Be Your Own Detective for Your Business Metrics

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

   ~ Sherlock Holmes, “A Study in Scarlett” (Arthur Conan Doyle)

The famous detective makes a good point—it's hard to say exactly how well your business is doing unless you have some numbers. Data is a tricky thing though, since not all of it is relevant. For example, having 2,000 likes on a Facebook page doesn't help you if none of those people have ever made a purchase. So what data should we track? How do we gather that data? What do those metrics mean?

As Holmes would say, “The game is afoot!”

Decide what's important. When it comes to social media and marketing campaigns, the more information you can gather, the better. But before you start looking at the data, keep in mind what kind of marketing results you want to achieve. For example, do you want to generate more leads or are you looking increase awareness of your brand?

To illustrate, let's take a look at what numbers might be important in your content marketing:

How much actual content do you have? The simple rule with content is that the more you have the better. So how many blog posts, ebooks or webinars have you created? How many of these content pieces are targeted for each of your buyer personas?

How well is your content being received? How many shares and how many views do you have? How many comments and how many link backs have you gotten? Just remember that while this information is important, it doesn't mean that you're actually making sales. What it can do is let you know if you’re eliciting a response from your audience.

What content is performing best? What are your best posts or the most popular categories? Which authors get the most engagement?

Once you have the answers to some of these questions, it’s time to find out if your content is doing what it's supposed to. Is it increasing leads? What about subscriptions or sales? This is where you find out if you're getting the proper return on your investment.

How do you gather your data? Fortunately you won't have to throw on your deerstalker cap and hit the streets with a magnifying glass to find clues. There are many management tools out there that will allow you to analyze your website and social media performance. Hootsuite, Crowdbooster, and Wicked Reports are three such popular tools, and will provide you with more data than you'll probably need.

No matter which tools you use, though, just remember that it's important to actually use them. Be sure to set aside a regular time to look at these numbers and see how they're affecting your business. Once you've got a handle on this information, setting goals and making decisions will be - what else? - “elementary, my dear Watson!”