The athletes in Sochi aren’t the only ones who perform at a high level – we all do as marketers.  So if we all understand that proving ROI in marketing is senior management’s #1 concerns, which every study says is the case, it’s worthwhile to use the Olympic season as an opportunity to benchmark your own performance.  Would you score a 10 on your last trade show?  Is your website performing at the level of a true gold medalist?  Are your email rates stable or declining, and what’s typical?

Good marketing today relies on benchmarks, not gut feel.  Analytics software has existed for several years now that can give us the insight to determine what’s working, what’s not performing up to industry standards, and what to do to improve that.  In fact, we run a Benchmark Audit for clients that measures how well their programs perform and leaves them with a roadmap for improving performance.  

• It’s likely 80% of your website traffic is concentrated on just 10 pages.  How are those performing?
• What paid search ads are your competitors buying?
  
• What organic search terms do your competitors optimize for?
  
• Are you paying too much for the advertising programs you’re running?
  
• Are you paying too much to generate leads and quote requests?
  
• What program in your marketing budget performs the best, and can you reallocate dollars to that initiative?
  
• What would your marketing program look like if you allocated activities to three buckets:  Keep, Increase, Drop?      

Goldstein Group annually publishes benchmarks of marketing performance for our clients, and gathers statistics for all b-to-b marketers to help our clients evaluate their own performance.  Step up your own company’s marketing performance to gold medal level.