Remember The Magnificent Seven? The characters, the actors, the storyline? The classic 1960 western starred some of the most popular actors of the day. And as with every reboot, in 2016 a younger and hipper cast with a whole new look pulled in a new audience with the same story, updated for modern times.
As with Hollywood, so with marketing. Digital cameras and effects gave the 2016 film a much different look and feel from the 1960 original, but the gunslingers still have to win the showdown at the end. Modern marketing technology changes so quickly that new metrics to track seem to appear daily - but when it’s sundown at the OK Corral, we still have to deliver the goods in the form of leads and revenue. The modern digital marketer is riding into new territory with more competition than ever, more competitive spending in every marketing channel, and more responsibility for the company’s objectives and bottom line. In this uncertain environment, it’s worth taking a quiet moment to remember the values that matter, whether in the old west or the modern world.
The Magnificent 7 Metrics
Before you close out 2017 and head into the sunset, here’s our version of 7 time-tested and magnificent metrics for marketing to drive performance and results in 2018:
- Response rates from campaigns
- Conversion rates of MQLs to SQLs, and SQLs to Closed/Won
- Cycle time through the marketing and sales funnel
- Marketing-sourced pipeline
- Attribution towards different marketing programs
- Customer acquisition cost relative to lifetime customer value
- Return on marketing spend
The Big Guns: Data Science & Machine Learning
conDati gives marketing the power to see what’s happening, in any activity or campaign, right now. We can link this information to data from systems in finance, sales, and operations to assess marketing’s impact on the business, and vice-versa. Once you have that information, the possibilities are endless: You can compare past or current campaigns to each other or to targets. You can predict outcomes in revenue, traffic, activity, and many other dimensions – and then monitor for divergence from those predictions, either up or down. You can drill into causes of an outcome that shouldn’t have happened, and learn how to prevent it the next time.
conDati doesn’t replace any existing systems; rather, we use data science and machine learning to reveal insights you’ve never seen before, in real-time, at your fingertips.
Most marketing posses don’t yet have data science teams, and the teams that do exist have more demand than capacity. In this fractured data landscape, it’s difficult to even gain visibility into marketing’s performance and business contributions, much less identify data-driven improvements to improve ROI.
If your company has lots of data and not enough information; if you have siloed systems that should deliver more value but don’t; it would be worth you time to look at the conDati Data Unification Starter Bundle or Shopify 360° Analytics Starter Bundle.
In the meantime, grab some popcorn and enjoy either or both great movies! Best wishes for the year-end holidays and we look forward to riding with you in 2018!
