We’ve been making the call for a while now but it’s even more relevant in this critical season for businesses: Marketers need to make quantifying their efforts a habit.
According to the 2019 Global Digital Outlook, 77% of all companies increased their digital spend in that year. This is a recognition of the inevitable move into an ever more connected digital age. The same report indicated that almost 60% of all digital spend decisions are taken in the C-Suite.
This means that as traffic increases in the digital domain, marketers would need to have a strong and clear understanding of their results in this space. In other words, you’d need to be equipped to have clear, unambiguous discussions with senior leadership about your marketing successes.
Here is an example of how this could play out. In previous post, we have spoken about using brand storytelling to put forward your company’s purpose. Deloitte’s 2020 Global Marketing Trends tells CFOs to identify new financial metrics for living out the company’s purpose. CFOs in particular need to be willing to play the long game to include the company’s purpose into financial decision-making. But CFOs can only make these decisions if marketers equip them with honest and accurate numbers.
As marketers, we all need to start paying as much attention to our data and analytical skills as much as we do to our creative skills. In this blog post, we will give you some examples of great analytics and reporting tools that can help you make a strong case to your leaders:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
1. Hubspot CRM
HubSpot has a strong sales CRM background and uses this to create equally strong Marketing tools such as lead generation and email marketing. They pledge to help you actually grow your database, not just organise it
The value
With Hubspot’s CRM you can capture more leads, grow your database with their professional-looking landing pages which attracts more visitors to your site. They offer to automatically organise, enrich, and track each contact in a tidy timeline.
The price
Starter
$40 per month per small enterprise
Professional
$800 per month per enterprise
Enterprise
$3,200 per month per enterprise
2. Salesforce
Salesforce is a well-established sector leader. In their Marketing Cloud, you can make the most of every customer interaction by creating personalised, cross-channel customer journeys.
This means that you can deliver a great brand experience as you track content and responses across email, mobile, social, Web, and more.
The value
Salesforce uses its knowledge and experience from its pure sales platforms to give you great Marketing tools in the following areas: Email Marketing, Marketing Automation, Campaign Management, Reports & Analytics, and so much more.
The price
Basic
$1,000 per month per enterprise
Professional
$4,000 per month per enterprise
3. SuiteCRM – Open Source
SuiteCRM position themselves as an Open Source CRM with comparable features to much more expensive CRM platforms like Salesforce. They offer the flexibility of Open Source technology, which has equally strong capabilities in areas such as dynamic automation and segmentation tools.
The value
Their main selling point is the fact that their tools, such as campaign management, information repository, and 360-degree views, are as good as much more expensive market options. They claim that their powerful reporting and dashboards will compete with any service out there.
The price
Without stating their exact pricing, SuiteCRM promises to on-board new customers at 80% less outlay on traditional migration and support costs.
For Data-Visualisation:
4. Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI offers great self-service analytics at enterprise scale. Using all the tools in the Microsoft stable, this AI-driven visualisation software can seamlessly integrate with Excel and PowerPoint.
The value
This tool is good for small companies, but it comes alive in large enterprises. It has best-in-class data security which means that when you collaborate and publish to other teams, your information is protected.
The meaningful insights drawn from hundreds of data visualisations are kept on robust cloud computing technology. This enterprise BI tool with muscular big data analytics will keep you at the cutting edge of marketing analytics.
The price
Power BI Pro
$9.99 per month per user
Power BI Premium
$4,995 per month for unlimited users for large enterprises
5. Tableau
Tableau is a very strong market player with almost limitless visual analytics and dashboards that can be created in just a few clicks. You can share files internally and externally with ease and it’s good for businesses of all sizes.
The value
Tableau has been doing visual insights for longer than many of its competitors, and this experience comes out through its intuitive and visually-pleasing graphics. You can discover insights faster with their best-in-class analytics.
The price
Tableau Creator
$70 per user per month – mainly for individuals
Tableau Explorer
$35 per user per month – Min 5 users required
Tableau Viewer
$12 per user per month – Min 100 Viewers required
For Media Monitoring and Listening:
6. Meltwater
Meltwater’s comprehensive media monitoring solution offers the world’s largest source base, including 300,000 news sources, from 205 countries in 87 languages. They promise that you will never miss a mention.
Customisable dashboards let you analyse metrics by date, geography, language, and sentiment. Find out how you are gaining traction in relation to your competitors, and in which publications.
The value
Meltwater says that you should monitor online news because everyone’s opinions matter, and they can make sense of these opinions at scale. You get clear insights which are AI-driven, allowing you to direct your campaign strategies as you go along.
The price
From $4000 per year depending on features purchased
7. Brandwatch
Brandwatch promises to help you understand how consumers talk about you online with their data library of a staggering 1.4 trillion conversations.
The value
By listening in on the world’s conversations, you can make faster, data-driven decisions. They offer robust analytics features with real-time monitoring which offers great brand management.
The price
$1,000 per month for 10,000 mentions
The costs go up in relation to volume.
For Sales:
8. HighSpot
Highspot promises to help you improve the performance of your customer-facing teams by making it easier to find the content that has the most impact. They have strong engagement analytics to help you know what’s working.
The value
They promise to make your efforts more focused by delivering more customer-ready material when content is scattered or lost in silos. Their integrated platform gives you higher win rates with demanding customers.
You also get better marketing ROI by giving you visibility and control over all of your creative investments.
The price
Highspot’s pricing information is bespoke to your company and is only available upon request.
Salesforce (yes! It’s on our list again)
Salesforce helps you navigate uncertain times with a CRM that gives deeper customer insights and modern work-from-home capabilities.
The value
Salesforce promises that you can build longtime, loyal customers through powerful and useful interactions. You can connect sales, marketing, finance, and service teams to guide each prospect through a personalised customer journey.
The price
Essentials
$ 25 per user per month
Professional
$ 75 per user per month
Enterprise
$ 150 per user per month
Unlimited
$ 300 per user per month
In Conclusion
We’ve mentioned the danger of vanity metrics. There is a world of information out there, but not all metrics are created equal.
In the 2019 Global Digital Outlook, 78% of executives said they were looking for more detail and transparency around how partners were reporting on budget spending. This number was up from 66% the previous year.
There is no better time to equip yourself with that much-needed financial and statistical language as a marketer.