yp marketing solutions practical guide to getting more roi

Practical guide

The practical guide to getting more ROI

The Practical Guide to Getting More ROI© 2015 YP LLC. All rights reserved. YP, the YP logo and all other YP marks contained herein are trademarks of YP LLC and/or YP affiliated companies.

All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

You need to spend money to make moneyAnyone who operates a small- to medium-size business – and is tasked with lead and revenue generation – would likely agree that no truer words have ever been spoken. An organization might offer the best product or service on the market, but quality won’t matter a whit if no one’s heard of it. In this hypercompetitive environment, cottage businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurial operations alike need all the help they can get to generate awareness within their target market. The same principle, of course, applies for larger businesses and even mega-enterprises, but smaller players of necessity need to manage their overhead more vigilantly.

Whatever their industry, good business strategists understand that they must invest across multiple channels to reach intended audiences with a compelling, competitive message that will drive purchase decisions. But because expenditures are carefully scrutinized, the “how” and “where” of that marketing spend is absolutely critical. Just as important, the precision with which results are benchmarked and measured to ensure the strongest possible Return On Investment (ROI). These metrics reveal “make it or break it” insights for marketers. And, when those marketers are small businesses operating in many cases on a shoe string budget, it’s more important than ever to choose a marketing milieu that will be as impactful as possible.

Marketing ROI is typically determined by dividing the positive revenue increase

generated from a designated campaign by its overall cost. Larger, more mature companies

can drive down their marketing results-to-expenditure ratio; smaller organizations,

which are on a more accelerated growth curve, typically require a larger slice of the revenue

pie to cover their marketing investment.

It’s just as important for decision-makers to clearly know the objectives they’re advancing with their marketing spend. Are they aiming to simply build awareness? Nurture leads further down the sales pipeline? Convert leads to hard purchase decisions? All of these factors play a vital role in the way that marketing costs can be measured – and how ultimate investment success is assessed.

• Marketing ROI (Return on Investment) is calculated by dividing the financial gain from a marketing or advertising program by its cost; equally important is the measurement of ROO (Return on Objectives) to ensure that program outcomes are tethered to specific performance and growth expectations.

• A variety of proprietary models can help businesses measure profit and/or ROI based (in the case of a digital campaign) on the number of impressions, clicks, calls and total leads received on a monthly basis. Models also can provide real-time analysis of cost-per-click and cost-per-call data, the percentage of targeted customers who click through or call through, and what percentage of these actions results in leads and closed sales.

• In the future, the ability to evaluate ROI will help small businesses fine-tune their targeted marketing programs and gain an edge on the competition.



In the online world, ROI calculations are in many ways less of a moving target, given the accuracy of certain metrics and tracking protocols, at least in theory. That said, marketers have been tasked with embracing a new paradigm, moving from traditional audience reach to impressions, page views and click-throughs. And while digital advertising has created a new set of variables, it has also opened up the possibilities for marketers who are now able to reach a vastly larger audience pool, all at the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger.

This ability to reach more potential customers at a lower cost clearly makes online marketing attractive. Consumer usage metrics, behavior analysis, purchase preference monitoring, and geo-targeting capabilities have enabled marketers large and small to zero in on targets with laser-like accuracy. Online directory listings and local business search have changed the way that consumers shop, making it possible to market to potential customers in real time, in a way never before possible.

But for marketers, the key to success still resides in the spectrum of results measurement – and digital technology hasn’t changed that imperative. Small business owners and managers always need to answer to a bottom line – be it their own pocketbook (in the case of mom and pop entities), private funders, venture capitalists, board members or shareholders.

... marketers have been tasked with embracing a new paradigm, moving from traditional audience reach to impressions, page views and click-throughs.

Look for these dynamics to shape small business marketing decisions this year and beyond More precise metrics

Google Analytics – that free, now ubiquitous tool – has clearly changed the game for entrepreneurs. Meaningful data is now there for the asking. Even so, marketing returns measured by impressions, clicks, calls and lead generation on a monthly or annualized basis are no longer enough. Demand is increasing for more sophisticated tools for analyzing, in real time, the nuances behind how competitive sales messages sway purchase decisions (including how the marketing spend is amortized over the life cycle of the customer exchange and at what point in the purchase process decisions are reached and why).

Matching outcomes to business goals

Moving forward, marketing outcomes will need to be increasingly matched to specific, quantifiable business goals that are pre-determined and painstakingly researched to ensure optimum results. This can be accomplished by laying out clear strategic objectives, mapping marketing



tactics directly to these goals and then establishing benchmarking tools to show how the needle of customer opinion and purchase or adoption behavior is shifting.

Success isn’t necessarily in the eye of the beholder

Even by applying solid metrics and analytics whenever and wherever possible, marketing success isn’t always obvious – nor can it be completely qualified. Indeed, in today’s complex and fragmented small business environment, success can mean different things to different people. C-level officers and entrepreneurs alike need to ensure that all parties are marching to the same drumbeat and executing marketing expenditures with the same goal in mind. Most important is the need to remember that what works for one entity (for example, an in-house marketer within a corporate environment) may not be useful for another type of business operator (such as a small mom and pop proprietor who works within the framework of a completely different set of goals).

Apples to apples

Performance metrics must be consistent and unified across the organization, and even small businesses are not immune to fragmentation. The process varies from business to business. Some SBOs analyze the overall cost of the marketing program during ROI evaluation while others

focus on cost per lead, cost per follower, cost per page view, and different factors. Choosing one metric and ensuring all departments know what it is, can provide clarity.

Marketing automation technology: here to stay

Marketing automation solutions, such as closed loop marketing analytics, have enabled instantaneous measurement of certain forms of ROI. These systems lend themselves especially well to click-through measurement and lead generation from local search via smartphones and tablets. ROI for other forms of digital advertising, however (think online banner ads), may be more difficult to measure – and this “data gap” can have an impact on marketing decisions and spending. What’s important for small business operators in particular is that they have an easily decipherable set of tools that they can apply to make better and more informed everyday decisions.

Overall, advances in metrics technology are making the marketer’s life easier. New tools and solutions offer ways to measure audience response that managers could barely have envisioned even 10 years ago. The technology will continue to become increasingly refined and, as it does, expectations for rock-solid ROI will become even more central to the selection of marketing solutions.

Visit marketingsolutions.yp.com or call 800-479-2977 now to learn how YPSM can help grow your business.

yp marketing solutions practical guide to getting more roi

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