As you’re steering into the new year and finalizing your 2023 plan, one of the most important factors in marketing is the ability to measure results and show that your efforts are contributing to the growth of your organization.
You must narrow in on metrics that best demonstrate marketing ROI and tie back to an organization’s higher-order objectives. The landscape for this is complex, especially as channels for marketing evolve and expand. Most importantly, sharing how and why a campaign worked extends well beyond impressions and broad engagement – you must think creatively.
For example, the number of people exposed to your marketing effort is important, but are the right eyeballs seeing your campaigns? Are those people following through and taking the desired action? And, how valuable from a financial perspective are each of those actions?
The first step in answering these questions is to define business goals, which must be customized to your organization and where it is heading. They require executive-level conversations to achieve consensus on how success is defined for the business and your marketing efforts.
From there, as you establish target audiences, you must decide what action you want them to take to lead them toward the ultimate goals. Defining these measurable actions – e.g., X number of visitor guides downloaded, or X number of new names added to the company’s database – will make identifying the right key performance indicators (KPIs) seamless and deliberate.
Then comes the all-important conversation of budget. How much should you spend, and where, to achieve your KPIs? These decisions require a thorough thought process that often includes assigning monetary value to the desired actions established above. For example, how much is a visitor guide download worth? What about a phone call with a prospect?
Determining that value requires some creative math and funnels up to the worth of the ultimate objective, such as a new client relationship or consumer purchase. By deploying this process, marketers establish a strategic, budget-conscious program that builds the case for justifying the money spent or to be spent.
Building and executing a modern marketing strategy requires focused goal setting, outcome-oriented measurement and organization-wide collaboration. On top of that, the channels for marketing in 2023 are only getting more complex. Deciding the right channels, tactics and spend isn’t as easy as it used to be.
At High Reason, we help clients navigate this evolving marketplace with an approach where ROI is king. ROI drives strategy, measurement, content and even creative. Let’s have a conversation about how we can help you achieve your objectives efficiently as you launch your 2023 program.
