Metrics: What I think I need vs what I actually need

What I think I need in terms of marketing:

• More likes, impressions, mentions, profile visits
• Less unfollows
• More followers
• Publishing a lot (tweets, threads, posts)
• More comments

What I actually need:

• More conversions, new sign-ups
• Less churn
• Better connections
• Posts that my audience find relevant, valuable, insightful, useful
• Better relationships with potential customers

It’s all too easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Yes, the first list of metrics are useful. Every successful business tracks them. But that’s not the endgame. The second list of metrics are more reliable at signalling my ultimate endgame – more monthly recurring revenue, more profit.

These are little truths that we often already know when we chance upon it, isn’t it? No-brainers.

But it’s exactly these things that we need frequent reminders for because it’s so easy to get stuck in the nitty-gritty of implementation that we forget what we’re really after.

For me, at least.

Since doing marketing for Lifelog on Twitter, I’d been tracking my analytics. Just for July alone:

• Tweeted 109 tweets, up 203%
• Impressions 22.9k, up 336%
• Profile visits 2,627, up 280%
• Mentions 49, up 96%
• Followers at 200, up 3 new followers

But even though the numbers had been encouraging, it didn’t translate to more subscriptions. No significant, discernible difference for July, nor the past few months, at least.

If I just looked at my analytics, it would be a success.
If I looked at my MRR, it’s a failure.

It’s clear which number I should be listening to more, which one should drive a change in behaviour, my behaviour.