Measure What Matters Part 2

In chapter three of "Measure What Matters" the author gives seven steps to the perfect measurement system. I thought these steps were extremely informational and helpful to create a successful and organized measurement plan. Here are those steps:

1. Define your goals and objectives:

• Your goals and objectives MUST include a date to complete them by, not only outcomes you want to see happen. You should also include the audience you wish to reach out to and a budget.
• Your goals and objectives should relate back to corporate goals; there are 3 categories most marketing goals fall into: sales, message or positioning, or public safety or education. 

2. Define your environment , your audience, and your role in influencing them:

• You are always communicating to an environment with a great number of different audiences such as the media, prospects, customers, partners, employees, governments, communities, investors, thought leaders, and the international community.
• To be successful when communicating to each audience you need to examine each one individually with these two questions:
• How does a good relationship benefit the organization?
• How might a bad relationship threaten it?
• To measure how well your communication activities are doing, tie it back to sales. 

3. Define your investment:

• This step (as you can probably tell by the word "investment") requires taking a look at the resources you are investing into a program. 
• The rule of thumb to follow when budgeting on your measurement program is to spend five to seven percent of your marketing program's budget on it. 

4. Determine your benchmarks:

• Measurement is a comparative tool.
• Your most effective comparisons come from your competition, peers, yourself, or an industry average.
• The most ideal benchmark is to compare yourself against two or three competitors
• If not to your competitors, compare yourself to your company's past performance. This is the next most effective benchmark

5. Define your key performance indicators:

• This step is where you establish specific criteria or key performance indicators that you will measure.
• Each objective may require different KPIs.
• EX: If the objective is to increase awareness the KPI might be the percentage increase of unaided awareness measured by a survey.
• Remember that awareness should NOT be confused with visibility. (awareness refers to a person's knowledge of a brand; visibility refers to volume of coverage or to where the company's name appeared in the story.)

6. Select the right measurement tool and vendors and collect data

• You will collect your data, in most cases, in one of three ways: 
• 1. content analysis of social or traditional media
• 2. primary research via online, mail or phone survey
• 3. web analytics
• Remember to make sure your tools are collecting the right data so they are not useless, that they are affordable and they provide data when it is needed.

7. Turn data into action:

• This step is where you will analyze your results and arrive at your conclusion.
• you will make changes, see if those changes made an impact, make more changes based on the results
• Don't only focus on the positive results and fail to mention stats that have dropped. 
• Relate your results back to the original objective or goal to make them more meaningful.
• Set up a regular reporting system so you always have the information you need to decide what tool or tactic to use or resources needed.