I see this over and over and over again. Small to mid-size companies, sometimes regional players, that spend a lot of money on offline and online advertising, do not know how to evaluate their advertising expenditures.
Companies must know if their ad campaigns are branding based, or direct response oriented. Sales driven marketing is all about spending marketing dollars only if it breaks even, or generates a profit.
There are basic lead to sale conversion numbers that companies can use to model out if an ad campaign will be effective. If you're advertising on billboards, TV, radio, newspapers, or phone books, make sure you use unique 1-800 number so you can back into exactly how many leads that ad spend gives you, ultimately allowing you to know how many sales that ad provides you. You'll know, or should know, how many people (leads) your sales team needs to talk to in order to meet your monthly sales goals.
The same philosophy applies to online sales. How many visitors does your website need to generate the number of leads (or sales) your sales team requires to meet your monthly sales goals? These are questions that need thought about in order to spend your hard earned marketing dollars wisely. If you sell a high-end, big-ticket item, the website is better used for lead generation activities. People sell better than websites, but people want to research and find you online. Let them, but then give them a reason to get a customized response from a professional sales person.
Any ad agency that doesn't coach you to evaluate your marketing spend this way, is an agency after your buck without being accountable for their performance to you.
j. Bruce
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
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2 comments:
We are a large auto dealership in the Cleveland, Ohio area and it is as if this note was written with us in mind. We FEEL good about spending thousands on billboards or print media because we don't measure sales lift or cost per sale associated with business created specifically from that campaign. I hate to think how costly it really is! I like the internet approach of only paying for the people who express interest, -vs- paying for everybody's eyeballs to see our message whether they have interest or not! Great points, Jeff! B.Eugene
B.Eugene - your words of "feel" good about spending is bad bad bad. With technology and various marketing tactics, you can measure how effective each of your ads spends are based on cost per lead and cost per sold unit. From here, you can "feel" good only when the ad campaign drives ROI, and feel good, yes good, when it does perform. Why do I say feel good, by measuring the campaigns success around ROI, if it doesn't perform, you can cut the bleeding right away.
Happy selling,
j. Bruce
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
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