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Digital Presence & Marketing Strategy

ROI on Advertising!

Advertising ROIAre you getting the short end of the advertising stick? Is your ad agency really helping you see the ROI you need and want? These are important questions all businesses, both online and offline, must ask themselves if they want to stay in business for the long haul.

Since I do alot of advertising sales and coorporate sponsoship deals, I care about helping clients get ROI (return on investment) with their ad campaign: if I don’t care, they won’t be doing business with me for very long.

Here are some things I’ve found that can be helpful:

  1. Have an Advertising Goal in mind: Although this may be basic knowledge to most, marketing directors better have some key questions answered if they expect ROI:
    • What do you want the advertising campaign to do? Is is branding? Is it public awareness? Is it to generate leads (names, emails, addresses)? Is it to make sales (most campaigns have this objective)?
    • If it’s sales, what specifically do you want to sell with the ad? Have you targeted a specific product that you can make a good return on or is your ad generic? These are things to think about. Yogi Berra once stated that if you don’t know where you’re going, any road can take you there. This is way too true in advertising – if I don’t know specifically what I want to accomplish, I can’t blame it on the ad agency for not producing the results.
  2. See Your Advertising from the Clients Perspective: Often times it’s good advice to take a step back and ask, “If I was someone looking for my own product or service, why would I buy from me?” This may be a tough question to answer since most of us our bias. If so, get feedback from others, take to heart what they say, ask around to people you don’t know; have them give you a short summary of what they thought the ad was attempting to do. You’ll never know what other people think about your product, service, or ad, until you ASK!
  3. Include Benefits, Not Features in yourAdvertising: “Only $499” is not as effective as “Save $50 Today!” It’s all about “What’s in it for (The Client), not what’s in it for YOU.
  4. Small Success Leads to Big Success: I know, you’ve heard this one before. But small DETAILS lead to big success in advertising too. Did you include a nice picture? Was the ad description clear? One of the best ad campaigns in history was only two words: Got Milk? Get the point?
  5. Timing is crucial: This tip relates back to tip 1 – What do you want to happen? WHEN do you want it to happen is important to answer too. Today, tomorrow, in two weeks, next year – BE SPECIFIC! It’s also important to think about the industry you’re in. Almost every industry I’ve ever been a part of has seasonal ebs and flows. It will do me virtually no good to attempt to market Football Memorablia in June. However, off season can be a great time to work with marketers in industries that find themselves in one of the ebs (low times). Think about the timing before you dive in to a campaign with both feet.

These five tips on getting ROI on an advertising campaign have proven to help my own businesses drastically and also the business of the companies I’ve helped with advertising campaigns.

Let me know how it helps your bottom line too.

photo by Web Liquid

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