Any successful business became so by being able to, first and foremost, research effectively and respond diligently to the changes, direction and trajectory of its various KPI’s (key performance indicators) which measure success, failure and profits. In marketing, having the ability to track and monitor your progress can make or break a company’s balance sheet. As creating strong pipelines of sales qualified leads is what keeps the lights on at the end of the day.

Math Is Your Friend

Recognizing that the metrics are critical is only the first step. The challenge now is developing a dynamic and consistent method to obtain KPI’s in a prompt and time-sensitive manner. After all, the goal of using metrics is to assist with anticipating change, threats and success. It does no good to have the data too late to be able to plan accordingly. If your business has a sharp drop in sales, then it’s a critical to identify the drop as early as possible, and adjust your strategy in a way which, idealistically, retain your customers and maintain your pipelines. Any company which has a strong marketing presence would have had a chance to see a threat on the horizon by understanding the numbers, functions and methods necessary for maintaining both marketing and sales qualified leads.

Return On Investment

Depending on your industry or vertical, there are various ways you can track and monitor the progress of your business; moreover, there are many areas of your business, each with its own unique pain points and key performance indicators. The earlier you start tracking the numbers and responding accordingly, the sooner you will see the company make powerful strides into success and profitability. Which is the reason why we get into business in the first place, right?

The Pipeline

There are few industries with a more abstract approach to measuring a return on investment than in marketing. Building out a map for a business’ sales funnel from a marketing campaign can be a challenge, as the results can vary; however, a bold and comprehensive marketing plan should be able to deliver a strong pipeline of marketing and/or sales qualified leads. The most crucial objective is getting a return on your investment, and there can be no profits without customers and a way to attract them to your business.

In Conclusion

In business, there are many limitations to growth and proper planning; however, none are as pervasive ignorance. I could list the myriad of causes for achieving an undesired result; lack of resources, lack of budget, lack of staff are just a few examples as to what causes failure or an unsustainable balance sheet. Looking at the patterns, there is one consistent element which is found in most unsuccessful projects, and that is a lack of attention to the numbers that would have, if monitored in a timely fashion, prevented disaster.