Here’s the honest truth: If you’re investing in advertising, your provider owes you the right to know whether or not it’s working for your business. Tracking your marketing return on investment, or ROI, can seem intimidating, but that doesn’t mean it should be avoided. In an effort to simplify things, here’s our take on what you need to know about tracking marketing ROI in 200 short and sweet words.

Attention all business owners and marketers! Here’s the honest truth: Investing in digital targeting services, such as geofencing, targeted display, or search engine marketing (SEM), entitles you to a collaborative and transparent relationship with your service provider. This means that your business should know what digital products you purchase, how your budget is being allocated, and most importantly, how those products are performing.

Too often, businesses gauge the full success of their advertising on consumer comments. They may be tempted to feel a rush of fame when their radio jingles are sung in public or when their faces are recognized from their magazine or TV ads. While a level of excitement over this kind of feedback is certainly merited, trouble arises when businesses elevate the importance of these responses over hard-and-fast results. This misplacement of priorities can lead to confusion and could ultimately, cause businesses to get off-track with their goals.  

Q&A WITH MEGAN HERZING, MARKETING MANAGER AT FORTIFIED ROOFING & SIDING

We recently sat down with our client, Megan Herzing, Marketing Manager at Fortified Roofing & Siding and discussed the success they have found by having a more integrated marketing strategy that includes both, magazine and radio advertising. 

Select an image, create a caption, include a link, click “Publish,” and drop to your knees and pray something happens.

Unfortunately for many of today’s business owners, this sequence of events sounds all too familiar. That’s because social media marketing is still a hazy area to many businesses. This is usually due to difficulties creating content, insufficiencies in page monitoring, general misunderstandings regarding relevant tracking metrics, or a deadly combination of all three.

With all the focus on acquiring new customers, it can sometimes be easy to overlook the value and importance of your current customers. However, for any company that depends on a recurring revenue stream or repeat sales, determining the lifetime value of a customer is one of your most important metrics. Calculating lifetime value (LTV) and comparing it to the cost of acquiring a new customer provides valuable insights about how to allocate your sales and marketing budget to increase ROI.

You spend money, time and a lot of effort on your marketing, but you aren’t getting the results you want. Is it the ads that are underperforming, or it your sales team losing the sale?

There are very few more time-tested forms of advertising than radio jingles. A short, simple, catchy slogan or tune that plays throughout the day demands our attention and provides a fun, memorable touchpoint for brands.

But what are radio jingles? The “1-877-Kars4Kids” jingle is a perfect example. Anyone who’s heard the commercial can’t help but remember the phone number. It’s a short, distinct spot featuring a chorus of children singing “1-877-Kars4Kids” with the call to action of “donate your car today.” It’s not a complex tune with a lengthy message, just a catchy jingle that’s hard to forget. Jingles can even last for generations, just take the “I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weiner” song that both children and grandparents can sing along to.

It doesn’t take long to feel thoroughly inspired when listening to CNBC’s “The Profit” star, Marcus Lemonis, talk about business. He is an absolute wealth of information and has a proven track record of success to back up every piece of advice he offers. It seems that this entrepreneur could whip a dying business into shape, even in his sleep.

Developing a marketing plan takes time. Everything from the timing to each ad’s placement needs to come together strategically in order to deliver solid ROI. But there’s one thing that shouldn’t get left off of the list: advertising creative. Using bad ad creative is a fast way to undermine an otherwise successful advertising strategy. Today we’ll cover four tips to help you use winning creative.