By Amber Trendell, Global Marketing Programs Director, Autotask
Benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential guide posts to help us understand where we are in the context of our peers, industry and competition. Without them, there is no understanding of metrics such as maximum (or minimum) threshold for productivity, revenue growth rates, efficiency, client satisfaction or differentiation. The list goes on and on.
By Amber Trendell, Global Marketing Programs Director, Autotask
Benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential guide posts to help us understand where we are in the context of our peers, industry and competition. Without them, there is no understanding of metrics such as maximum (or minimum) threshold for productivity, revenue growth rates, efficiency, client satisfaction or differentiation. The list goes on and on.
Benchmarking your business against a standard set of metrics gives you a clear view of opportunities for improvement as well as opportunities to share success stories with your team.
Reliable Data Can Be Hard to Come By
Depending on your industry, there may be a lack of solid metrics. We have found this particularly true in the IT managed services space. To help the IT industry move toward a data-driven approach that focuses on efficiency, accountability and intelligence, Autotask commissioned a custom survey in February 2013.
Case Study: IT Service Provider Benchmarking Survey
In February 2013, Autotask (a hosted IT business management solutions provider) commissioned the company’s first, global Information Technology Service Provider (ITSP) Benchmarking Survey with Decision Tree Labs. With feedback from 229 global respondents, survey results showed that best-in-class service providers are applying business data and analytics to increase efficiency and predictability in their business operations, ensure higher customer satisfaction, optimize utilization rates and make other improvements to drive profitability and growth.
Leveraging and Promoting the Results
Autotask designed an extensive array of marketing assets to showcase the survey findings, including three eBooks; two infographics; a video; a webinar; a campaign landing page; twelve blog posts and a checklist comprising the 10 Metrics Every IT Service Provider Should be Tracking.
These assets were promoted via various marketing channels, with email marketing, PPC and social being the primary outlets.
Content Performance/Metrics
The Metrics that Matter campaign — the company’s most successful to date — was officially launched in April 2013 and ran for nine consecutive months. Key results include:
- Influenced 35% of revenue in first month of the campaign
- Drove 20% of all inquiries for two consecutive months
- Influenced 10% of total revenue for the year
- Achieved payback in less than six months
Amber Trendell (@ambertrendell) is Autotask’s Global Marketing Programs Director.
