Many businesses quickly grow frustrated with the failure of their marketing efforts to produce the ROI they want. This can cause people to give up. Unfortunately, giving up on advertising can prevent you from raising the brand awareness you need and make it incredibly difficult for your business to see success. If you aren't seeing the ROI you need from your current marketing efforts, it's important to consider why you aren't seeing that desired return.
Why is ROI important?
ROI, or return on investment, is a measure of the efficiency of your advertising campaign. Your ROI is calculated by dividing the benefits of your advertising campaign, or the "return" you have experienced, by the amount you spent on the initial campaign. It's important to consider all expenses associated with the advertising campaign in order to effectively calculate your return.
Measuring your ROI can depend on the goal of your advertising campaign as well as the actual increase in your sales related to a specific advertising campaign. For example, if your goal is increasing brand awareness, you may want to look at site visitors, rather than the actual number of sales. If you're focused on sales, you should carefully consider how you're defining sales from a specific campaign. You might, for example, look at the overall increase in your sales after a specific marketing period, or you could assign a specific deal code to virtual sales.
Why You Aren't Seeing ROI from Your Current Efforts
In order to see an effective return on your investment, you need a customized plan that will help you achieve your goals. Working with an expert agency can make it easier to tie your goals to your campaign and prevent you from missing out on important elements of that campaign along the way. You should start with an omnichannel approach that will integrate all the aspects of your campaign together to enhance your results. Some of these challenges could be the reason why you aren't seeing your ideal ROI from a campaign.
1) You aren't advertising for long enough.
A short-term ad campaign can temporarily increase awareness of your business or offer information about a particular promotion. It doesn't, however, help keep your brand top-of-mind in the long term. Not only that, but customers may also need multiple touchpoints from a specific campaign before they're ready to make a purchase decision.
2) You aren't advertising frequently.
Like long-term ads, ad frequency can have a huge impact on your ability to stay top-of-mind for your customers. Ad frequency is one of the most difficult balances to achieve. You want to send your customers information, whether through emails, on social media, or through other advertising channels, but you also want to ensure that your customers don't see so much from you that they get tired of your brand or stop paying attention to what you send out.
3) You aren't advertising on the right platforms.
YouTube ads can help you reach an average of 91% of millennials, but if you're marketing to an older audience, you may have more trouble using that platform to reach your ideal customers. Meanwhile, an average of 60% of customers admit to finding new products on Instagram. Your ability to draw in customers through a specific platform will vary based on your business, your ideal customers, and what you have to offer--and choosing the right platform can make a huge difference in your ROI.
4) You aren't advertising to the right audience.
If you haven't narrowed down your target audience, you may struggle to reach the people who genuinely need your brand. Advertising isn’t as effective if you aren’t targeting and reaching the right people. With a clear understanding of your target audience, you are able to create ads that speak to their needs and then run them on the platforms in which your prospective consumer can be found. By clearly defining your target audience, you can substantially increase the overall ROI of your campaigns.
5) You aren't using the right advertising message.
Once you have clearly defined your target audience, you can create a message that appeals directly to that audience. The wrong message, on the other hand, could fall flat, preventing you from seeing the return you'd hoped for.
6) You don't have a solid method for capturing information and nurturing leads.
Your advertising campaign is just one piece of the puzzle. You must also capture and nurture those leads to ultimately convert them to satisfied customers.
Shifting your Efforts
There may be several challenges standing between you and the return on your marketing investment that you had hoped for, but you can pivot your methods and increase the odds that you can effectively reach your marketing goals. Start by setting goals and objectives early in your efforts. For example, this case study of a home improvement brand highlights how they pivoted their marketing efforts to see greater levels of success. Consider some of these strategies for increasing ROI:
- Advertise consistently, including running longer-term advertising campaigns
- Run frequent ads that speak to current needs
- Carefully research the platforms where you can find your customers, including the ones they use most often
- Clearly define your target audience and market directly to them
- Check your marketing methods
- Make sure that you are capturing information and nurturing leads so that you do not lose the value of those marketing efforts.
Making the right changes to your advertising efforts can have a big impact on the overall success of your marketing campaign. By paying attention to your campaign, nurturing it carefully, and advertising consistently, you can raise your overall ROI and see the results you're hoping for from your marketing efforts.
