SEO and digital marketing firms love to talk about metrics. It is in their DNA, so to speak. Their clients are interested in metrics, too. But there is an enormous difference between service provider and client: a client is concerned about one metric above all else. Give that client the expected results in this one particular area and you will have a customer for life.
What is the #1 metric clients want to see? Paying customers. As an SEO expert or digital marketer, you can throw a ton of strategies at your clients in hopes of getting them on board with your campaigns. You can throw all sorts of analytical data at them with monthly reports. But at the end of the day, they want to know whether your efforts have led to more paying customers.
It is A Lot Like Sports
The validity and necessity of metrics are better understood by comparing them to sports statistics. Pick your favorite sport. Let’s say it’s baseball. Statistics are helpful in the sense that they show a team its strengths and weaknesses. Statistics help managers understand what the team is doing right as opposed to what it is doing wrong.
Who are the baseball team’s customers? The fans. Do the fans care about statistical data? Some of the more hard-core ones do, but even they will admit that the most important statistic at the end of the game is the final score. The ultimate goal of every season is to win a championship, seasonal stats notwithstanding.
Increasing the number of paying customers is like winning games to your clients. Every month in which a client beats the competition represents another game won. The championship goal is for that client to ultimately become the clear leader in its industry.
Important Metrics to You
As an SEO expert or digital marketing provider, you look at all sorts of metrics. Even mundane things, like how long visitors are spending on your client’s site, are meaningful to you. But you are probably most interested in the following five metrics:
- Organic traffic
- Visitor engagement
- Repeat visitors
- Subscriber numbers
- Conversion rates.
Hitting your goals on all five metrics means you are creating value for your client’s customers. You can turn around and show your clients positive numbers to demonstrate that you are doing your job. All that is well and good. But still, your clients will evaluate your success based on the bottom line. If your efforts are producing more paying customers, you are good to go. If not, your clients may not continue with you once their contracts are up.
You Do Whatever Works
So, what does all of this mean to the SEO expert or digital marketer? According to Salt Lake City’s Webtek Digital Marketing, it means that you do whatever works. You do whatever it takes, within the framework of white hat practices, to make sure that your clients see more paying customers.
There is no black-and-white formula you can apply to every single client. Different industries require different strategies. Even within a single industry, companies may target different audiences. The best SEO and digital marketing providers make the effort to know their clients inside and out so that they can customize SEO and marketing strategies accordingly.
It all boils down to this one simple fact: the #1 metric clients are most interested in is paying customers. That is what really matters to them. You could dispense with all the other metrics as long as you can demonstrate that the number of paying customers is increasing.
