ROI is the crown jewel of any effective marketing team. Whether in-house or external, groups of marketing professionals measure their success based on the dollars brought in relative to the dollars spent on marketing efforts. This may seem like a simple metric, and in some ways, it should be. The problem that many businesses face is in precisely measuring their marketing efforts, as well as tailoring their campaigns to match fluctuating external variables.
To achieve growth, any business should expect to reach a high level of ROI from their marketing strategy, whether that be solely digital or omnichannel in nature. Regardless of platform, the following five practices will help any individual or organization bolster marketing efforts and drive ROI.
Create a Roadmap
Having a detailed plan can make a world of difference in your efforts to boost ROI. If you want to understand the impact that your marketing efforts are having, you should start by defining what success looks like for you and your organization.
After you’ve clearly laid out your goals, your team will be able to build yearly, monthly, and even weekly goals to match your overarching vision.
With any marketing campaign, understanding conversion funnels is crucial to attracting clients. A savvy marketing team will keep this in mind when building out their marketing roadmap, ensuring that every stage of the funnel is considered.
Developing a comprehensive roadmap that covers each phase of the buyer’s journey will help your team gain an accurate view of the impact of their efforts, especially in terms of sales generated.
Communicate With Other Teams
Building cross-functional teams can benefit your marketing approach in a variety of ways. For example, members of your organization that work outside of the marketing team will have useful insights about your product or service that you might otherwise never consider. Knowledge sharing across different departments can help individuals better understand the different types of buyers that your team is trying to reach.
By building teams that incorporate these different perspectives, you’ll be able to approach tasks from a broader vantage point, increasing the likelihood of innovation and effective collaboration.
Avoid Empty Metrics
In driving ROI, faulty measurement practices can quickly become your downfall. Once you’ve created a roadmap and you have the correct metrics to highlight, you’ll need to make sure that unhelpful measurements are kept out of the equation.
Unfortunately, many teams fall for the trap of analyzing metrics that don’t actually communicate any useful information. For example, in tracking social media campaigns, some groups fail to recognize that a higher number of followers does not always translate into higher revenue.
By looking beyond the surface of your data, your team will able to discern which metrics truly matter.
Try a Different Approach
In the world of marketing, experimenting with new methods is a great way to continuously improve your strategies. This can be done in a micro sense (e.g., changing the image used in an ad on a webpage) or on a much larger scale (e.g., introducing LinkedIn Sponsored Content as an entirely new campaign).
By rotating through different approaches, you’ll stay fresh in the minds of your potential customers and up-to-date with current marketing trends.
Commit to Your Strategy
Having too broad of a strategy is a major pitfall that many marketing teams face. This lack of prioritization often leads to mismanaged resources and ill-advised campaigns.
Once you create your initial roadmap, make the effort to stay engaged with whatever methods you’ve chosen to trust. If you do find that your initial plan was wildly off-track, be firm in your decision to take a new approach. Prediction and analysis are important, but proper implementation will have the greatest impact on your marketing ROI.
Increase ROI Through Planning, Collaboration, and Creativity
Marketing, especially in the digital realm, is more important than ever for businesses of all sizes. Digital content is essential to the buyer journey of almost every industry, and users expect to find information about products and services easily through a quick web search. It’s no secret that digital marketing helps increase web traffic, a valuable resource that can make or break a company.
Sometimes, developing a successful marketing strategy will come most easily through a partnership with a trustworthy digital agency. Clutch, an online ratings and reviews platform, offers useful information to guide interested readers through this selection process.
If you’re looking for a proven and reliable firm, contact us today to learn how we can help you reach your marketing goals and boost your ROI.
Written By: David Carpenter