Brutal Opinion on Marketing KPIs

Running is fun. Eggnog is delicious. Pineapple belongs on pizza. Naps are a waste of time.

Just because an opinion is unpopular doesn’t make it wrong.

Want to know an unpopular opinion of mine that I’m not ashamed to share?

Hire and fire your staff based on KPIs.

I know, I know. It sounds really harsh. But here’s how I explained it to Certified EOS Implementer® Stas Balanevsky in our interview.

Hire and fire based on KPIs

Too often I see companies and marketing departments relying on BS metrics. When departments start floundering, companies will panic not knowing how to fix the problem when the issue is right. Rather than focusing on some pointless metric, companies need to use something measurable.

Let’s say you have a CMO whose job is to fill sales qualified leads. That’s a hire-able or fire-able metric. Meaning if they’re not hitting a specific number, they are the wrong person for the job. Right person, right seat (a core EOS® tenant).

But if you’ve got these junk metrics in there, like a marketing qualified lead (MQL), what is that? How are you defining that? Filling out an eBook or requesting a demo is not enough. You can’t stop at the MQL level.

If you can’t hire and fire off your KPI, it’s not a real KPI. It’s just an interesting core metric.

And this is why it’s so important that your KPIs align with your overall marketing strategy. Your KPIs are the way to measure your progress to your vision…your goal…whatever you want to call your end game.

Don’t trust all activity-based indicators of performance

I admit it – I’m jaded when it comes to activity-based indicators of performance. I’m a marketer and I’ve been in-house. I’ve had to put together board of directors’ slide decks that make marketing stats look good…even when they’re not.

Here’s the problem. I can always make them look good because I know how to bullshit marketing numbers. I can find any stat on any website that makes it look like the marketing team is doing stuff well.

So instead, I recommend measuring the ratio of how well something is working.

Here’s how that looks.

On my scorecard, I would have an MQL to SQL conversion ratio with a target. I’d work it until I get it to whatever the target is. Monitor it, then work it again.

You’ve got to have something real and you’ve got to have something measurable. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.