Sales has a ton of tools at their disposal to measure the effectiveness of their efforts and the ROI of different activities. CRMs allow sellers to record every single interaction they have with a buyer and track the entire lifecycle of a deal. Using these analytics gives Sales plenty of insights that can be pored over and used to improve processes. Sales leaders then have a clear understanding of their team’s performance in many different areas.
Marketing on the other hand, has long been in the dark on exactly how effective their efforts are and the ROI of their activities. It’s been difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain how a piece of content affects the buying cycle, or whether sales is even using the content in the first place. This lack of insight makes it hard to ascertain the success of certain efforts and difficult to plan future endeavors without knowing how previous ones fared. Unlocking these insights – content engagement analytics, content usage statistics – quite literally changes the game for marketing.
It’s clear that these types of insights are incredibly important and can take marketing activities and planning to the next level. However, a report from The CMO Survey has found that many high-level marketing executives are not yet taking full advantage of marketing analytics. On a 1-7 scale, the average response to the question “To what degree does the use of marketing analytics contribute to your company’s performance?” was 3.7.
The survey further delved into the reasons behind why organizations are not leveraging marketing analytics as much as might be expected. Respondents were asked, “What factors prevent your company from using more marketing analytics?” and given a list of answers to choose from. 32% of the respondents choose “Lack of process/tools to measure success through analytics” as their answer. Furthermore, 29% choose “Lack of people who can link to marketing practice.”
These answers reveal that high-level marketing executives may not even be aware of the types of analytics that they could have available to them to improve their processes and help their team succeed. For a long time the type of analytics that could transform a marketing team simply weren’t available. But now, those type of analytics are able to be tracked and can make a huge difference for any organization.
Content engagement analytics are key for any marketing team. Is the content marketing creates actually resonating with buyers? Which part of the content are they most attracted to? How long do they spend engaging with the content? These types of questions unlock basic truths about a buyer and give Sales crucial information about them when engaging in conversations. For marketing, content engagement analytics provide a critical feedback loop that leads to the creation of smarter and more effective content.
Content usage statistics give marketing key insights into how sales interacts with the content they create. What content does sales use? Are they using it in the right stage of the buyer’s journey? Are they using new content that is created or defaulting to old stalwarts? When marketing has access to usage statistics they can better understand sales’ needs and then create content that gives them exactly what they want.
Marketing analytics are crucially important for any organization. The insights provided by marketing analytics shine a light on an area that has long been in the dark – and gives your organization a leg up on the competition.
