Where are you in your digital marketing maturity?

The Brilliant Metrics Marketing Maturity model represents the different levels of maturity marketing teams go through as they grow and add levels of sophistication and capability.

Read the cards below

Strategy

Having objectives, a plan and a feedback loop for tracking success.

You have some vision for where you would like to take your marketing program, but for the moment you are flying by the seat of your pants, entirely reactive to the needs of the business and/or the product or sales teams. You wish you had clearly defined objectives for your team and the space to consistently work toward them, but you are stuck in a never-ending pattern of sales-driven campaigns and product team support requests.

You have clearly defined and agreed-upon objectives, but your plan to get there is regularly sidelined in favor of business “needs” or shiny objects. The strategy relies heavily on 1-2 channels, which if they don’t pan out, can tank results for the year. You wish you had a stronger commitment for sticking to the objectives you laid out at the begining of the year. You also wish you had a diversified plan and a regular meeting cadance to track progress, but all of this requires a cultural shift in addition to more structure and better feedback loops than you have at the moment.

You have clearly defined and agreed-upon objectives, a diversified/omnichannel strategy to get there, andKPIs to measure success. You meet on a regular cadance to make sure you are on track and you have defined KPIs, plus supporting data, to measure success. You wish more decisions were made with data and that you had fewer deviations from your plans, but you lack a few key pieces of data needed for decision-making and you need a better governance model for knowing when to pivot and how to document it.

You have clearly defined and agreed-upon objectives, a diversified/omnichannel strategy to get there, KPIs to measure success, and a governance process for adjusting fire as you move through the year. Almost all decisions are made using data, not gut.

Collaboration

Integrating the Marketing team with sales and customer service to guide the entire customer experience.

You are able to support the sales team with content because you have a well-ironed process to do so. You wish you had more of a collaborative relationship with sales, but the culture is one of flipping leads over the wall and is borderline adversarial.

You are able to support sales with promotions that offer a shot-in-the-arm boost in numbers because you have the capabilities to wrap those promotions in multi-channel marketing campaigns. You are able to deliver a consistent stream of leads because you have programs or a campaign cycle that generates interest. You regularly get flack for either the quantity or quality of these leads and you wish you could optimize them, but you don’t have the technoloogy (CRM) or processes in place to create a feedback loop. You wish your role was less subservient to sales, but you don’t know how to change the culture and relationship.

You are able to support sales with a steady stream of quality leads because you have a lead scoring model that works and the technology (CRM) and the processes for a feedback looop. You are able to partner with sales on long-term programs because you have developed a collaborative relationship, can demonstrate your value through data, and sit at the same table within the organization. You wish you had a greater role in defining the customer experience across all departments, but don’t currently have that authority and/or lack the knowledge/skills to bring a plan to the table.

You are able to ensure a consistent, on-brand and positive customer experience because you regularly work with sales and customer service to make sure that every customer experience is intentional and supported with the right messaging and multi-channel delivery. You are able to maximize revenue because marketing and sales work hand-in-hand to develop programs that flow seamlessly from See to Give journey states and you are not measured independently on producing and closing leads.

Content & Creative

Producing and optimizing content and creative.

You are able to deliver regular content peices because you have the resources in place to produce it. You wish you could be more strategic in the content you produce, but your direction is usually coming from sales or the product teams and you lack data and insights into what your audience wants. You also wish you had a better handle on what content works and what doesn’t, but you lack volume of engagement and/or the technology or skills to get metrics out of the engagement.

You are able to keep content and creative on track to acheive departmental goals because you have an editorial calendar keeping it organized and focused. You wish you had a better process for optimization, but lack the skills or technology to A/B test and/or the metrics and feedback on what’s working.

Every piece of content you produce is focused on results because you have an editorial calendar (with an objective, audience and point in the buyers journey for each peice), plus a written buyers journey and personas to guide you and your internal and external resources. You keep the graph moving up and to the right because you regularly experiment and optimize your content and have the feedback loops to understand what’s performing. You wish you could do more to optimize, but lack the resources or analytics capabilities to apply continuous improvement to your entire catalog of content.

You get the maximum ROI from every single piece of content or creative by not only keeping it focused (using an editorial calendar, personas and a written buyer’s journey), but you also maximize reuse, both over a long period of time (evergreen) and across mediums (written, audio, video, graphics). You make sure your entire body of content and creative continues to produce results because you have a process in place for revisiting old content and enhancing, updating or optimizing it.

Website & SEO

Measuring and optimizing the acquisition and conversion of website traffic.

You have a modern website that gets updated or redesigned every 2-3 years as a comprehensive project. You wish you had recurring content and regular updates, but you lack the data and analysis required to know where to direct that energy and/or resources to do the work.

You have Google Analytics set up and occasionally review reports. You are also consistently producing or updating content based on target keywords you have developed and feedback you get from Google Search Console on your rankings or performance. You wish you had better clarity on where your traffic was coming from, which traffic was quality traffic, and better abilities to segment visitors on your site so you could better grow your traffic, but you lack the time, technology and resources to tune and enhance your analytics capability.

You have a highly optimized website, both for user experience (espeiciall mobile) and SEO and perform regular technical audits. Your Google Analytics is configured (and links properly tagged) to understand both the sources of your best traffic, as well as the quantity and quality of that traffic. Furthermore, you can pull out certain market segments and/or personas for further analysis. You have a process for not only producing content, but regularly updating well-performing content and pruning or pivoting poorly performing content. You wish you had a better handle on what works to nurture and convert traffic on your site, but you do not have the ability or resources to perform regular optimizations.

Your website is optimized for technical SEO, user experience, and you have a program of regular A/B tests for conversion rate optimization. In addition to on-page optimization, you have a program in place to capitalize on off-page optimization through PR and/or backlinking. Your growing body of content is regularly updated when performing well and pruned when not and caters equally to every point in the buyer’s journey and is optimized to convert into subsequent pageviews, email opt-ins or revenue generating sales or leads. Your analtyics are tuned to the point you can analyze both content and visitors based on market segment, persona, and position in the buyers journey.

Paid Media

Reaching your customers, influencers and prospects via paid digital advertisements or endorsements.

You buy digital media through a print media partner, occasionally boost ads on Facebook and/or have a Paid Search campaign or two. You wish you understood if these efforts really brought you any returns and where you could grow your paid media while getting a return on your investment.

You have goals and objectives behind your paid media and place strategic bets with publications, paid social media, a media agency and/or paid search. Because you are at least tagging your URLs with utm_campaign, you have some idea of how your media is driving traffic. You wish you could understand both quantity and quality of traffic generated and have more sophisticated media placement and targeting.

You have media targeting each stage of the buyer’s journey and it is further segmented by market and/or persona. You are able to analyze traffic both by quantity and quality, possibly even directly to revenue (depending on your industry). You wish you had better optimization and targeting capabilities.

You have media targeting every intersection of the buyer’s journey with market and/or persona. You are able to analyze traffic both by quantity and quality, possibly even directly to revenue (depending on your industry). You are running regular A/B test to improve the performance of every piece of media at launch and all evergreen media over time.

Email & Marketing Automation

Reaching your customers, influencers and prospects through database-driven strategy and automation.

You have a process for sending a monthly newsletter to a list you have built over the years, and a process for adding people to that list as sales or marketing interacts with them. You wish you had a better handle on which emails were working for you and why, but you lack the resources, technology or skills to experiment and track results after the click.

You are able to not only reach your audience regularly, but also create tailored drip campaigns based on their actions because you have a marketing automation platform in palce and the training/skills to begin putting it to work. You wish you could deliver more personalized email experiences, but you lack segmentation in your database and/or the knowledge, skills or resources to create more of a 1:1 experience. You also wish you could move to an opt-in strategy and optimizing your list to be more compliant with regulations and create a better experience, but because you are measured on volume (and you don’t have a steady stream of opt-ins), every send counts.

You are able to provide near 1:1 multi-channel marketing for some prospects because you have a series of nurtures offering a deliberate cadence of emails plus other channels such as direct mail or SMS based on your audeince’s actions. You are able to improve results, period-over-period, because you regularly A/B test subject lines and content and you have metrics and KPIs in place to know what’s working and what’s not. You are able to reach the specific audience you want to, because your database is well segmented and you have a process for improving the coverage of data. You wish you had a more comprehensive picture of where prospects sit in the buyers journey, but you lack the skills and technology to keep the database up to date.

You are able to provide a true 1:1 multichannel experience across email, direct mail, paid media, browser notifications and more because you very rarely send a batch email, instead relying on marketing automation or your CDP to provide highly prescribed nurtures and dynamic content across a variety of channels based on where the audience member is in thier buyers journey and their unique segmentation. You are able to maintain a stellar deliverability rate, avoiding the promotions tab, and keep unsubscribes incredibly low because you are continuously optimizing contet to provide the best experience and you can affort do only market to those who are actively engaging in your content due to a steady stream of opt-ins.

Events

Reaching your customers, influencers and prospects via virtual events or digital support of live events.

You are able to add people to your email list off of the events you run because you have processes for capturing those leads. You wish you could increase the return on investment of your events with digital strategies, but you lack resources and/or knowledge.

You are able to increase the value of your virtual and in-person events because you have supporting media or email wrapped around each event. You wish you could fully capitalize on events to generate leads and data, but you lack resources and your data sits in silos between different vendors and platforms.

You are able to fully maximize the return on your investment in digital and live events by leveraging marketing automation, paid media, and digital analytics. You wish you could provide a better digital experience during the event, but lack resources and/or knowledge

You are able to fully maximize the return on your investment in digital and live events by leveraging marketing automation, paid media, and digital analytics. You are able to offer better experiences and generate better data than your competitors because you have integrated technology (mobile and interactive) into every event experience.