No matter how cutting-edge your business might be, business basics such as well-designed metrics will always be fundamental to your success. Lara Veltkamp of Watershed Marketing shares her thoughts in today's guest blog:

I recently had the opportunity to attend an all-day, multi-speaker conference in York Region called "Business Innovation for Changing Times." The event was geared toward small and micro businesses, highlighting Arlene Dickinson as keynote. Likely, she was the reason many of the 200+ folks attended. She was, most definitely, worth hearing. Earlier in the day, though, and long before her appearance, I sat in the audience, mind occasionally wandering (between speakers of course!) to this guest blog article, and what I might write to engage you - Katie's tribe.

The decision was made for me as speaker after speaker took the stage. While the common theme was innovation, not surprisingly the common support for each presentation was in the metrics.

For example, during his presentation, Ian Proudfoot (V.P. & Regional Publisher, York Region, for MetrolandMedia) had statistic after statistic in support of the company's marketshare, audience support, and rationale for the organization's recent name change from Metroland Publishing to MetrolandMedia.

Douglas Heintzman, Director of Strategy for IBM's Collaboration Solutions, presented a highly informative piece, "Lessons learned from an early adopter," where Collecting Metrics was highlighted in virtually every area of social business success he discussed.

Lisa Kember, Regional Development Director - Southern Ontario, for Constant Contact, spoke on the difference in customer engagement through Paid Media versus Owned Media versus Earned Media, and cited a number of metrics to monitor when differentiating between these levels.

As you know if you've been following Katie's blog for any length of time, metrics is not restricted to operations and process management; it's imperative for other areas of business, especially for every marketing campaign you initiate. The basics for any business, as I'm sure Katie would tell you, include:

• Monitor your website and/or web page visitors by date, regional location, browser type, referring source and tied-in marketing initiatives (such as an advertised special offer or a specific blog article launch that point back to a specific web page). You'll see a trend in use, and you'll have a better idea of how and why people are visiting your site. Tools like Google Analytics - when set up properly and reviewed often - are very good for collecting and presenting the data you need, and it's a free tool.
• Track engagement through your social media tools (Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). You need only simple metrics to start - baseline and then trend: readers, followers, connections, profile views, likes, subscribers, etc. When you have a handle on these metrics, you can begin to go deeper on engagement. Ask Katie about her Tingley Solutions product for small businesses that will help you track what you need to track.
• Calculate your average revenue per customer (total revenue $/total # clients), you'll know what each customer is worth to you, and if you measure further, you'll be able to identify how many prospects you need to gain one customer. This is something you easily can do by reviewing your revenue numbers and client list. Going deeper may require some support from your marketing and sales team, and your accounting software.


Without these numbers, your marketing can be a waste of time and money... because you just don't know for sure. However, if you want to grow your business, you need to know how and why people are engaging with you, and what they value from you -- so you can give them more of what they want and need.

And that's what being in business is all about, isn't it?


Lara Veltkamp delivers practical, achievable marketing strategies, planning and initiatives, most recently as principle of her own company, Watershed Marketing Group Inc. Lara founded Watershed in 1998 after a successful career leading marketing and sales strategies inside both large and privately-held companies. Under her leadership, Watershed continues to grow, with over 100 clients and 1,000 plus attendees at marketing and business workshops delivered to clients across Ontario.