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At Level343, we strongly advocate recording your performance benchmarks before jumping into an SEO campaign. Why? Well, first, I think any true analyst or successful site owner naturally understands the value of sound metrics and continuous improvement. It’s intuitive – to chart a course forward, you must first pinpoint your current position.
However, many marketers misstep by gauging their achievements against industry averages or standards as their benchmarks. This raises a crucial question: Are you gathering the right performance benchmarks?
What is Performance Benchmarking?
Benchmarking is a process used by organizations to gauge their performance against the best in their industry or similar processes in different industries. This helps in identifying gaps in the processes and improving upon them.
Types of Benchmarking
There are several types of benchmarking, each with its focus and methodology:
1. Process Benchmarking
This is the most common type of benchmarking. It focuses on improving specific critical processes and operations. By comparing these processes to those of industry leaders, companies can identify best practices and discover areas for improvement.
2. Competitive Benchmarking
Organizations evaluate their performance metrics (like costs, cycle time, or product quality) against competitors. This often requires industry studies or benchmarking consortia to obtain relevant data for comparison.
3. Strategic Benchmarking
This type focuses on how companies compete in the market. By examining the strategies and business models of industry leaders, organizations can identify new or alternative methods to gain a competitive edge.
4. Functional Benchmarking
This type looks at best practices in other industries, not just your sector. For instance, a hotel chain might look at customer service practices in the airline industry or retail sector to find innovative methods to enhance customer service.
5. Internal Benchmarking
In a large organization with multiple units or branches, internal benchmarking compares practices and performances against other parts of the business. This helps in identifying internal best practices and leveraging them across the organization.
6. External Benchmarking
This involves comparing organizational performance to outside entities, typically industry leaders or direct competitors. It can offer insights into where the industry is headed and what best practices are emerging.
7. International Benchmarking
Given the globalized nature of modern business, some companies benchmark their operations and performance against leading firms in other countries. This can provide insights into global best practices, emerging trends, and potential areas of opportunity.
8. Best-in-Class Benchmarking
This is when an organization benchmarks itself against the best in any industry – not just its own. It’s about striving to meet or exceed the best, regardless of the sector.
Using these benchmarking approaches, you can identify gaps in your operations, processes, or strategies and implement changes that lead to greater efficiency, innovation, and competitiveness.
Why Industry Benchmarks Can Be Misleading
Dive into any marketing forum or chat with seasoned professionals; you’ll often hear the buzz around industry benchmarks. They’re flaunted as the go-to metrics, the North Star for many in the digital realm. But hold onto your hats because there’s a twist in the tale.
While industry benchmarks might seem like the golden ticket to success, they’re not always the heroes they’re made out to be. Let’s peel back the curtain and uncover why, sometimes, these performance benchmarks can lead you astray rather than guide you to glory:
1. Limiting Potential
Benchmarking against the industry average limits growth potential. Your true potential is overlooked. Think about it! An average is mediocre, dull, sometimes mundane, and often the status quo. “Average” is not something any individual or company should strive for. Companies that compare themselves to the average usually stop improving and innovating.
Rather than compare yourself to the industry average, compare yourself to the best-in-class–the top in the industry. This is the key to each of the benchmarking strategies above. When you’re aiming up, there’s no other direction to follow.
2. Inconsistency and Inaccuracy
Industry benchmark data, by its very nature, is not accurate. Industry data deals with relatively small percentages for KPIs. Key performance indicators are inconsistent from company to company with respect to what constitutes a conversion. A conversion might be filling out a contact form or a newsletter signup. It might also be a job inquiry.
3. Lack of Context
Industry benchmark data also fails to represent the total picture; it lacks context. For instance, if your company is losing money where it appears normal for its industry, should you really be okay with losing it month after month? How long will it be before your company closes its doors?
The Power of Unique KPIs in Performance Benchmarking
KPIs, chosen correctly, represent the area of greatest importance to your organization. This data will always provide an analysis of the big picture that is relevant to you. However, all the modern website reporting and analytics tools can be confusing because of their various reports. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds of reports rather than focusing on the key factors.
Performance benchmarks – especially campaign benchmarks – should be built around the goal you are trying to achieve at the time. For example, if you’re trying to increase engagement rates, your internal benchmarking metrics should include your current engagement rates. Do you want to improve your campaigns? You need marketing performance data as your benchmark.
Here are a few points to keep in mind when defining your KPIs:
1. Tailoring Metrics to Your Goals
Not all metrics are created equal. While there’s a galaxy of generic metrics, what works for one company might not work for another. Tailoring your KPIs according to your specific goals ensures that you’re not just tracking numbers; you’re tracking meaningful insights that correlate with your objectives.
2. Contextualizing Data
Understanding your unique KPIs allows for better contextualization of data. For instance, an e-commerce website might prioritize cart abandonment rates, whereas a blog might prioritize average session duration. Knowing what to focus on helps frame data in an actionable and relevant way.
3. Navigating the Noise
As mentioned previously, modern analytics tools present an array of data, making it easy to get lost in a sea of numbers. Honing in on your unique KPIs ensures you’re sifting through the noise and focusing on what truly matters. It’s about quality, not quantity.
4. Predictive Power and Proactivity
When you consistently understand and track your unique KPIs, it’s easier to spot trends and predict future challenges or opportunities. This proactive stance can give you a competitive edge, allowing you to adapt and innovate your marketing strategies based on foresight rather than reaction.
5. Enhancing Decision-making
Decision-making can be overwhelming, especially when inundated with heaps of data. But when tailored KPIs guide you, the path becomes more evident. It streamlines your decisions, making them more informed and efficient.
6. Continuous Improvement
The beauty of KPIs is that they’re not set in stone. As industries evolve and your business grows, your KPIs should adapt, too. Regularly revisiting and refining them ensures you remain aligned with your changing objectives and market dynamics.
While industry benchmarks provide a broad stroke of the landscape, your unique KPIs are the fine brush details that truly bring the picture to life.
The Role of Competitive Analysis
While industry benchmarking has its pitfalls, performing a competitive analysis is invaluable. Competitive analysis is the process of identifying your competitors and evaluating their strategies, strengths, weaknesses, products, and other characteristics to determine their market position relative to yours.
This analysis provides essential insights that can help businesses find competitive advantages and spots in the market where they can shine. It’s a crucial tool in business strategy and is the foundation for ensuring your business stays ahead of the curve.
Benefits of Competitive Benchmarking:
- Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses: By understanding where your competitors excel and where they falter, you can tailor your strategies to leverage your strengths and address areas of improvement.
- Uncovering Market Gaps: Competitive benchmarking can help you identify unmet needs in the market or services/products that competitors are not offering.
- Enhancing Product Development: Knowing what products or features your competitors offer can inspire innovation, helping you to develop superior products or to improve existing ones.
- Strategic Positioning: By understanding where you stand in the market compared to competitors, you can make informed decisions about your branding and positioning strategies.
- Risk Management: Recognizing threats in the market early allows you to pivot or adjust before challenges become critical.
- Price Optimization: If you know the pricing strategies of your competitors, you can better position your products or services in a way that offers better value to your customers, whether it’s through competitive pricing, bundled services, or premium offerings.
- Improved Marketing Strategies: By understanding competitors’ marketing tactics and campaigns, you can craft more compelling campaigns that differentiate you from the rest.
- Customer Retention: If you know what competitors offer, especially in customer service or loyalty programs, you can create initiatives to keep your current customers from jumping ship.
Incorporating competitive benchmarking into your business strategy ensures that you’re keeping pace with your competitors and seizing every opportunity to outpace them. It’s not about copying them but understanding the landscape to make better-informed decisions.
Leveraging Benchmarks for Successful Marketing Campaigns
Successful campaigns start with SMART goals. For example:
We want to increase the number of subscribers to our monthly e-newsletter by 15% over the next three months through targeted social media advertising and optimized signup landing pages.” Specific: The goal specifically targets the number of subscribers to the e-newsletter.
- Measurable: The target is to increase subscribers by 15%, which can be easily measured.
- Achievable: A 15% increase is a realistic target, assuming we have the proper resources.
- Relevant: Growing the e-newsletter subscriber base can help the company nurture leads, provide valuable content, and potentially increase sales.
- Time-bound: The goal is set to be achieved over a specific period, i.e., the next three months.
Once you have your goal, choosing the correct KPIs and setting the right performance benchmarks becomes easier. It now takes two questions:
- What metrics are directly relevant to the campaign goal? (KPIs)
- Where are we now? (Benchmark data)
Evaluating and Adjusting Marketing Campaigns
You need a recalibration if your campaign hasn’t yielded the desired results after a few months. How? By tracking, tweaking, and testing. Begin by comparing benchmarks with current analytics. Find the fluctuations in the relevant metrics. This in-depth analysis illuminates potential issues, enabling a more strategic marketing approach.
However, during these evaluations, it’s imperative not to act impulsively. A well-measured, systematic examination of your campaign is more beneficial than a hasty overhaul.
Wrapping it Up
Marketing is intricate. It includes continuous refinement, assessments, and re-strategizing. When the tide seems against you, don’t hastily discard your efforts. You can steer your campaign toward success with precise performance benchmarks and thorough analysis.
Want to master performance benchmarking with the pros? Let Level343’s expert team guide your strategy to new heights. Reach out to us today, and let’s take your business to the next level.
