If you’re tracking monetary return on investment (ROI) as
the sole criterion to determine if your marketing programs are working, then
you need to catch up to the 21st century because you’re missing a big part of
the picture. No longer does ROI stand only for return on investment. Today, ROI
also stands for return on impression, which encompasses two primary values — a
hard metric and a soft metric. Together, those two values are far more powerful
for measuring marketing performance than the single dollar value provided by
return on investment metrics.
But the new ROI of marketing goes even further than
investments and impressions. It also encompasses return on engagement,
objectives, and opportunity. Today, people share information via the social web
faster and more frequently than ever. Traditional ROI analysis is just the tip
of the iceberg. The really interesting part of the story is what happens
beneath the surface of the water. The hard metrics related to return on
investment barely touch the surface.
1. Return on Impression = Eyeballs: The first metric
you can track using the return on impression valuation is the number of people
who actually see your ad, marketing material, or other tangible marketing
piece.
2. Return on Impression – Perceptions: Remember,
companies don’t build brands, consumers do by experiencing those brands,
developing feelings for those brands and emotional connections to them, and
talking about those brands with other people. Thanks to the social web, those
conversations are far-reaching. Therefore, a marketing initiative performance
analysis would be incomplete without analyzing how that initiative affected
consumer perceptions of the brand.
3. Return on Opportunity: Measuring return on
opportunity requires you to evaluate the opportunity that a specific marketing
initiative presents versus the time and monetary commitment that effort
requires.
4. Return on Engagement: Remember, relationship
brands are the most powerful brands in the world. Return on engagement can show
you how well you’re brand is performing in terms of building and sustaining
relationships with both consumers and influencers. The soft metrics data
related to how and why people engage with you and your brand are extremely
valuable to companies that prioritize them.
5. Return on Objectives
Analyzing return on objectives requires that you accept that
not all goals are measurable with hard data. Sometimes, marketing efforts
simply help a business move in the right direction to meet its long-term
objectives. Return on objectives goes hand-in-hand with return on opportunity
and return on engagement to give you a comprehensive, integrated marketing plan
and tracking strategy that delivers the best results.
Together, return on impression, return on opportunity, return
on engagement, and return on objectives give you a clearer picture of how your
marketing initiatives are performing than return on investment offers alone.
Today, focusing on traditional ROI only isn’t enough. The hard and soft data is
available to you, use it. You can bet your competitors are (or will be soon).
CLASS PURPOSES ONLY!!!!
