As a small drilling business owner, you likely know everything there is to know about your local industry, its needs, and the most engaged clients within it. But how can you convert this interpersonal knowledge into metrics that can be tracked and leads that can be nurtured? This is where conversion analytics come into play. 

In this article, we’ll give you the best metrics to track for drilling business conversions and the best ways to track and alter them for greater success as a business owner or manager. After all, as famed mathematician Karl Pearson once said, “That which is measured improves.”

What do Conversions Look Like in the Drilling Industry?

Business conversions in the drilling industry refer to the process of turning potential leads into actual contracts or projects. This transformation is crucial, as it ultimately determines a business' efficiency and profitability. According to industry studies, the average conversion rate across various sectors can vary significantly, with top performers achieving rates substantially higher than the median. However, despite proof that top performers achieve greater results, for every $92 spent on getting new customers, companies only put $1 into improving conversion rates, according to HubSpot. In the drilling industry, this metric is particularly important due to the high costs and long sales cycles associated with securing projects. 

In the drilling sector, conversions can be seen when inquiries about services lead to formal proposals, which are accepted and signed off as contracts. These could include anything from small residential well drilling jobs to large commercial geothermal drilling projects. Each conversion represents a successful negotiation in which the service offerings align perfectly with the client’s requirements and budget.

Tracking conversions in the drilling industry requires a systematic approach. It begins with the initial client inquiry, followed by the proposal phase, negotiation, and finally, contract signing. Each stage should be meticulously recorded in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system or similar tracking tool to analyze the conversion rate effectively. 

Metrics to track include the number of proposals sent out, the percentage of proposals that turn into negotiations, and the percentage of negotiations that result in signed contracts. Additionally, drilling businesses should monitor the average time from the first contact to deal closure to identify bottlenecks and improve efficiency.

Understanding and analyzing these conversion metrics helps drilling companies make informed decisions about marketing strategies, sales tactics, and operational adjustments. This data-driven approach ensures that businesses are not only meeting the market demand but also optimizing their processes to improve conversion rates, thereby maximizing profitability and sustainability in a competitive market.

The 10 Best Metrics to Track for Small Business Success

When focused on your drilling business’ success, the metrics are key. By analyzing the data surrounding your business and its jobs, you can ensure that every job site ends with a positive review and a repeat customer. Below are 10 of the most important metrics small business owners should track for greater success, conversions, and retention. 

1. Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of visitors to your website or landing pages that complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form. It helps you understand the effectiveness of your website and landing pages in converting visitors into customers.

2. Cost Per Conversion: This measures the cost of acquiring a customer who takes a specific action, like making a purchase or signing up for a call with your team. This metric is particularly important for budgeting and understanding the financial efficiency of different marketing strategies.

3. Lead-to-Customer Rate: This metric tracks the percentage of leads that become paying customers. It’s essential for evaluating the effectiveness of your sales funnel and sales team.

4. Return on Investment (ROI): ROI measures the return from specific marketing activities compared to the cost of those activities. It helps determine which marketing strategies generate the most value for your business.

5. Click-Through Rate (CTR): For digital advertising or email marketing campaigns, CTR indicates the percentage of people who clicked on a link relative to the total number of people who saw the call to action. It helps assess the effectiveness of your ad copy or email content.

6. Bounce Rate: In the context of a website or a specific landing page, bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who navigate away after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate might indicate that the landing page is irrelevant or engaging enough.

7. Project Conversion Rate: This metric measures the percentage of proposals or bids that successfully convert into actual contracts or projects. Tracking the Project Conversion Rate helps a drilling business understand how effectively it is securing new projects from its sales and marketing efforts, which is critical for forecasting revenue and planning resource allocation. It also highlights the effectiveness of the proposal content, pricing strategies, and customer interactions during the negotiation phase.

8. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): CLV predicts the total value generated by a customer over the course of their relationship with your company. Understanding CLV can help tailor customer acquisition and retention strategies.

9. Social Media Engagement: For businesses utilizing social media marketing, measuring engagement (likes, shares, comments) can provide insights into how well content resonates with the target audience and can influence conversions indirectly.

10. Newsletter Sign-Ups and Email Open Rates: These metrics are vital for businesses that use email marketing to nurture leads. They help gauge interest and engagement levels, informing content strategy and frequency of communication.

While not all of these metrics will apply to every drilling business, the key is to find the most important metrics for you and your team to track to improve engagement, retention, and acquisition. Now, let’s take a closer look at the best ways to track these metrics and optimize your brand using their insights. 

How to Track and Optimize Your Drilling Business Conversions

In the competitive landscape of the drilling industry, utilizing sophisticated tools to track conversion metrics can greatly enhance decision-making and improve customer relationships. Here’s a breakdown of several popular metric trackers and how they can be specifically used by drilling companies to monitor and optimize their conversion processes:

• Sprout Social: Sprout Social is primarily known for its social media management capabilities, but it also offers powerful analytics that can help drilling companies track engagement and conversion rates from social media platforms. By monitoring likes, comments, shares, and direct messages, Sprout Social can help identify which types of posts drive the most interaction and lead to inquiries, allowing companies to refine their social media strategies to target potential clients more effectively.

• HubSpot: HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM, marketing, sales, and service software that is invaluable for tracking the entire customer journey. Drilling companies can use HubSpot to track interactions from initial contact through to project completion. Its tools allow for the monitoring of email opens, click-through rates on digital proposals, and submission of inquiry forms. HubSpot's detailed reports help identify which marketing efforts are converting leads into clients and facilitate nurturing those leads through automated workflows and personalized content.

• KissMetrics: KissMetrics provides detailed insights into individual and group user behaviors on websites and mobile applications. For drilling companies, KissMetrics can track which online resources — such as service pages, contact forms, or educational blog posts about drilling techniques — retain visitors the longest and convert them into leads. This data can inform content creation and website layout changes to optimize user engagement and increase the rate of proposal requests.

• Moz: Moz offers tools primarily focused on search engine optimization (SEO) but also includes features that help track local SEO performance — crucial for drilling companies operating in specific geographical areas. By using Moz, companies can monitor their search ranking for targeted keywords related to drilling services, understand the visibility of their business in search engines, and optimize their websites to attract more local leads.

• Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a must-have tool for any business with an online presence. It provides comprehensive data on website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates. Drilling companies can use Google Analytics to track which pages potential clients visit before submitting an inquiry and set up goals to track conversions from specific campaigns or pages. This insight helps refine the user experience and increase the effectiveness of online advertising efforts.

• Scaleo: Scaleo is a cloud-based affiliate tracking and management software that is perfect for drilling companies that rely on partnerships or affiliate marketing to generate leads. It allows companies to track which partners are sending high-quality leads that convert into projects, monitor the performance of affiliate links, and manage payouts. This ensures that the most effective partnerships are nurtured and expanded, thereby increasing lead generation and conversion rates.

Each of these tools offers unique features that can help drilling companies track their conversion metrics more efficiently. By integrating these tools into their operational strategies, drilling businesses can not only keep a pulse on their current performance but also forecast future trends and adjust their marketing and sales strategies accordingly.

For instance, a drilling company can analyze the conversion rates from their website traffic to determine which services are attracting the most interest or which marketing campaigns are yielding the best results. If certain pages have higher conversion rates, the company can focus on enhancing those areas or replicate successful elements across other segments of their marketing efforts. This might include optimizing call-to-action buttons, adjusting service descriptions, or improving the user interface and experience of their website.

Moreover, drilling companies can use conversion metrics to refine their sales funnel and customer interaction strategies. By understanding at which stage potential clients drop off or convert, companies can implement targeted interventions to increase retention and conversion rates. This could involve training sales teams to better address customer concerns, offering personalized follow-ups, or adjusting pricing structures for higher competitiveness.

Additionally, conversion metrics can guide drilling companies in resource allocation, ensuring that budgets and efforts are invested in channels and strategies that provide the highest return on investment. This holistic approach not only streamlines operations but also enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty by continuously adapting to meet customer needs and market demands more effectively.

In essence, conversion metrics offer a roadmap for continuous improvement. By leveraging these insights, small drilling business owners can refine their operational, marketing, and sales strategies to not only meet the industry's challenges but thrive within them, driving both short-term gains and long-term sustainability.

Agility is Everything in Business

Now that you have a firm grasp of what to track and how to make revisions for optimization, all that’s left is to roll your sleeves up and get going. While this process does take a bit of time and energy from a business owner, the results are guaranteed to be worth the effort, so much so that you may even want to track the ROI of conversion tracking itself sometime! You’d likely be surprised to find it’s one of the best ways for a business owner to truly get a grip on daily operations and find greater success as a result. 

However, to give you one extra tool for the road, be sure to check out this Conversion Rate Optimization guide by our partners for the Groundbreaking Business Tools series, Engage. It’s guaranteed to smooth this transition period and help you achieve metrics you can stand behind moving forward!