Every stationery business owner knows just how important it is to track inventory, expenses, and orders each month. But there’s more to stationery business metrics than just inventory and orders. Let’s take a look at what stationery business metrics are, why you should track them, and how that will give you an overall picture of health for your business.
What Are Stationery Business Metrics?
Stationery business metrics are a compilation of data from various avenues of your business. These might include revenue, profit margins, website traffic, email growth, and more. Tracking these data points will help you determine the overall health and success of your business each month, where you need to grow, and even where you can set goals along the way.
7 Stationery Business Metrics You Should Track Every Single Month
It can be overwhelming to think about adding this to your already full plate. But tracking your metrics will actually help you learn more about which products are selling well and which aren’t. Knowing these metrics can help you learn more about your email subscribers, what they’re clicking on, what they’re passing up, and which stationery items are selling the most. We get it, tracking data points sounds super boring, but when it’s your own business, it just hits differently. The more you know about different aspects of your business, the better you’ll do in the long run.
Revenue is one of the most important business metrics to track. It’s the total amount of money you have from every source or avenue of income, before any expenses are taken out.
Profit is the number you get after subtracting all business expenses from revenue. Your profit margin is the percentage of how profitable your business is at a given time. To get your profit margin percentage, you divide your profit by your revenue and multiply that number by 100. The higher the percentage, the higher the profitability.
Website traffic helps you to get a better picture of how many people visit your website each month. If you wanted to dig deeper, you could even see how long a visitor stays on specific pages or if they come to your website and “bounce” or leave. If you are selling your stationery through your website, you’ll want to try to increase the number of visitors to your shop or website each month in the hope that they make a purchase.
Turning Instagram followers into customers takes time, effort, and sometimes money. And when you’re trying to grow a business, you have to make sure that the amount of time, effort, and money you’re putting into specific marketing funnels is actually working for you instead of against you. Inquiry conversion rates help you determine just that: how long it takes to turn a follower into an active one. One that inquires about your business or makes a purchase. Want to know how to do that? Check out our recent post about how to get more inquiries on Instagram.
Average order value is the average amount people spend per order when they purchase from your stationery business. This number can give you a better understanding of your customers, their shopping experience, and how to create goals based on customer spending.
Owning your email list is a huge deal. When you take your followers and turn them into email subscribers, you have a better way of speaking directly to them, instead of fighting an algorithm. By keeping track of your email growth, you’re able to see how your marketing efforts are working.
Customer acquisition cost is the average amount of sales and marketing expenses it takes to acquire new customers. To find out the average cost, you take all sales and marketing expenses and divide it by the number of new customers acquired in a certain period of time. This number will help you understand just how much money it takes to gain a new customer and whether or not the amount justifies the number of customers acquired.
Knowing what stationery business metrics are and how to track them are key to helping you understand how well your business is doing. Not only is it a great indicator of the health of your business, but it also helps you create real goals that can help you scale your business over time.
Once you get an accurate picture of your business metrics, you can see how well your business is doing and what areas you need to focus on. Remember, the things you’re putting your time and effort into this month may look different next month. That’s a good thing! That means you’re looking at the whole picture and making pivots, rerouting your goals and efforts, and adjusting as you go.
Partner With a Vendor Who Cares
We know the demands of being a small stationery business can sometimes feel like too much sometimes. Burning the candle at both ends isn’t sustainable in the long run. That’s why these stationery business metrics can be so helpful. Your profit margins can help you decide if you’re able to outsource some of your weak areas to a vendor. Are you done standing over the printer until 2 a.m. every night? We can take that off your plate!
PrintsWell is a family-owned stationery printing company that partners with stationers like you all over the U.S. We love to partner with our stationers by walking with them step by step, printing their beautiful designs to our standards, and educating them on how to be the best business owner they can be. Ready to partner together? Fill out this form here, and let’s get to know each other.