As marketers, we are faced with the daily struggle of needing to justify marketing spending by providing measurable results of various marketing programs to those who make budgeting decisions. We may know (or think we know) that something is working, but without being able to connect the dots between our marketing efforts and sales it?s difficult to convince the boss that a program is both effective and cost-efficient. Perfect Point Marketing was created with the goal of helping companies reach that “perfect point” where their Return On Investment (ROI) is maximized. We believe marketing is measurable and we work with clients to create measurable marketing campaigns.
The truth is that marketing data is rarely black and white, and it may take several impressions before someone becomes a qualified lead. So how do you know which marketing program should get credit for the lead or sale? What should count as a return on investment, and when? And how do you even measure the results? We can help with that.
Before you can provide measurable results from your marketing campaign, first you need to have something to measure. This is a simple and often overlooked step that will lay the foundation for your marketing data. Use existing data or sales projections as a benchmark and set goals accordingly.
Establish specific goals you expect the marketing campaign to accomplish. You can use existing data on things like page views, click-through rates and social media interactions to measure the success of your campaign. You will also want to track leads generated from the particular campaign and establish goals for cost-per-lead.
Most importantly, you need to be able to measure your ROI, including revenue generated as a result of the campaign. Perfect Point Marketing help you use unique trackable URLs, email addresses or phone numbers for each piece of the campaign and for each and every call to action. We use Google analytics to track the behavior of the visitors who access your website through your campaign, and determine if they completed actions related to your goals.
Utilize the tools and information available to you to evaluate and compare the success of each piece of your marketing campaign. The overall success of your campaign ultimately comes down to how many new customers or how much sales were generated as a result of the campaign, so you?ll need to track the campaign each step of the way.
There are various tools available that help track leads and the actions they take on your website. Additionally, email marketing can be automated to help cultivate leads, and leads generated from email marketing are generally easy to track since you already have the individuals? email address.
I’m sure you’ve wondered how do I decide when and how to count impressions or interactions to measure ROI. It doesn’t have to be difficult. A common practice is to base this measurement on the ?last touch? or final interaction with the company before purchase. While this is often as easy as asking, ?How did you hear about us?? it often provides an inaccurate picture and attributes little to no credit to lead cultivation methods.
While less concrete, it is often more accurate to measure ROI based on the various touch points on the path to purchase. You will be able to more accurately identify marketing venues that are offering a ROI, and you can make adjustments to those that aren?t. And you will be able to justify your marketing budget to your boss. If you are the boss who wears many hats, including head of marketing, this allows you to stop “hoping” your marketing dollars are being spent wisely and start fine-tuning campaigns for higher returns.?
Once you are able to gather the data necessary to determine ROI, you can use that data to make adjustments to your marketing strategy. Focus on the methods that provide the greatest ROI, the largest number of new website visitors, and the most conversions. Perfect Point Marketing will analyze and dissect the data, then we give it to you in numbers that are understandable. After you implement changes, you can use the data to determine if what you are doing is working or if it needs adjusted.
Utilize data to make improvements to your marketing efforts, and also to justify your efforts to those who make budgeting decisions. Your data should be scalable?provide top-level numbers to management, but track more detailed information so you can improve the performance of specific marketing efforts. Would you like to learn more? Perfect Point Marketing offers FREE consultations. Call today to schedule one for your company.?