You may be at the beginning or in the middle of developing your plans for the next year. You might also be having discussions about sales and performance goals for your firm and staff. But, before you can start your goal setting, you should have a good understanding of where you are at today. You can do this by having a good set of baseline metrics for both marketing and business development.

Once you have your baseline metrics recorded, then your firm can work on the growth for the next year and begin to set goals. This article provides you with some brief examples of marketing baseline metrics to get you started. Next, I will share some ideas for business development (sales) baseline metrics. Then, the series continues with some different methods to set goals.

Marketing Baseline Metrics

Brand Awareness

This can be an umbrella metric that encompasses all your marketing efforts. However, I would try hard to break it down to quantify as much as possible.

Content Marketing Effectiveness

You will notice that I added the term effectiveness at the end of this term. I think we should go beyond just quantifying the number of blog articles, white papers, etc. that we are producing, but defining how that piece of content is effective for our firm. This may be just adding a new email address to your list, so you can nurture with other engaging content to being found by a third-party news outlet to be featured in a traditional industry publication.

Website Traffic

This includes metrics including visitors, engagement, etc. It can also include your SEO keyword ranking and traffic sources. You can find more specifics here.

Email Marketing Efforts and Results

This includes the basic opens, clicks, and forwards. This can also include the percentage of recipients who move on to the next step. Do you have a current email marketing strategy? If so, what are the results? Is your list growing with meaningful potential leads? Where is that growth coming from?

Social Media and Online Marketing

Similar to the other metrics in this list, you can start with the basics – followers, likes, etc. I would also challenge you to develop some metrics around engagement and conversion. How many comments and shares are you getting? Who is commenting and sharing? Is it firm employees which may be okay depending on your strategy? Are your targeted clients engaging with your content? If so, what channel is getting the most engagement? Are you moving those who are engaging into the stage—collecting email, following up by sales, etc.?

Public and Media Relations

When and how often was your firm highlighted in the news? Did you have any third-party recognition (both sponsored and placed)? Did your firm receive any awards?

Special Events and Conferences

How many events did you attend? What were the outcomes? We know that sales seldom are made at the conferences so think of other measurable outcomes you can measure like new contacts added to your email marketing; improving relations with existing contacts; reestablishing relations with previous contacts; etc. Another metric not to forget is presenting/speaking opportunities.

Other Ways to Measure Marketing Efforts

There are a few other ways to measure marketing efforts in this article.

Other Articles in the Series

Look for the next article to get some ideas for Business Development Baseline metrics. Then I will share some methods to set goals.