In our last couple of posts, we’ve taken a look at some of the differences between inbound and outbound marketing, and we’re going to continue that theme today by looking at the different approaches to analytics.

Outbound marketing is the old style of marketing in which brands interrupt customers by pushing messaging out in front of them. For example, they might run an advertisement in the middle of a television program or pay to include an advertisement in a magazine.

But this style of marketing is difficult to measure, and people historically focused on softer metrics such as the number of impressions rather than on bottom line metrics like an ROI. That’s due in part to how difficult it is to measure those metrics. If someone views an advertisement in an industry magazine and then contacts your sales team six months later, it’s tricky to tie the two together.

Analytics for inbound marketing

Inbound marketing is very different to outbound marketing, so it requires a totally different set of metrics and KPIs. While outbound marketing is interruptive and focuses on getting a message in front of people, inbound marketing works in reverse, relying on the creation of great content that people are actively seeking out.

For example, inbound marketers create blog posts, instructional videos, great photography, webinars, white papers and more. Inbound marketers can measure page views and impressions if they want to take the outbound approach to measurement, but they can also go much, much deeper.

Most inbound marketers – and B2B inbound marketers in particular – use their website as a lead generation tool, which enables them to track metrics like conversion rates and the number of leads that are being generated. And if you’re using a CRM system then you can start to attach an actual cash value to each of your customers so that you can determine a true ROI.

Advanced analytics

One of the reasons why inbound marketing is increasingly popular is that everything is so inherently measurable. In fact, more and more people are finding ways to integrate both inbound and outbound marketing so that the whole marketing mix is fully measured.

For example, if you’re running an advertisement in a print magazine then you can direct people to a dedicated landing page that’s only linked to from that advertisement. You can then provide an offer that they can’t refuse to turn them from visitors into leads, and then you can use CRMs and marketing automation platforms to nurture that lead until they’re a customer. You can measure every step of the way, too.

Just be careful not to get overambitious and to try to measure too many different metrics. Focus instead on the ones that will have the greatest impact on your business. Then carry out experiments to see whether you can improve those metrics over time. Good luck.

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