photo courtesy Yume Photo

Numbers are great, numbers are annoying. Numbers can make you obsess, or they can make you shrug your shoulders.

WordPress tells us this is Post #200. We have the feeling we’ve done more than that, but maybe we haven’t.

Which brings us to the subject – which numbers should you obsess over, and which ones aren’t worth it?

#1: If you’re a newbie, get a snapshot.

Great post by our new BFF, a guy named Mark Suster, whose post on TechCrunch last week (ABR) was so downright awesome, we didn’t think we’d see another one from him.

Then we saw this one: Why Startups Need to Blog. And it got us thinking – what if the startup exec is so focused on their product development that they don’t know how to get going, and what they should be doing when they DO decide to blog?

OR: what if you’re running a home-based business and you are fearful that you’ll be doing it wrong before you even get started?

For the Newbie, we recommend visiting Grader.com and using their Website Grader tool.

CAVEAT: We’ve said it before, on webcasts, and we’ve told folks who are part of the (ever-growing) 12 Minute Marketing community – Grader.com is not the end-all, be-all of reporting tools. BUT, if you are brand new, you can find out what you’re doing right, or what the others do right. And you can borrow from what works.

#2: If you’ve been at it for awhile, but you’re not 200% sure, start looking at Click-Through Rates. (“CTRs”)

You should be using a few different tools on your website – even if you’re not a professional blogger or a professional communicator.

Followers of this space know that we’ve done the Hellobar thing, and we quite like it from a look, feel, and unobtrusive standpoint.

But here’s the thing: CTRs on Hellobar can be all over the place. We’re testing several, on a few different sites.

We’re doing aWeber for their autoresponders, and we’re studying numbers; we’ve also used MailChimp and we weren’t crazy about numbers of signups we got for email newsletters.

We look at headlines that convert, topics that convert, and when and where we promote things. Or don’t promote things.

#3: If you have (gasp) a Marketing Budget…

If you actually have a Marketing Budget, this means that you have moved beyond the “social media is free!” camp and are ready for big time everything.

I’ve seen folks move beyond 1 employee and have 2 or 3 or 5 and still not have a formal marketing budget, relying on a couple relationships with their buddy who got them an ad deal or the guy who does Google Adwords for them.

This is okay – but it had better be two things:

It had better be Integrated. It had better Have a Point.

Integrated means your radio ad has a call-to-action, or your conference sponsorship gets people to come by your booth.

Have a Point means just that – the days of “branded advertising” on the part of those who have budgets but don’t have unlimited budgets are, well, gone.

Here’s where your Return on Marketing Investment – ROMI – becomes vital.

Fact: I have worked on marketing teams at Fortune 500-sized companies that did not have ROMI as something they tracked.

What are you investing in marketing? People (FTEs), Time, and Money. Social is all three if done even close to well. You need to start obsessing on these numbers.

Hey, it wouldn’t be Area 224 post number 200 if we didn’t give you 3 points, right?