Measure the ROI on Marketing Campaigns

I've been asked to give a speech at an upcoming business expo entitled 30 Marketing Tips in 30 Minutes.  As I began to write the speech today I sought additional tools and resources to add to the handout.

With any marketing effort one of the key tips is to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign.  In other words - did I make money or loose money on that last marketing program.  Whether it is a direct mail post card, pay per click ads or the effectiveness of an online marketing campaign, you need to determine whether or not it was financially worth your while.

I discovered a marketing calculator that easily determines potential ROI before you commit the dollars.  It requires you speculate a little but isn't that what you do every day of your business.  The calculator takes the following information:

• # of pieces
• cost of marketing effort
• expected number of responses
• expected number of those you will close
• profit on the product you'll sell

Using that information it will tell you the expected ROI.  I have a bunch of $.41 stamps (not the "forever" kind) that I need to get rid of before May 16 when the price goes up again.  So I've been tossing around the idea of using them to send a note out to a select group of prospects.  Using the information from the calculator I can plug in the estimated numbers and play around with it until I discover what combination will bring me a positive return on my investment. 

I believe that your marketing message should just focus on one thing - that being said, which of my services would appeal to the largest audience and bring me the best ROI?  Using the calculator I was able to see which message, based on the profit margin of the service, would be the best.

It's a fun tool to use - there are a lot of "guesses" and so it isn't a hard and fast tool to use BEFORE the marketing campaign but it will give you an idea of the calculated risk.

Used AFTER the event is completed, the marketing calculator will quickly let you know if that is something you want to do again.  Don't rely on "gut feel."  Check the facts.  Marketing dollars are too precious to do anything less.