The amount of data (not the same as information, much less knowledge) to which we have access is immense. And it continues to grow as our ability to measure evolves (knowledge, experience, tools, etc.).
Selecting the right metric is the equivalent of answering a question. I am often asked questions like: “what are the metrics to measure xyz?” Sometimes you can give philippines girls telegram some base metrics, but the complete recipe is different for each case. There are not (and should not be) two identical dashboards for two different companies. Each one has specific needs.
The same thing happens when reporting to a CEO: we need to answer his questions (appropriate metrics) and no two CEOs or businesses are the same (the same indicators are not valid for two different cases), but what I can do is give you some basic guidelines and the most basic metrics, so that they can serve as a guide.
Let's start by providing some context.
We need to give visibility to marketing from a CEO's perspective
We need to offer a top-down view, not the other way around. In other words, it's not about reporting the metrics that are most relevant to us, but the metrics that are most relevant to them. It sounds like the same thing, but it's not.
Before defining the most interesting metrics, applicable to most CEOs, we must understand the context.
How to define a marketing dashboard for a CEO?
What features should a marketing dashboard have to be useful for a CEO?
We need to look at things from their perspective.
1. Strategic vision : the first thing is to understand that what happens in the digital area (I have intentionally removed marketing) is part of a larger strategic plan. Therefore, this dashboard should better describe how we are advancing in this plan from the digital area.
Therefore, this dashboard must report on a wide variety of things:
With this vision we must decide where to put the focus, and for this our opinion is essential, but above all that of the person who will receive the dashboard.
2. CEO involvement in defining the scorecard : if we want to report correctly to someone, it is best to have a prior meeting to gather their needs, and combined with our expertise they will give rise to the scorecard.
It's an obvious thing, but it's not common, especially when it comes to the CEO. It seems like we have to guess what he or she needs to know. It seems like we're afraid to ask or we're supposed to know it already. Whatever the reason, the reality is that these dashboards are often defined without this prior work.
Whether directly or indirectly, we must ask them about their information and knowledge needs (not data) in order to do a good job. It is not about being fortune tellers and putting in whatever indicators we think are best.
This not only wastes the CEO's time but also causes many other problems due to a lack of visibility. The right decisions are not made because there is no proper understanding of what is happening. Imagine the number of things that can go wrong.
3. Adapt the language and visualization to the CEO : for this dashboard to be useful, it must be actionable, and for that to happen, its recipient must understand it. For this to happen, we must adapt the language, the metrics (and their explanation), the visualization and the level of detail required (no more, no less) to the recipient (CEO).
All of these variables will be different depending on the person, their level of knowledge, their involvement in the digital area, etc., so it is a job tailored to each case. And we must do our best, because the visibility of the area and the decisions taken about it depend in part on this.
With the initial clarifications out of the way, let’s move on to describing the basic marketing metrics for a CEO.