Sometimes you read an article that hits so close to home you just need to chime in with your own spin. I came across one such article (from an email) this week. It had a great subject line which made me think, Okay, I’ll bite! It was well worth the click because this article (with accompanying video) by Greg Rollett completely simplified marketing metrics once and for all, at least as far as I understand “metrics.” What really are marketing metrics anyway, and why do they matter?
Metrics, as related to marketing, are units of measurement of an activity that might indicate the likelihood of a future sale.
Mr. Rollett gave me the fodder for my own definition of marketing metrics above that puts them in their proper perspective. Notice the words “might” and “future;” two words that executives hate when it comes to forecasting sales, especially in the short term.
Frankly, most of the metrics that marketers use to measure the success of their campaigns include some kind of feel-good engagement with the brand. It could be the number of social media followers, likes & shares, trackable website visits, clicks and content downloads. Being popular feels nice but how does it predict or influence real sales growth?
The only metrics that you should pay attention to are those proven to have the highest likelihood of sales conversions. For the vast majority of businesses, guess which marketing metric actually produces the highest number of sales conversions? It’s the number of email subscriptions. Good old email!
The number of email subscribers syphoned from your advertising and online marketing campaigns is your most valuable metric because it has the highest likelihood of directly producing sales when strategically deployed. Email 
campaigns work better than any other form of marketing for most industries, especially in B2B.
The number of email subscribers is your most critical metric. Period! Why? Email converts more prospects into paying customers because subscribers opt in to get informed about your business. Some even want to hear about bargains and buying opportunities. What’s also great is that email service providers offer excellent tracking tools to easily measure conversions for every eblast campaign.
Hoping you would read this far, I’ve held off revealing the subject line that made me bite. It was a piece from Entrepreneur entitled: The Only Online Marketing Metric That Actually Matters. It’s a good subject line for me because I want to know what that metric is and the article validates my experience as an online marketer.
Find ways to build a bigger, better email subscriber list today and make sure you put it to good use with relevant, targeted campaigns.
