Your CEO wants to keep better track of the marketing team and its efforts.
He is demanding that going forward, he wants you, the Marketing VP, to produce a monthly marketing report for him that details specifically how marketing is doing. But, having never produced this type of monthly report before, you are not quite sure what marketing metrics you should be reporting on.
Don’t panic! In fact, you should be looking at this as a great opportunity for you to demonstrate to your CEO all the great work that you and your team have been doing. All you have to do is read up on this list of the 10 marketing metrics your CEO wants to see – but might not know it yet – each month.
1. MQLS vs. Goals
Include this in your monthly report, but this is a marketing metric that you should be looking at first thing every morning. You want to make sure that your team is on pace to generate enough marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to hit your monthly goals, as set in concert with your CEO. If you are off the pace early in the month, look for other ways to help generate more leads, lest you have to present to your CEO in your monthly report that your team fell short of its MQL goal this month.
2. Leads over Time
As your company grows, marketing should grow with it. That means that you are creating more leads this month than you did last month and more leads next month than you created this month. Your CEO is looking for that type of upward trajectory in all facets of the business, including marketing; if you have a down month in terms of lead generation, be prepared to explain why.
3. Lead Source Analysis
Maximizing returns on investment (ROI) – a phrase that is music to a CEO’s ears. Part of marketing’s ability to maximize its ROI is to determine which lead sources are the most effective and the most efficient in terms of generating leads. Look at this report to figure out how many leads come from each source, as well as the conversion rates of these leads to opportunities and deals i.e. how high-quality are each of these lead sources.
4. MQL Conversion over Time
The better marketing becomes at their job, the more leads they will convert into MQLs, or higher-quality leads. Tracking these conversion rates over time lets your CEO know that your team is becoming more effective at their jobs, in terms of qualifying and nurturing leads.
5. Marketing Cycle
This is another marketing metric that indicates, over time, if your marketing team is becoming more effective and efficient at their job of generating high-quality leads. The higher-quality a lead is, the quicker it will convert into an opportunity that is ready to buy from you. This is one report where you hope, over time, that the bars are down-and-to-the-right instead of up-and-to-the-right.
6. Best Primary Campaign
Along with tracking and measuring lead sources, Marketing VPs should also be heavily focused on how their primary campaigns are doing in terms of converting from leads to opportunities and leads to deals. Use this marketing report to determine which campaigns have worked best for you in the past; emphasize or try and recreate those going forward.
7. Lead Funnel
The lead funnel marketing metric shows how your leads are progressing through the funnel, with conversion rates at each stage. This is important to know how much drop-off you have between stages, all the way to a closed-won deal – knowing your conversion rate between stages can help identify any bottlenecks that might have occurred throughout this process. Every marketing team might have different stages, but the important thing is that the lead funnel maintains that funnel shape all the way to the bottom.
8. Is Sales Calling Marketing Leads per SLA?
Per your service-level agreement (SLA) with sales, marketing is responsible for generating leads, while sales is responsible for working on those leads and converting them into opportunities and deals. If a Marketing VP or CEO sees a report like this, where many leads have either not seen any activity or engagement for more than 120 days, or not even at all, that is a problem. This suggests that there is no smooth process for handing leads off to the sales team.
9. Marketing Pipeline Contribution
This is one of the most critical marketing metrics to track. Marketing is responsible for filling some portion of the pipeline – 20%, 40%, whatever it may be. The CEO needs to look at this report to make sure that you and your team are pulling its weight in terms of directly contributing opportunities to the pipeline, along with other channels in the company, such as prospecting or partners.
10. Marketing Generated Revenue
Finally, as much as CEOs need to know about lead generation and other marketing specifics, there’s only one thing they really care about: revenue. How much is marketing contributing to the bottom line? Are there many deals sourced directly as a result of marketing’s efforts? If marketing is responsible for a great proportion of the companys’ deals, you should be proud in showing this report to your CEO.
