Which Marketing Metrics should you track in your architecture practice?
This week’s we’re talking about Marketing Metrics; specifically, which ones you should use to track your activities and performance. This question actually points to the underlying issue of which audiences you’re targeting, and whether you’re active on the right platforms and channels to reach them.
To help you answer this question about marketing metrics, I created a spreadsheet (which you can download for free via the links below), so you can start tracking your own marketing metrics, if you haven’t already got a system in place to do that.
What are the main delivery channels that architects should use for marketing?
I’ve arranged the spreadsheet according to the six delivery channels that I suggest architects should use to streamline their marketing efforts, because very few firms have unlimited time and money to spend on marketing.
These channels are:
Referrals
Email newsletters
Social Media
Publishing
Awards, and
all of these should lead future clients back to your Website.
The Seeking Digital Google Analytics Dashboard that I use to track my website metrics (there is a link to this free tool in my spreadsheet)
To learn more about the key metrics for each of these channels, I encourage you to join CPD+ (it’s free to access) and watch the instructional video that I recorded to answer this question.
You can join the Portal here and watch the 25-minute long video at a time that suits you; it provides an overview of the metrics in the spreadsheet and how and why you should track them.
How can you apply these metrics to improve your practice marketing?
Basically, the point of tracking and monitoring all this activity is so that – over time – you can use your metrics to re-frame and re-focus your marketing activities. If you find that most of your new inquiries come in via Facebook, you might start to spend more time there than on Instagram, for example.
Or if you find that publishing in a certain magazine consistently helps deliver a steady stream of ideal clients, you can focus your marketing efforts towards doing more of that.
It goes without saying that you can’t refine and improve your practice marketing activities if you have little understanding of what’s generating positive results – or bringing clients into your practice orbit - so if you haven’t yet got a system for tracking and observing what’s happening in your marketing and comms, this spreadsheet is an excellent place to start. (You can download it inside CPD+).
It also contains some great resources on the second page – free tools and calculators that I’ve tested and used myself – that will help you delve into very targeted analytics that will best serve your practice.
I suggest you download the Metrics Tracking spreadsheet and take your benchmark figures this week. Then, decide how often you will update them – you might record your stats monthly to start with, and then shift to fortnightly or weekly if you notice positive trends emerging across some channels.
Then, in about three months, you’ll have built a clear overview of which channels are providing the most traction, growth and engagement; and you can start to adjust your marketing activities and spend more time on the most useful and profitable channels, to build up those connections and engagement even further.
Is your current practice marketing cost-effective and successful?
Tracking your metrics will help you make sure you are spending your marketing time, energy and money in the right places – where your future client will see and engage with your messages, with a view to bringing more prospects, new clients and new projects of the kind you enjoy into your practice.
Let me know if you have any more questions about Marketing Metrics. You can email me or send me a direct message via Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn!