EdTech Marketing Analytics Insights for your Business
It’s October. For us in Wisconsin, that means one thing. Fall is here and snow is on the way. For edtech marketing analytics gurus, it means something less chilling: year-end reporting. It’s time to export the data, organize your Excel columns and run those fancy formulas for the big end-of-year review.
Edtech marketers often rush through this stage because the lead acquisition phase of the education buying cycle is wrapping up. That’s important, but it’s still essential to step back and dedicate time to evaluating how your edtech marketing activities fared in 2018. This exercise will provide valuable insight into what worked, what didn’t and help ensure that 2019 will be even better than 2018. Before you get started using the Excel “sum” function, here are the seven metrics to include in year-end reporting.
Referral Traffic
Connecting the business results from public relations efforts can be challenging, but will improve your bottom line. If your PR efforts center on driving website traffic to specific product pages, the referral traffic metric is your best friend.
You can see which media outlets drove the most traffic and how that traffic performed on your site, especially if you are leveraging UTM codes. Of course, the outlet that drove the most traffic might not produce the most results. In the end, the quality of the traffic is more important than the quantity. This metric can help your team by focusing media relations efforts on the high value outlets to drive even more high-quality traffic to your website.
Click-Through Rate
In email marketing, monitoring your open rate is important to assess the health of your house list and confirm that your messaging is resonating with your target audience. However, it’s not the metric that should determine the success or failure of your email marketing efforts.
The key email metric is driving website traffic. That’s why you should include the click-through rate (CTR) in your year-end reporting. A strong CTR shows that people are opening your emails, reading them and deciding that clicking through to your website is worthy of their time. As well, by evaluating your email CTRs, you can determine which emails and calls-to-action work best for future campaigns.
Content Downloads
People will enter a form and download something if they perceive it to be of value. In the world of marketing, this often means an eBook, whitepaper or similar information asset. Reviewing the number of content downloads you’ve received this year can help determine how your landing pages performed, which content assets inspired the most downloads and which campaigns drove the highest quality traffic.
Motivating people to download desirable content assets is a popular lead-generation tactic. Understanding the metrics behind content downloads will provide insights into how you are driving leads.
Leads
One of the main components of any marketing strategy is lead generation. Without new leads, new sales are elusive. Determining how many leads you drove this year will pinpoint which content assets, marketing platforms and campaigns delivered optimal results.
When calculating this number, set a standard for what you consider a lead and use that definition across your measurement efforts. Does downloading a content asset make someone a lead? How about stopping by a show floor booth? The answer varies among companies, so it’s important that your company devises a definition that fits its marketing strategy
Sales Made
Sales made is the metric that most executives care about. This number is easy to calculate, and marks the culmination of a long sales process that includes many touch points.
From the number of sales made, your team can determine which leads were high-quality and use that information to inform selection of future targets. Similar to referral traffic, driving a large number of leads is a success only if they convert.
Customer retention
Measuring client retention (sometimes known as customer renewals) is a must-have metric in your end-of-year reporting.
The customer retention metric may vary based on the renewal cycle of your company and your products. A strong retention rate can show that your products and customer support teams are delivering the results your customers want. If the metric is low, conduct a review of your onboarding process for new clients, customer support team set-up, and strategy for securing renewals.
ROI
Although the metrics for leads, sales and customer retention are closely associated with revenue and profits, return-on-investment (ROI) might be the most valuable metric in your reporting. It answers the question of how much revenue your marketing budget delivered for your organization.
This metric will show company executives the importance of the marketing department, and help advocate for increasing its budget to drive even more revenue in the future.
There are hundreds of useful metrics to compile. It’s important to pull as much data as possible when evaluating your work, however, showcasing every metric possible may hide the important ones from getting the attention they deserve. Reporting on the right metrics will demonstrate your hard work over the course of the year and build a case for increased marketing investment in future budgets.
Looking to learn more about these metrics and how to compile your year-end reports? Not sure which metrics are the best for your edtech marketing analytics team? Get in touch with us to get the ball rolling.
If you enjoyed this CB&A education marketing trends feature, check out these companion articles featuring the best marketing tips in edtech:
- Why You Need a HubSpot Onboarding Plan: Make your HubSpot onboarding process a breeze with this simple plan.
- Achieving EdTech Revenue Goals Through Sales and Marketing Collaboration: Sales and marketing plus collaboration equals achieving your brand’s edtech revenue goals.
- Add Value to Your Brand with Native Advertising: Education marketers have more options than ever. Here’s how to add value with native advertising.
- How the Adoption Curve Impacts Your Education Marketing Strategy: Every education marketing strategy should take the adoption curve into account.