Simplifying marketing metrics helps you more easily measure your marketing ROI. What really are marketing metrics anyway, and why do they matter?

Metrics, as related to marketing, are units of measurement that might indicate the likelihood of a future sale.

Notice the words “might” and “future;” two words that executives hate when it comes to forecasting sales, especially in the short term.

Frankly, most of the metrics that marketers use to measure the success of their campaigns tally up “feel-good” engagements with the brand. It could be the number of social media followers, likes & shares, trackable website visits, clicks and content downloads. Being popular feels nice but how does it predict or influence real sales growth?

The only metrics that you should pay attention to are those proven to have the highest likelihood of sales conversions. For most businesses, guess which marketing metric produces the highest number of sales conversions? It’s the number of email subscriptions. Good old email!

The number of email subscribers syphoned from your advertising and online marketing campaigns is your most valuable metric because it has the highest likelihood of directly producing sales when strategically deployed. Email campaigns work better than any other form of marketing for most industries, especially in B2B sectors like commercial real estate.

The number of email subscribers is your most critical metric. Why? Email converts more prospects into paying customers because subscribers opt in to get informed about your business. Some even want to hear about bargains and buying opportunities. What’s also great is that email service providers offer excellent tracking tools to easily measure conversions for every eblast campaign.

Find ways to build a bigger, better email subscriber list today and make sure you put it to good use with relevant, targeted campaigns.

Chuck Sink is principal at Chuck Sink Link, Contoocook, N.H.