Are You In The Know?
Invest in data analysis and put yourself in the know.
Here’s another article from our Senior Database Marketing Analyst, Clinton Kennedy:
I recently heard a business manager say, “50% of my marketing budget is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which 50%.” He went on to talk about the next marketing campaign.
With all of the opportunities to capture data today, there is no excuse for not knowing what is working and what is not.
Sadly, companies behave as though it is better to do something, even invest in a 50-50 gamble, rather than spend 10% of their marketing budget on research and analysis that reveals campaign effectiveness.
A move from 50% to 80% effective marketing communications should increase sales by 44%.
| Example: | 50% Effective Marketing Mix | 80% Effective Marketing Mix |
| Marketing Budget | $100 | $100 |
| Analysis cost | $0 | $10 |
| Advertising | $100 | $90 |
| Effectiveness rate | 50% | 80% |
| Effective Advertising | $50 | $72 |
| Advertising to Sales Ratio | / 7% | / 7% |
| Expected Sales | $714 | $1,029 |
Sales Gain from Analysis $ 315 (44% improvement)
Where else can you get a 44% improvement in sales without actually spending any more money?
Make no excuses:
1) You can identify your marketing mix and how much each element costs.
2) You can link sales to an element of your marketing mix that ‘caused’ a customer to buy your product.
Itemize your marketing mix costs. Linking sales to marketing actions may be easy or require some serious data analysis. If you don’t include a key code in every advertisement that you somehow collect, analysis often begins with getting your advertising providers to share what they know about their reach into the market.
Direct marketing service providers can link sales to mailing lists, whether it is mail or email, producing response analysis by market segment or marketing test cell. Newspapers and magazines with subscriber lists can do the same.
Broadcast advertising effectiveness is harder to pin down unless you get a lot of details about viewers or include a response identifier such as a distinct phone number, web site, QR code, email address or code people are instructed to use when responding.
If you aren’t calculating ROI by campaign, some other business that does will likely figure out how to get the sales that could so easily be yours. Put yourself in the know by making the investment to analyze the data you have. Set an advertising-to-sales ratio goal for each media. KNOW what is working.