One the most fascinating parts of digital marketing is vanity metrics.
You know the focus on list numbers, followers on all your channels, site visits, page views, likes, comments… the list can go on. Well some of the so called vanity metrics are actually more important than others.
I know that you are probably thinking, “What? But aren’t we encouraged to disregard vanity metrics altogether and just focus building engagement with real potential clients?”
Well, yes, you are.
We do want real followers, real potential customers and people on our lists, no matter how small, that actually buy. I was listening to a Gary Vee video today and he said very casually that you could only have one person on your list, as long as it is Oprah Winfrey.
How many of us have a small list of cashed up Oprah Winfreys?
I am betting not too many of us.
So whilst, yes, we can ignore vanity metrics to a point, I am here to say that you ignore them at your peril.
You can’t build a business unless you do focus on these metrics, especially in periods of active growth. How you are perceived in the online space is critical to your success. Success breeds more success so building a large social media footprint (as big as you can as fast as you can is great!) will enable you to leverage your personal brand, your business brand and that feeling of authority and trust that a large group of followers says immediately.
Who would you rather connect with, the person with a Facebook page of 1000 people or 100 people? That Instagram account with 5000 followers or the one with 500? Numbers like these are meaningful in the context of first impressions. In the absence of any other point of differentiation, who are you more likely want to choose?
Whilst it is unfair, the more popular online you are, the more popular online you become. Google knows this, that is why traffic is one of the items included in search algorithm. We need to be always active in seeking to expand our reach online. By focusing on maximising your digital reach via your social channels, you can then focus on sending more people to your website.
Of course, that is the aim of all business with a website. But what if we wanted to send more and more people to our website so that we can get smarter about how we target them online?
This is where vanity metrics or to be more correct really focussing in on building traffic to key parts of our digital ecosystem get incredibly valuable.
Let’s take Facebook retargeting for example. Most savvy business owners would already have their Facebook pixel embedded into their website. (If not stop reading and do this now!). What we want to do is to drive sufficient numbers of traffic to certain areas of our website ( say our most recent offer for example ) so that we can then specifically target those people to bring them into our world via the Facebook advertising ecosystem.
We all know that we need to utilise multiple touch points to bring in a new prospect or even to convert existing clients to an upgrade offer. By focusing on maintaining a high enough audience (in what I like to call my retargeting buckets), we can create a sophisticated funnel inside the Facebook ad platform that will take our customers on a journey with us – even without an email address to a sale.
The same can occur with any other retargeting process; but if our audience numbers are too small, then the value of this approach cannot be realised. Facebook won’t even allow you to target people unless you have at least 1000 people in your retargeting audience.
So have a long, hard look at traffic numbers for some of the key pages of your website. Look deeply at your landing pages. Are you driving enough people into these areas so that you can leverage the full power of retargeting to secure those sales?
We have all heard plenty of digital marketers who say your money is in your list.
I have also heard a few who insist that as long as you find the right people, you can sell into them even if your list is small.
So who here is putting their hand up with a list of Oprah Winfreys?
Not me, I would rather increase my likelihood of success and trust the stats.
Keep driving those numbers up. Doing all the right things will pay dividends for you; but you need to keep being focused on getting LOTS of eyeballs on that content.
