We are all measured -all the time- so knowing where you stand and how you compare to industry benchmarks for marketing performance is crucial to proving Marketing’s value and increasing your impact as a Marketing leader. In my most recent post, I shared some tips to raise your score on 12 of the 24 key metrics contained in the Marketing Performance Index (MPI). I’ve also previously explained the genesis, design and definitions for the 24 key metrics it tracks. In this blog, I’ll share tips for improving scores across the other 12 key metrics. The MPI is based on industry benchmarks and best practices, having created more than $20 billion in pipeline during my CMO tenures, and validation by dozens of CMO peers.
Another key insight about the MPI is that success in one performance indicator reinforces success in another. For example, better reach improves market share; higher engagement leads to stronger loyalty and a healthier pipeline drives increased closed-won sales and revenue, often the most important measure of company and marketing success.
Now I’m going to share some additional ways to address underperformance in the three major measurement components (Market Presence, Brand Strength and Pipeline Health), and six key performance indicators (reach, share, engagement, loyalty, pipeline, and progression). I chose these indicators, and the four measurements for each, based on where myself and my peers believe marketers can have the most impact. It’s important to note, however, that every company and market dynamic is unique, and the metrics that matter most, or are dictated or perceived to matter most, are the ones to focus on. The framework is designed to be easily customized, e.g. substituting your unique metrics or adding weighting to the scoring, to help drive better performance across the board for the entire marketing function, and help marketing leaders and their companies drive continuous improvement.
Let’s continue with strategies and tactics to boost your scores for the other three performance indicators, loyalty, pipeline, and progression, and the 12 associated metrics. Loyalty metrics consist of NPS, Customer Satisfaction, Gross (Customer) Retention, Net (Dollar) Retention. These are widely used metrics; NPS methodology calculation is universal, and for Customer Satisfaction, I leveraged the standard CSAT 5 scale, where 5 =100, 4 = 80, and so on. The retention metrics are also standard, particularly in SaaS businesses.
In many cases, it can be difficult for Marketing to improve a company’s NPS or CSAT. Product experience, customer interaction, support quality, and so forth, are generally not controlled by the Marketing function. Nevertheless, you should track all customer interactions and suggest ways to improve the customer experience, by better and more responsive communications, ongoing sentiment surveys, customer councils or advisory boards, customer advocacy and recognition programs, virtual and in-person meetings, and so forth. I believe that “every interaction matters,” with your customers, and you can improve communication standards, shape or reshape perception by influencing and improving a company’s dedication to customers, and inspire your co-workers to enhance the quality and timeliness of interactions.
Gross and Net Retention are highly correlated to product or service experience, product functionality, and perceived value for money, and the overall customer service, support and success functions. One of the strategies we deployed at Emburse was the Spend Optimization Maturity Model. We enabled Marketing, Sales, BDRs and Customer Success with consistent and comprehensive tools to better communicate the business value of our offerings. Rather than just try to get customers to buy more products or adopt more of our portfolio, we implemented a cross-functional approach to understanding customer needs and aligned the proposed solutions to the critically unmet business need and value a given solution delivered. During regular business reviews, this holistic approach encouraged customers to better define their unmet needs, recognize operational gaps, and for the Emburse team to align any proposed solutions to the customer’s prioritized needs, resulting in a 200% increase in cross-sell bookings over a 3 year period.
The four Pipeline metrics are: Leads, Conversion, Pipeline Coverage, and Marketing ROI. Increasing leads is often a matter of diversifying lead sources. At several companies, I have found that broadening digital tactics, from SEO, SEM, to Social Media, Content Marketing, Syndication, GenAI, and so forth, helps broaden the breath and depth of leads. And, as you go upmarket, from SMB to Corporate to Enterprise Sales, the buying committee gets larger, and you need more engaged buyers (or MQAs) to drive a decision in your favor.
There are many tools and tactics to improve Conversion, and in every case I’ve found continuous testing of Web page content, graphics and layout, A/B testing of headlines and various offers and CTA’s, can have significant impact on conversion success. Pipe coverage is often a result of designing and implementing a cross-functional alignment on active and regular participation by all contributors (Sales, BDRs, Marketing, Channels), so that the shared goal is both overall coverage and adequate coverage for each Sales team, customer segment, vertical and/or geographic region. We all have to be in it together, hold each other accountable and adjust tactics as needed to optimize pipeline creation and conversion.
For the MPI, I define Marketing ROI as the number of pipeline dollars generated for every marketing program dollar invested. And Marketing ROI can best be improved with what I term “ruthless prioritization,” and continuous adjustments to spending so that you invest only in programs and tactics that have a positive, measurable return, and augment the ones with the most promise and best results, while eliminating tactics and programs that don’t deliver adequate returns.
And finally, raising your scores in four Progression metrics: MQL to SQL (Marketing Qualified to Sales Qualified), SQL to SQO (Sales Qualified Lead to confirmed Opportunity), Close rate (from stage 1 opportunity to close) and Win rate (head to head win rate vs. top competitors) is mostly about establishing and maintaining a very close and collaborative working relationship with Sales. At my last company, we instrumented all key Sales and Marketing metrics into a series of Microsoft PowerBI visual dashboards, including team- by-team reports on lead creation, conversion, volume, velocity and value (closed won). This level of granular, precise detail enabled the Go to Market team to diagnose where pipeline creation or progression was lagging, and implement proactive strategies to address gaps, SLAs (no lead untouched, etc.), and other issues that were hampering relative progression across all Sales teams.
So there you have the 24 key performance indicators and some examples of strategies and tactics to raise your scores across the board. Every company has a unique situation and market dynamic and what works in some sitations won’t work elsewhere. That’s why I encourage everyone to establish a baseline measure and update regularly (e.g. quarterly), focusing attention on key performance gaps that most need improvement and where you have the resources- human and financial- to improve your scores and your relative and absolute performance. May the journey be the reward and the result of all the hard work getting there!
Future blogs on this topic will delve further into actual scores of various key performance indicators from my CMO tenures and other willing participants. In the meantime, if you’d like to take the MPI assessment while I’m developing the online, self-serve version, send me a note and I’d be happy to arrange to compile a confidential score.
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CMO Mentor 