Many integrators talk a good game when it comes to using marketing analytics to optimize outreach and messaging—but many can also benefit from following this advice.
Installing fully functional AV and security systems is no challenge for today’s integrators. They’re known to solve some of the most complex technical problems that make up today’s modern world. Although integrators are savants of all things involving inputs and decoding, marketing is key for driving business forward. Most integrators only market themselves as technical wizards who can do anything and everything—but how is that messaging coming across to intended audiences?
Beyond the ins and outs of commercial technology, having a better business strategy is integral to growth. Integrators are used to maintaining video walls, but they should also be aware of how to upkeep marketing campaigns to stand out in the field and create a better basis of messaging using marketing analytics.
Throughout the business side of commercial integration, you’ll hear people criticizing or peering into the ROI of certain business activities, particularly in marketing. The reason marketing is sometimes micro-analyzed is because it takes up two key resources in a work week: time and budget. The fact of the matter is, there’s not one way to decipher whether an investment in marketing activities will be successful. A lot of marketing involves implementing, testing, and refining; however, the analytics of your campaigns are what can save resources moving forward. Not every metric is built equally or is easy to see, but here are several marketing analytics you must know moving forward to help quantify what works and what doesn’t.
Content Marketing
In our industry, people like to hear about challenging situations that are overcome through field expertise and creative problem-solving. They also like to know how the latest technological advances in software and hardware are being rolled out to the biggest enterprise brands in the world. Content marketing is the pinnacle of how your brand tells its creative story and showcases your company as the leader in its field. Your story can be delivered in the form of blog posts, social media, and case studies and whitepapers.
Content marketing analytics can be measured by understanding which medium works best for you. When you create a blog or social media post, how many impressions, engagements, and clicks do you get? When you create a case study, do you have an opt-in form to capture contact information before someone can download a copy? These metrics allow you to see what visitors interact with the most. If you find that one medium or story gets higher marks than others, you can further define your key audience and what they’re looking for from your brand.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing can consist of SEO and keyword optimization, and it can be a bit trickier because of the mix of long-term and short-term strategies involved. When working with keyword optimization through Google Ads, the dashboards of your website and Google Analytics can tell you which pages people click and how long they stay to consume information.
The analytics to focus on include the number of visitors your website receives in a 30-, 60-, and 90-day period. Over time, those numbers should increase as more business comes your way. Focusing on the pages that prove to keep visitors engaged should be central to creating a positive website experience.
Other key metrics that need to be recognized are bounce rate and average page duration time. The bounce rate defines how many people enter on a particular webpage and exit soon after. Reducing bounce rate through appropriate backlinking means that people stay “stuck” in pages of relevant content. Average page duration represents the amount of time people spend on a particular page. Keeping website visitors on a page longer means they consume and process the information you post. Average page duration for a blog post or story should be longer since people need time to read and absorb. If your blog only averages a duration time of 25 seconds, for example, then you know people aren’t reading the entire piece.
Having marketing analytics in front of you is one thing—but deciphering them and acting based on the results is what determines a successful or unsuccessful campaign. By cutting strategies that are unsuccessful and replacing them with strategies that yield results, you’ll see a correlation between marketing strategy and business growth. When your stories, ads, and content get in front of your audience, your brand will be top of mind when customers seek solutions.
Brandon Breznick is a marketing strategist for Apex One Agency and a member of NSCA’s Marketing & Communications Committee.