Deciding what to measure

We talk a lot about measuring, but how do you know what you want to measure?

• Membership renewal rates month over month?

• Email open rates from one mailing to another?

• Email bounce rates month to month?

• Relationships between member interaction and membership renewal?

• Relationship between the length of the registration form and the form completion rate?

If you haven't made a practice of measurement and analysis, it can be hard to know where to start.

But if you think about it for a moment, you probably have some idea.

At some level, you know what you want to achieve, and you have some theory about how to achieve it.

That, if nothing else, is the place to start measuring.

As you get a little more familiar with the process, you'll also be building up a valuable store of information that will help you refine your measurements towards more specific, attainable, and valuable goals.

In the words of the immortal, er, somebody (Benjamin Franklin? Lady Gaga?):

You don't have to get it right; you just have to get it started.

All the best,
A.