Marketers sometimes have a tricky relationship with numbers. From balancing the budget to tracking various targets, numbers can sometimes feel like they’re getting in the way of your campaigns. However, calculating the ROI of your campaigns can be helpful in not only measuring the success of your campaign but also in understanding how to develop future campaigns to build on your success.
Choose your numbers
One of the most famous sayings about marketing comes from John Wanamaker, founder of US department store Macy’s, who said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” These days, while brand advertising remains difficult to measure, direct response campaigns and online tracking mean that there are many different ways to track the success of campaigns. The challenge is that there are so many ways to measure your campaign and while you can measure everything, that may not be as helpful as you might think. You could end up with a mass of numbers and no clear direction on how to improve in the future.
Measure your objectives
The way to get around information overload is to focus on the numbers that relate to your campaign. If you’re looking to increase traffic to your website, measure the traffic and bounce rates – this will show you not only whether you achieved your objective but also broader implications for your marketing strategy. If, for example, you increase initial traffic to the site but people leave soon after arriving then your campaign may be a success but you may want to look at the customer journey on your website to find out what needs improving.
Size isn’t everything
You may be tempted to aim for the highest possible numbers, but it’s worth considering not only the number but the potential revenue attached to that objective and the resource costs of managing them. If you run a campaign looking to generate new sales leads, for example, then casting a wide net may make the response statistics look impressive, but if it takes a lot of time to sort the wheat from the chaff then the value of the campaign is diminished. Five strong leads with high value to the company are worth more than hundreds of cold contacts with little value.
Rev up your revenue
At the root of all marketing campaigns is the objective to generate growth. Any statistics you do measure, from email response statistics to the response to print campaigns, should link back to the company’s strategic goals for growth. In some cases, there may be a direct link – an email could generate sales that can be directly tracked back to the campaign. In others, you may have to create a chain of connections – sales leads from an event may take time to come to fruition, but if they’re high value clients then it’s worth knowing where they came from when you’re making plans for the coming year.
Campaigns that deliver straight out of the box
In The Box can help you deliver marketing that is thoughtfully created and intelligently applied. We will help you establish your objectives and measure our success. From planning through to execution, we keep a close eye on the numbers to make sure that we’re delivering against your strategic goals and exploring new opportunities that response statistics suggest may bring you further growth. Interested in learning more? Then get in touch – we’d love to hear from you.
