What the average marketer tracks every day:

Tweets. Shares. Views. Likes. Retweets. Searches. Comments. Pings. Pokes. +Ks. Reads. Phone calls. Leads. Qualified leads. Converted leads. Return on Investment. Conversations. Recommendations. Votes. Mentions. LinkedIn  connections.  Pins. Returned calls. Repeat visits. Twitter followers. Unique views. Keywords. Tags. Social rank. Klout score. Inbound links. Sale. Household income. Lifetime value. Subscribers. Facebook fans. Latent leads. Referral ops. Influencers. Cost per acquisition. Sentiment of conversation. Social graph. Opens. Registrations. Touchpoints. Churn. Business cards collected. Reach. Email lists. Bounce rates. Quotas. Open rates. Click-throughs. Ad views. Ad clicks. Ad conversions. Inbound leads. Outbound calls. Content. Web site conversion. Viralness of videos. Peer Index Score. Customer acquisition. Contact frequency. Kred score. Size of wallet. Attendee rate. Surveys completed. Number of posts. Frequency of posts. Length of posts. Impressions. Cost Per Click. Cost Per Thousand Views. Cost Per Conversion. Cost Per Action. Connections. Activity. Drop-off rate. Engagement rate. Unsubscribe rate.  Number of press releases. Number of interviews. Number of press events. Volume of coverage. Share of voice. Backlinks. Delivery rate. Response rate.  Size of purchase. Brand mentions. Average time on site. Referral sites. Exit pages.

What the average marketer learns about the customer experience from what he/she has tracked:  0.

Get the point? Take a minute. Walk outside. Breathe some fresh air. Throw a football around with the neighbor’s kid. Clear your head.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

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Back? OK, now pay attention. All that time you spent counting: a colossal waste of time.

It’s imperative that you understand you’ve lost this battle. Sulk; lick your wounds; hit rock bottom.

Then start counting again but this time, with a plan.  Begin by mapping a customer lifecycle that pinpoints the interactions a customer has with your brand from first awareness, through purchase and on to advocacy. Next, append the metrics you’re monitoring to that specific customer’s lifecycle map.

In no time, the metrics you’re counting will transform from numbers to insights. You’ll start to see trends across different customer segments: what frequency of posts leads to qualified leads; what types of conversations create actual lead conversions; what sentiment levels lead to increased customer churn.

The insights you failed to realize during the past two years while busily collecting data will become crystal clear within the first quarter. No, realigning your thinking and your company’s processes around this strategy is not simple. Nothing worth doing ever is.

What’s your take? Is there value in number crunching if it’s not tied to the customer value? Join the debate.

Sam Fiorella – Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego