ROI—also known as Return on Investment—is a broad term. In marketing, ROI refers to the return you as a marketing strategist get on your investment using different marketing tactics and materials.
But calculating the marketing ROI can sometimes get a bit tricky. Marketing strategies don’t always equal a direct sale, and tracking the impact of a particular tactic can be hard to keep track of, especially if you’re a small business owner already pressed for time.
Here are a few ways that you can increase the ROI you’re seeing on your marketing strategies.
Use Analytics
While there’s no one good way to calculate marketing ROI, the whole idea of the concept is that you’re bringing in, dollar for dollar, more than you spend. A good first step would be to sit down and analyze your data.
If you’re using any of the various SEO and web traffic platforms out there (and you should be) a lot of this data will already be gathered for you. As a small business owner or marketer you probably already have a pretty good grasp on who you are appealing to, but don’t just stop there. Analyze your data for trends, patterns, and potential areas for growth.
Use Targeted Advertising Strategies
After you have a better grasp on your data, try investing in some targeted advertising strategies. Narrowing your marketing tactics towards specific groups can be more effective than running a general ad. And feel free to branch out of your comfort zone. Addressable advertising can be applied to TV to target specific segments of the population.
Targeted advertising may also give you a better idea of what aspects of your business appeals to what group. This can help you concentrate your future efforts on feeding people what they want to see and not letting your advertising dollars go to waste.
Use Traceable Marketing Campaigns
While there are many different ways to target advertising efforts towards specific groups, you can also try using traceable marketing methods to locate those groups. Traceable marketing includes such tactics as offering a coupon code tied to a specific ad or TV announcement. The idea is that customers who respond using the code will be “traceable” because you can easily deduce how they heard about you.
There are many different ways to increase your marketing ROI, but mostly it just boils down to a trial and error process. It’s important to keep in mind that this is an evolving game rather than a one-stop shop.
Read this next: How to Get Your Online Presence to Conform to Your Rebrand