by Cindy Moen

According to Forrester’s 2021 B2B Buying Survey, B2B buyers engage in an average of 27 interactions before making a purchase, and about 60% of those purchases involve a committee of at least four people. If yours is like most small businesses that sell to other businesses, the tools that measure marketing return on investment are often financially out of reach. Still, you need to know which tactics are working to help you get to those 27 interactions and which can go by the wayside next year.

For businesses that can’t waste precious dollars on pricey marketing analysis tools, a simple spreadsheet that tracks these eight measurement points will give you insight into marketing success. Your team can track the following:

  1. Website Users. In the Google Analytics “Reports Snapshot,” the number of people who visited your website for a given period of time show up as “Users.” Month-over-month, this number should increase if you are investing in marketing activities.
  2. Average Engagement Time. Also, from Google Analytics snapshot, this number tells you how long people are spending on your site. If this number is low, visitors are not engaging in your content, and you should consider amping up your copy and content.
  3. Pages and Screens. Digging a little deeper into Google Analytics, navigate to “Engagement” and then “Pages and Screens.” This report shows you all the pages of your site and how heavily engaged visitors are with them. Is there a blog post that seems particularly popular? Promote it on LinkedIn or repurpose the content. Is there a page you feel more people should visit? Work on optimizing the page and improving the content.
  4. Google Analytics. I probably should have started with this one. If you do not have Google Analytics for your website, go now and get this added. Do it today.
  5. LinkedIn Followers. The more people hear about your company through marketing, the faster your LinkedIn followers will grow. The more thoughtful, insightful and optimized posts you make on LinkedIn, the faster your followers will grow. The more contacts you invite to follow your LinkedIn company page, the faster your followers will grow. Month-over-month, you should see an increase in the number of followers you have on LinkedIn.
  6. LinkedIn Impressions. From the Analytics tab on your company page, go to “Content.” Make sure your metrics are set to “Impressions” and you have the time frame set to the dates you want to measure. From here, you can see the number of people your posts reached (impressions) and the number of people who engaged with it via “reactions” and “reposts.” If you are posting quality, relevant content, your impressions should increase each month.
  7. LinkedIn Clicks. From the same content analytics page, change the metrics to “Clicks.” This indicates how many people clicked on the content you provided. If you are posting content people want to read, clicks should be increasing each month.
  8. Marketing Database. If you are reaching the right people at the right time and place with relevant content, your marketing database should grow each month.

Tying sales back to a specific marketing activity can be a challenge for small businesses, especially when buyers need time and tools to get to know your company before making a purchase. Tracking a few key metrics using the free tools available to you doesn’t need to cut into your marketing budget and will still give you insight into return on your marketing investment.

About the Author

Cindy Kremer Moen has helped Edge Marketing clients with strategies and tactics to meet their goals since 2006. She and her husband have two college-aged sons and recently relocated to fulfill a lifelong dream of living near the shores of Lake Superior.

/by Cindy Kremer Moen