We often talk to people who are surprised when we tell them that it is possible to measure their ROI (Return on Investment) from their marketing activity.
Some people seem to think you just can’t do this.
Honestly, you really can!
Old school vs new tools
The starting point is understanding the difference between traditional old school marketing and contemporary digital marketing.
Traditional outbound marketing
This is where you’ll sponsor a local sports team, distribute some flyers, attend an event, purchase a newspaper or magazine advert or purchase an ad on the radio or TV.
Yep, all that stuff.
Some of these may be very useful within your marketing mix but the problem is, the only way to measure the return from this type of activity is to ask people, ‘How did you hear about us?’
Things have moved on.
Canny inbound marketing
All our online activity can be tracked in some form or another.
That may feel rather scary and ‘Big Brother’ but for marketing managers, it’s a fantastic gift.
Here’s how
You can track your complete customer activity from the very first time someone clicks on your social media, from the first time they look around your website or from when they first explore content you’ve posted on someone else’s website.
And with LinkedIn statistics in the loop, you’re also likely to be able to get a good feel for who the actual person is.
The next link in the chain is to find out who they are.
Who’s interested?
The easiest way to do this is to encourage your ‘interested visitor’ to engage with you further.
You do this by giving them more useful content.
This may be inviting them to register their name and email in return for a free download of a helpful e-book, calendar link, white paper, template, app or other handy business tool.
Offer them something they’ll really benefit from and want to have.
And because you’ve spent time creating your buyer personas, you will know what their problems are.
Interactive relationships
This interactive process is especially easy if you run an online sales platform, because to purchase from your site, each user must have registered their details.
You’ll be able to track everything they’re looking at and buying and also market additional offers to them.
It’s all in the CRM
So, what actually makes this all happen?
A good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system will number crunch all the activity and provide the analytics.
Here at Method we use an ingenious platform called HubSpot.
Check it out, it’s really cool and user-friendly.
Most importantly it enables you to track each complete user/ buyer journey and how much money each person is spending.
Clear reporting
We and our clients love HubSpot because it enables us to produce a monthly ROI report.
Our clients can see therefore, that they’re getting a higher return from their inbound marketing than from their old style ‘push it out and hope someone responds’ campaigns.
Let’s finish with some figures!
OK, if you’re still in any doubt, here are the scores on the doors.
- Organisations are three times as likely to see a higher ROI from inbound marketing
- Inbound marketing delivers 54% more leads than traditional outbound
- Outbound leads cost 49% more than inbound leads.
Plus, you know where you are, every step of the way.
Good eh?
