A lot of the time what goes wrong in marketing comes down to a misalignment between goals and tools and measurements.

A goal may be appropriate, but if the brand uses the wrong tool to achieve that goal — or the right tool but the wrong measurement — then a successful outcome is very much in doubt.

Let’s say you set a goal to increase brand awareness and decide the best way to increase brand awareness is to publish a technical white paper. Unless the audience is highly technical, and only gets their jollies from white papers, that probably won’t work.

Or, say instead you decide to increase awareness by publishing a few entertaining and informative videos, but then measure the success of those videos by an increase in customer retention. That probably won’t work either. Existing customers need different information.

There’s a whole kit and caboodle of these cross-footed scenarios, so we made a delightful reference tool to help you (and us!) keep them straight.

We call that tool the KPI Alignment Wheel:

The KPI Alignment Wheel — OK, it’s really more of a KPI Alignment Hexagon, for you polygon fundamentalists out there — is designed to help marketers align their strategies and tactics to the appropriate marketing stage.

Some might suggest these stages are a funnel. Us, we’re partial to a wheel. It’s the circle of marketing life, Simba.

This is not an all-encompassing tool that prescribes every specific KPI that exists in every type of marketing funnel. Rather, it’s a tool that reveals the fundamental considerations at each stage.

If you get those fundamentals right, the customers will follow. Get them wrong? You’ll be left wondering why your white paper didn’t go viral.

Which is to say, white papers don’t go viral.

We hope the wheel is useful to you. Have a look, print it out, give it a spin. And by all means, holler back and tell us how we can improve it. Because being useful to our readers is our primary KPI.

Fin