Problem: Failure to prove the marketing ROI
In business, every dollar counts. This doesn’t just extend to product development and salaries– this also applies to the marketing department.
A marketing department must be able to measure the value of each and every dollar spent on a marketing campaign. If an advertisement costs a certain amount, that amount should be translated to the number of customers the advertisement drew in.
Whatever marketing campaign or process you choose; you must get value for the money used. If you are unable to measure the value of the money spent, you will be making losses and this will affect the general performance of the business. It is absolutely essential that you set up tracking systems that will enable you to track the money used in the marketing process. In the past, it wasn’t that easy to track the money used in a marketing campaign– it was less about data and more about gut instinct and hunches. However, with the advent of technology, there’s no longer any excuse to put this part of your business on the back burner– you can easily track the marketing ROI and determine whether you are getting your money’s worth from your marketing campaigns.
Pattern
You must have systems in place that will enable you to track the ROI for any marketing campaign that you undertake.
Regardless of the timeline of the marketing campaign, you must be able to track the value each dollar spent is bringing back to the company because of each advertisement, initiative, or design.
Why are we emphasizing the importance of tracking marketing ROI so much? Does it truly matter, if in the end more customers are attracted to your business?
It’s important because marketing campaigns don’t always end up succeeding. If a marketing campaign you spent time and money on doesn’t end up bringing any value to the business, it’s important for everyone on the team to realize that and shift gears.
Recognizing where the value is coming from can help you avoid falling into the same mistakes over and over again, and help you develop a stronger, more effective marketing strategy. It could be that the marketing campaign isn’t reaching the right target audience, or not enough time and effort went into the marketing content. Whatever the case, the way you would catch these mistakes is by determining the marketing ROI.
Marketing is not cheap and a good marketing campaign will cost you a significant amount of money. Before engaging in any marketing campaign you must do research to establish whether it is necessary to go ahead with the campaign or not. You need to establish systems that will enable you to get value for the money used on the campaign (ROI).
Playbook to handle this problem
There are various solutions to this problem. Here are some of the methods to deal with an issue of inability to prove the marketing ROI of a campaign.
Use Google Analytics
For those individuals who have an online presence and want to know whether their marketing efforts are making an impact, you need to use Google Analytics. This is a small JavaScript that will enable you to make things like conversion funnels and has a plethora of features that will enable you to track the performance of your marketing campaign.
This gives teams the metrics they need to determine which of their marketing efforts succeeding and which are performing too poorly to justify spending money on.
Use promotion codes and discounts
If you want to track offline marketing efforts, you can use domains that are specifically designed to redirect potential customers to your website. Then ensure that you have promotion codes and discounts that will entice the prospects to visit your site and see what you have in store for them. If you use TV or radio as your mode of advertisement, you need to use a promotion code with the service provider and give the user something back for their inclusion of that promotion code.
Your ability to track and measure the return on investment for your marketing campaign will ensure that you do not make losses in the long run. You need to ensure that there is value for every dollar spent on the marketing process of either the business or product.
To track important components of your business and ensure that you’re reaching your goals, you can also implement an OKR software. OKRs– or, Objectives and Key Results– help companies reach their ambitious goals by using measurable and trackable targets to get them from where they are now to where they want to be. OKRs provide companies with focus, alignment, commitment, and make even the biggest goals achievable. Using an OKR software such as Profit.co can help you track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns as well as the ROI with ease.