage hits may be the result of your marketing efforts, or it may be because of ghost spam. (Or, both.) Regardless, more visits do not necessarily correlate to increased revenue—just more visits. In the same vein, having 100,000 email subscribers means nothing if only 1% are opening them. You actually could be losing money in terms of resources allocated if the emails aren’t helping drive sales.

That’s why it is crucial to focus on return on investment instead of vanity metrics. You could waste hours reviewing a hundred different analytics that tell you nothing about how revenue was affected by a particular effort. Or, worse, you could use vanity metrics to justify decisions that don’t achieve their ROI.

As a simplified example: say you spend $100 on a banner ad for a new product on an industry conference website, and your analytics report that 100 people clicked through. This sounds like success! But don’t celebrate just yet. When you dig past the vanity metric, you find an extremely high bounce rate. That means most of those click-throughs left your site immediately, neither engaging with your brand nor moving any closer to becoming a customer. In fact, you find that only one click-through converts. Was it worth paying $100 for this one customer? Probably not.

But say you ran another $100 banner ad on an industry publication website, one that targets a younger audience than you think your product fits. Only 20 visitors clicked-through, which sounds less successful than the other ad. But when you follow those 20 click-throughs down the sales funnel, you see that 15 ended up purchasing $1500 worth of product. Already, the ad has paid for itself 15 times over. You’ve also learned that perhaps a younger audience is more suited to this product. The ROI proves the vanity metric was quite misleading in this case.

Lean-startup pioneer Eric Reis, who coined the term vanity metrics, said, “The only metrics that entrepreneurs should invest energy in collecting are those that help them make decisions.” In other words, measure the things that will tell you if an effort was profitable so you know where to put your time and money.

While vanity metrics tell you nothing about your bottom line, ROI can help you determine whether it was worth spending your resources in a particular way. This is extremely useful on platforms like blogs and social media, where things are constantly changing. Using ROI as a litmus test, you can keep experimenting and making sure you’re using these tools effectively. Tracking a vanity metric like number of followers, which is likely to build over time regardless, gives you no indication of which experiments were successful and which weren’t.

Your resources are limited, so it’s crucial to evaluate your efforts with meaningful numbers that illustrate their effect on your bottom line. Calculating ROI might take some time—both in the few extra minutes to do the math and the amount of time that needs to pass before all the data is available—but that number will be infinitely more valuable to you than any vanity metric on your Google Analytics report.

What metrics do you report to your team?

6 digital and content marketing tasks to outsource

by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 24, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy

Outsourcing isn’t new to the business world. It goes back as far as the Industrial Revolution. Before then, it was common practice for businesses to perform all functions of product and service delivery, from product manufacturing through to product delivery. Sometime in the mid-1800s, independent architects, engineers, and legal professionals began to operate in larger U.S. cities taking on project-based work for a number of clients.

More than a hundred and fifty years later, outsourcing has become a staple business tool, offering benefits for employees and employers alike. Employers enjoy a reduction (or cost savings) in operating costs, improve their focus on core competencies, and employees are free to concentrate on their highest and best use.

With tech now advancing faster than ever, your business should be looking to leverage outsource partners to support your digital efforts.

Here are our picks for 6 digital and content marketing tasks you should consider outsourcing:

1. Strategy

A 2014 study of B2B marketers found that companies who have a documented content strategy in place are more likely to consider their efforts to be effective than companies who do not have a documented strategy in place (60 percent vs. 11 percent).

Identify an outsource partner that can deliver a content strategy that is aligned with your business goals and objectives and one that is results driven.

2. Content creation

Effective content is not only aligned with your business goals and objectives, it is also quality content. Finding an outsource partner that excels at content creation drive profitable customer action. When it comes to finding the right outsource partner, put a premium on quality content, and remember the adage: you get what you pay for.

3. Social media

It’s important to recognize social media as the important business tool it is. As such, you should draw on the expertise of a social media outsourcing partner. These firms know what works and what doesn’t because they’re active every day on multiple platforms managing accounts for multiple clients. And it’s not just posting every now and then. A good social media partner will craft and publish great original content, but they’ll also curate great content from relevant sources, like industry partners. Outsourcing these tasks to the pros helps build a strong following and brand awareness for your company.

4. Web development and design

Because your company’s website is the primary digital tool of communication with customers and prospects, it literally pays to have web design and development functions performed by a knowledgeable professional. Hosting that capability in-house can be costly, though. Besides saving you thousands on employee compensation, outsource partners can often bring with them niche specialties, for instance, something like usability engineering isn’t something you would necessarily get from an in-house generalist.

5. eCommerce

Focus on your core product offerings rather than investing time, money, and resources into building and maintaining an eCommerce platform. Because it receives and stores sensitive information, eCommerce platforms need to be constantly updated and secured. Couple that with product line changes, future business growth, and changing platform needs, and it quickly becomes a full-time job that comes with a hefty in-house expense.

6. Projects that are outside your scope of expertise

It’s possible that projects will come up that require a skill set, like graphic design, which lies outside your company’s range of expertise. It’s far better to find a partner with this expertise rather than try to create an on-demand capacity to provide the service. Your clients will benefit from stellar work performed by a knowledgeable practitioner and you’ll enjoy cost savings by not committing to a long-term employee salary.

Unlocking Your Marketing ROI with Analytics [infographic]

by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 9, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Data/Analytics, Marketing

In the age of big data, everything in marketing is measureable – and that’s not necessarily a good thing. As Dimitri Maex of Ogilvy Consulting puts it, “marketers are drowning in numbers because they are focused on what they can measure rather on what they should measure.” Unfocused efforts to evaluate the success of your marketing activities can lead to a host of problems. Central to these problems, though, is the failure to measure and report activities in a way that clearly demonstrates the link between marketing and your company’s bottom line. Check out our infographic that details four marketing metrics guaranteed to resonate with your CEO (and our guide to the 6 marketing metics your boss really cares about).

Fronetics uses content marketing to drive results and help businesses grow

by Elizabeth Hines | Aug 27, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

Content marketing has become a key marketing strategy for many businesses. Statistics show that content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional marketing methods – and those leads cost an average of 62% less. At Fronetics, we’ve built our content marketing services around one goal – helping our clients grow. We’re harnessing the power of content to help our clients connect and engage with leads and prospects in meaningful ways. And our clients are enjoying faster growth and higher profits because of it.

How do we use content to support our clients in their business growth?

We create quality content that helps our clients connect with leads and customers in a number of ways. First, we appeal to and engage potential customers by creating relevant content that’s aligned with the needs of our client’s target audience. Then, we nurture those leads into customers by proving the value of our clients’ products and services. Even after they become customers, we work to create positive customer experiences that make it easy for them to recommend our clients to others.

Services offerings

Here’s a quick breakdown of some the service offerings included in our comprehensive approach to content marketing:

Content strategy

Research has shown that B2B and B2C companies with a documented content strategy in place are more effective than those without one.

At Fronetics, we work with our clients to create a content strategy individualized for their specific situation and needs. We learn about our client’s business, target customers, industry, and competition. We also conduct an audit of current content and digital assets. All of this information is used to create an effective content strategy.

Content creation

There is a lot of content out there. If you want your content to stand out and drive profitable customer action you need quality content. At Fronetics, we create quality content that is keyword-optimized. Also, unlike other firms, we don’t outsource content creation. By keeping all content creation in-house we are able to ensure a quality product.

Lead generation

Once we’ve helped our clients draw visitors to their website, we work to identify potential customers and manage their leads. We create and couple high-value content like white papers and eBooks, with strategic calls-to-action that direct visitors to landing pages expertly designed to convert website visitors into leads.

Lead nurturing and customer acquisition

We work closely with our clients to develop a lead nurturing strategy to convert leads into paying customers using email and marketing automation. By segmenting leads and sending them targeted content designed to catalyze engagement, we help our clients build relationships – and importantly, trust.

Social media

Social media is an incredible tool; however, for it to be effective it must be driven by strategy, be consistent, and must have someone managing the execution. At Fronetics, our social media strategists distribute content, curate content, engage your target audience, and monitor your social networks. We develop a social media strategy that aligns with your company’s goals. We analyze your competition, classify your target audience & cultural attributes, identify the influencers in your industry, recommend platforms, detail best engagement practices, create social media schedules, and identify specific tactics that deliver results. Through the proper execution of social media, your brand is given a voice and personality, and becomes more accessible to your target audience.

Analytics and reporting

At Fronetics we take a comprehensive data driven approach to marketing. Metrics measure success, drive strategy, and demonstrate ROI. We provide our clients with monthly marketing reports.

In short, our content marketing strategies drive success for our clients. The Fronetics team is comprised of strategists, marketing professionals, writers, designers, and experts in social media. Together we leverage our experience to increase brand awareness, position our clients as thought leaders, and drive meaningful engagement with prospects and customers – all with the goal of helping our clients grow.

Get in touch with us today for a free consultation to find out if our retainer services, full or half day workshops, or a personalized service offering is right for your business. See how Fronetics can help your business grow.

Content marketing for the logistics and supply chain industries [Download]

by Elizabeth Hines | Aug 25, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Supply Chain

Earlier this year, when Fronetics Strategic Advisors set out to explore the role of content within the logistics and supply chain industries, a full 86% of the companies we surveyed reported using content as a marketing tool – their primary goals being to build brand awareness and generate leads. Remarkably, more than three quarters of these companies told us that content was an effective tool for their business. However, a top challenge identified by respondents was the execution of a structured and effective content strategy.

In response, we’ve developed a content marketing guide specifically for companies within the logistics and supply chain industries. This guide has been designed to not only get your content strategy off the ground, but also to supercharge your route to success. In it you’ll find step-by-step instructions, templates, lists, and samples that’ll walk you through building your own content strategy – from proven best practices to advanced techniques. Download your free content marketing guide to get started today.

When it comes to marketing we work with our clients to create and execute strategies that drive success and elevate their brand position within the industry. Unlike other firms, we align marketing programs with business objectives and, through a data driven approach, are able to deliver results with a targeted ROI. Our team is comprised of strategists, marketing professionals, writers, designers, and experts in social media. Together we leverage our experience to increase brand awareness, position our clients as thought leaders, drive meaningful engagement with prospects and customers, and help businesses grow.

We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.