Closed-loop reporting is an extremely powerful tool that plays a key role in inbound marketing success. It’s more than just a nifty way to display your marketing work to your bosses; it enables marketers to improve marketing tactics. One of the main goals of closed-loop reporting is to close the gap between marketing and sales – but how is this supposed to help your company? What exactly should you expect from closed-loop reporting? Its a tough technique to grasp, but once you do, you will be able to see the vitality of having closed-loop reporting as a part of your marketing campaign. So why do I need closed-loop reporting? Well, in this blog post I will cover 5 of the main benefits adding closed-loop reporting to your marketing can increase conversions, leads, and sales.

Closed-loop reporting can be extremely confusing! If you are having trouble with your closed-loop reporting, let us know! We would love to talk with you about closed-loop reporting and how it can help your company prosper.

What is Closed-Loop Reporting?

A good way to start explaining the benefits of closed-loop reporting is to explain what exactly closed-loop reporting is. Closed-loop marketing is marketing that heavily relies on information and data that helps understand different types of leads and prospects. The term “closing the loop” simply refers to sales connecting with marketing. Sales reports to marketing and lets them know what happened with the leads they sent them. This tells marketing where the best and worst leads come from, allowing them to make educated marketing decisions that will be beneficial to the company in the future. With closed-loop reporting, marketers are more prepared when dealing with leads and prospects, and they can plan more strategically for the future.

If you want more on what closed-loop marketing is, check out this blog post on just that!

Alright, time for the list! Here are 5 benefits to adding closed-loop reporting to your current marketing efforts.

1) Make Your Boss Happy: Deliver Clearer Results

Ever get that feeling that you know something super crazy, but you can’t get anyone to believe you?  Well, closed-loop reporting solves that very problem. You will never walk into a marketing meeting feeling unprepared and nervous again. Closed-loop reporting helps you build authority with your marketings and make educated decisions that are proven to be beneficial to the company. It shows that your methods are based solely on hard evidence, not some crazy mad-scientist theory. Think about it! What would your boss think if you said, “Since I published this landing page, I produced 28% more traffic, generated 12 new leads, and got 5 new customers”? He’d be pretty impressed. He might even tell you to keep doing what you’re doing! I know I would. Thats the beauty of closed-loop reporting.

2) Gain Information About Your Target Market

When you know everything about every lead in a 360 degree view of your company’s sales cycle, the possibilities are endless when it comes to learning lead information. When you track a user’s first visit to your website, watch their activities on your site, learn what this particular lead is interested in, you are collecting information about your leads. This can help you create user-specific buyer personas that drastically improve your chances of making a sale! With this information, lead nurturing will be a breeze, and you’ll be the hero of the office – even if just for a few minutes after the sale is made. Hey – I say it’s still worth it!

3) Shorten Your Sales Cycle

When you know all there is to know about your leads and you send them targeted information that you know they will be interested in, you spend much less time trying to push them into a sale. If you know that most of your sales in the past year have been to teenage boys, then you know that you should either a) focus on marketing to teenage boys and spend less money on marketing to elderly women, or b) try to expand your marketing to appeal to people other than teenage boys. It’s your choice! Closed-loop reporting gives you this information and, in turn, this invaluable marketing insight.

4) Set Accurate Goals & Expectations

When you know your exact conversion rates, lead generation rates, and everything else about your marketing campaign, you can make realistic goals for your company on a month by month basis. Has your boss ever given you a goal you know you can’t reach? (I’ve been in this boat! Don’t tell him, though! Shh…) Closed-loop reporting gives you reports generated every month that you can use to set achievable goals and expectations that aren’t too outlandish to reach.

5) Lower Your Cost-Per-Lead

Closed-Loop reporting tells you which marketing mediums have performed the best for your company. With this information, you know where your inbound marketing budget should be going and what exactly you need to spend money on. If you know that your hot dog promotion produced more customers than your burger ad, you know which of the two you should be promoting more. Either that or you need better burgers, but I don’t think inbound marketing can solve that issue. Regardless, as you collect information about all your marketing, the more educated decisions become. Why waste money on things that don’t work, right? Closed-loop reporting takes out the guesswork.

Still not convinced? Read this beginner’s guide to closed-loop reporting for more!

How has closed-loop reporting revolutionized your marketing?