Making Money from Your Marketing Metrics

The term “analytics” may conjure up visions of tedious number-crunching, which may not be your thing, but John Gallo, digital and customer service manager, York College Bookstore, York, PA, defines it as “using data to find win-win situations for consumers and business.”

In his CAMEX21 educational session, Marketing Analytics: Enhance Your Strategy, Gallo noted that taking a little time to conduct some analysis can “help you sell better, understand marketing effectiveness, and track trends and patterns.” While analytics is useful for in-store sales, it’s even more helpful with e-commerce.

“You can understand what works and what doesn’t, see what demographic patterns are happening on your site,” he said.

So where can you dig up all this valuable data? On the digital side, Google Analytics is a “must-have” in Gallo’s book. You can sign up free online and there are plenty of videos and tutorials to help you get started. Email marketing can also yield a ton of information on who opens, who clicks, and who buys; HubSpot and MailChimp are two popular providers.

With web forms, you can send out surveys or ask customers to sign up for email notifications. SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics have templates to help you out. Web forms and email marketing can be combined, Gallo pointed out.

On the physical retail side, be sure to take advantage of reporting functions in your point-of-sale system to reveal sales trends. In-store customer surveys can be another goldmine. And don’t overlook the experience of your frontline employees in interacting with customers. “Sit down with your staff” to hear what they’ve learned from shoppers, Gallo said.

If you utilize all of these tools, you can end up with a lot of data—maybe an overwhelming amount. Gallo recommended selecting certain key performance indicators (KPIs) to follow, such as revenue growth, net profit margin, average order value, net promoter score, customer lifetime value, conversion rate, abandonment rate, and cost per acquisition.

The net promoter score “really tells you how well customers really enjoy your products and services,” he said. In short, the score measures the likelihood of a customer recommending an item or your store to someone else.

Tracking the customer lifetime value might seem counterintuitive since most students move away after a few years, but in Gallo’s view this is an important metric for campus stores. He also noted that tracking the average order value for course materials may be more difficult than for general merchandise.

Use the GATRR method to set your KPIs: review business goals (“Some of us need to increase revenue, but others need to increase sell-through,” Gallo said), analysis of the current performance, target SMART goals, review with the entire team, and then revisit goals at least quarterly.

Tracking these KPIs with your analytical tools can provide insights, such as whether you need to update your web banners in order to improve conversion rates. Gallo’s store experimented with offering free shipping to increase the average web order size, trying different order minimums to find the one that worked best.

He also recommended that campus stores provide live online chat for e-commerce. “It’s great for boosting order conversion during back-to-school, and also great for customer service” since you can answer questions or resolve ordering problems in real time, he said. Also consider retargeting—sending a friendly follow-up email to customers who have abandoned their e-commerce cart.

“Trust this process,” Gallo said. “Over time you will find more and more insights. Keep trying and testing different things.”