Marketing Results: 7 Crucial Stats You Need to Track Your Marketing Success

You may feel as though you're on a hamster wheel when it comes to measuring your marketing. You run, run, and run some more, but don't seem to be getting anywhere. That feeling is perfectly natural if you're not measuring your ROI (Return on Investment) with your marketing. For years, I've been on this hamster wheel myself, without a system that I liked to help me measure my marketing results. Numbers and statistics have never been my strong suit, and even though I got A's in most of my math classes, it took every brain cell I had to do so. :)

Late last year, I finally determined what was important for me to track in my marketing, and now have created a system so that I can track my marketing from week to week. Whether you set up your system in a document or spreadsheet, you'll be amazed at the power that you feel when you view the numbers from week to week and can spot trends developing or problem spots that need a solution. I was amazed to discover that when I started paying attention to my weekly stats, I actually found myself engrossed, fascinated, and excited! Now that I am tracking these numbers, I know exactly where to spend my time and efforts to receive the highest and best rate of return.

Here are 7 statistics that I track in my weekly marketing tracking system:

1. Number of marketing activities. I now list by name and amount of the total number of marketing activities in which I engage each week. This number includes article submissions, direct mailings, direct contacts (in person or by phone), press releases, and programs given. I've noticed that the higher the number, the better the rest of my marketing results for the week.

2. Web site stats. I'm primarily seeking the number of unique visitors to my web site each week. However, it's also important to know what keywords visitors used to land on your site as well as what sites referred the visitor to your site. I don't keep a separate log of this info, but do have a weekly Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/) report emailed to me with this information. Google Analytics is a free web tracking program that's easy to install on almost any site.

3. Blog stats. I want to know the number of people who read my blog this week. Now, this is a difficult stat to measure, as blog readers use any number of RSS readers to view blog posts or subscribe to my blog via email. So, I have also installed Google Analytics on my blog and look at those results to determine the number of unique visitors to my blog in any given week, which I interpret as number of blog readers.

4. Ezine stats. My weekly ezine serves as my primary connection to my list. I track how many new subscribers I gain each week on that list, my open rate for each issue of my ezine, the number of clickthroughs for each issue, and my total number of ezine subscribers.

5. Social networking connections. I'm not in a contest to acquire the most connections possible for all of my social networking sites. I believe it's the quality of the connection (i.e. relevance to your target market) rather than the quantity of connections that will be most useful for you. What I'm primarily tracking here is that I'm making a slow and gradual increase in the number of my connections on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

6. Product and service sales. I note how many product sales I have made each week as well as how much revenue I have earned in the services and consulting side of my business. Because my primary product is my membership site, I probably have many more product sales (i.e. memberships) than many of you who sell information products as an income stream in your business.

7. New clients. I get a number of requests from potential clients each week, but never tracked those in any meaningful way. Now I know how many inquiries have come in, how many have become new clients, and which inquiries need follow up at a later date. This system always keeps me in motion and in front of new client prospects.

Measuring the results of your marketing activities is crucial to your success, and anyone can do it. Start to evaluate your marketing activities to empower yourself to make those strategic decisions about how and where to focus your efforts going forward so that you can achieve the level of success you desire.